Portal:Solar System

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The Solar System Portal

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the other celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their 165 known moons, three currently identified dwarf planets (including Pluto) and their four known moons, and billions of small bodies. This last category includes asteroids, Kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids and interplanetary dust. In broad terms, the charted regions of the Solar System consist of the Sun, four terrestrial inner planets, an asteroid belt composed of small rocky bodies, four gas giant outer planets, and a second belt, called the Kuiper belt, composed of icy objects. Beyond the Kuiper belt lies the scattered disc, the heliopause, and ultimately the hypothetical Oort cloud. In order of their distances from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Six of the eight planets are in turn orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon, and each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles. All the planets except Earth are named after gods and goddesses from Greco-Roman mythology. The three dwarf planets are Pluto, the largest known Kuiper belt object; Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt; and Eris, which lies in the scattered disc.

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Ceres (IPA: /ˈsɪr.iz/, Latin: Cerēs), also designated 1 Ceres (see minor planet names), is the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar System and the only one located in the main asteroid belt. Its name is derived from the Roman goddess Ceres — the goddess of growing plants, the harvest, and of motherly love. It was discovered on January 1, 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi. With a diameter of about 950 km, Ceres is by far the largest and most massive body in the asteroid belt, and contains approximately a third of the belt's total mass. Recent observations have revealed that it is spherical, unlike the irregular shapes of smaller bodies with less gravity.

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Credit: Philipp Salzgeber

Comet Hale-Bopp sails across the sky in the vicinity of Pazin in Istria, Croatia. To the lower right of the comet the Andromeda Galaxy is also faintly visible. The comet was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the Great Comet of 1811. At perihelion, it shone brighter than any star in the sky except Sirius, and its two tails stretched 30-40 degrees across the sky. The passage of Hale-Bopp was notable also for inciting a degree of panic about comets not seen for decades. Rumours that the comet was being followed by an alien spacecraft gained remarkable currency, and inspired a mass suicide among followers of the Heaven's Gate cult.

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Did you know...

...that the European and Japanese collaborative BepiColombo (pictured) mission is planned to be the first extensive mission to Mercury since Mariner 10?
...that the Solar Sentinels, a NASA spacecraft designed to study the Sun, will have to survive at distances from the Sun only one-quarter of Earth's distance?
...that just over 50 kilometres above its surface, the atmosphere of Venus has very similar pressure and temperature as does Earth, making it the most Earth-like area in the solar system?
...that NASA conducts field trials, called Desert RATS, for new technologies for manned exploration of the surface of the Moon, Mars, or beyond?
...that the south pole of the planet Mercury is located in the Bach quadrangle?
...that the Sweden Solar System is currently the world's largest scale model of the solar system?
...that the dominant feature in the Shakespeare quadrangle is the 1300-km wide Caloris Planitia, the largest and best preserved impact basin on Mercury observed by the spacecraft Mariner 10?
...that the nearly circular shape of Lukanga Swamp, a wetland covering 2,600 km² in Central Province, Zambia, has led to speculation that it may be a crater formed by the impact of a meteorite?
...that water vapor is probably present in the tenuous atmosphere of Mercury, being brought to the planet by comets?
...that the Tagish Lake meteorite originally came from a part of the asteroid belt which existed when our solar system was being formed?
...that the trans-Neptunian object Eris (formerly known as 2003 UB₃₁₃) is native to a distant region of our solar system known as the scattered disc?

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Major topics

Solar System: Planets (Definition ˑ Planetary habitability ˑ Terrestrial planets ˑ Gas giants ˑ Rings) ˑ Dwarf planets ˑ Moons ˑ Exploration ˑ Colonization ˑ Discovery timeline

Sun: Sunspot ˑ Solar wind ˑ Solar flare ˑ Solar eclipse

Mercury: Geology ˑ Exploration (Mariner 10 ˑ MESSENGER ˑ BepiColombo) ˑ Transit

Venus: Geology ˑ Atmosphere ˑ Exploration (Venera ˑ Mariner program 2/5/10 ˑ Pioneer ˑ Vega 1/2ˑ Magellan ˑ Venus Express) ˑ Transit

Earth: History ˑ Geology ˑ Geography ˑ Atmosphere ˑ Rotation

Moon: Geology ˑ Selenography ˑ Atmosphere ˑ Exploration (Luna ˑ Apollo 8/11) ˑ Orbit ˑ Lunar eclipse

Mars: Moons (Phobos ˑ Deimos) ˑ Geology ˑ Geography ˑ Atmosphere ˑ Exploration (Mariner ˑ Mars ˑ Viking 1/2 ˑ Pathfinder ˑ MER)

Ceres: Exploration (Dawn)

Jupiter: Moons (Io ˑ Europa ˑ Ganymede ˑ Callisto) ˑ Rings ˑ Great Red Spot ˑ Exploration (Pioneer 10/11 ˑ Voyager 1/2 ˑ Ulysses ˑ Cassini ˑ Galileo ˑ New Horizons)

Saturn: Moons (Mimas ˑ Enceladus ˑ Tethys ˑ Dione ˑ Rhea ˑ Titan ˑ Iapetus) ˑ Rings ˑ Exploration (Pioneer 11 ˑ Voyager 1/2 ˑ Cassini–Huygens)

Uranus: Moons (Miranda ˑ Ariel ˑ Umbriel ˑ Titania ˑ Oberon) ˑ Rings ˑ Exploration (Voyager 2)

Neptune: Moons (Triton) ˑ Rings ˑ Exploration (Voyager 2)

Pluto: Moons (Charon) ˑ Exploration (New Horizons)

Eris: Dysnomia

Small bodies: Meteoroids ˑ Asteroids (Asteroid belt) ˑ Centaurs ˑ TNOs (Kuiper belt ˑ Scattered disc ˑ Oort cloud) ˑ Comets (Hale-Bopp ˑ Halley's ˑ Hyakutake ˑ Shoemaker-Levy 9)

Formation and evolution of the Solar System: History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses ˑ Nebular hypothesis

Bold articles are featured.
Italicized articles are on dwarf planets or major moons.

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