Portal:Solar System
The Solar System Portal
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the other celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their moons, five currently identified dwarf planets and their seven 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. Among the dwarf planets are Pluto, Makemake, and Haumea, the three largest known Kuiper belt objects; Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt; and Eris and Gonggong, the largest known objects in the scattered disc.
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Jupiter was the first of the sun's planets to form, and its inward migration during the primordial phase of the Solar System affected much of the formation history of the other planets. Hydrogen constitutes 90% of Jupiter's volume, followed by helium, which forms 25% of its mass and 10% of its volume. The ongoing contraction of Jupiter's interior generates more heat than the planet receives from the Sun. Its internal structure is believed to consist of an outer mantle of fluid metallic hydrogen and a diffuse inner core of denser material. Because of its rapid rate of rotation, one turn in ten hours, Jupiter is an oblate spheroid; it has a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The outer atmosphere is divided into a series of latitudinal bands, with turbulence and storms along their interacting boundaries; the most obvious result of this is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that has been recorded since at least 1831. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
- ... that Jupiter is the only planet capable of pulling an interstellar comet into a Sun-centered orbit?
- ...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 Caloris Basin on Mercury, one of the largest impact basins in the Solar System, is surrounded by a series of geological formations believed to have been produced by the basin's ejecta?
- ...that Kordylewski clouds are large concentrations of dust that orbit Earth at the distance of the Moon?
- ...that no viable solution has yet been found to counteract radiation from space, which is a serious threat to astronauts on any future mission to Mars?
- ...that Claudia Alexander was the last project manager of NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter?
In the news
- April 7: NASA's helicopter Ingenuity survives its first night at Mars
- December 25: 'Earth-based life can survive in hydrogen-rich atmospheres': MIT professor Dr Seager tells Wikinews about her research on organisms thriving in oxygen-less environment
- July 7: Astronomer Anthony Boccaletti discusses observation of birth of potential exoplanet with Wikinews
- May 31: SpaceX successfully launches its first crewed spaceflight
- May 22: Astronomer tells Wikinews about discovery of closest black hole known so far
- October 12: Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov dies at age 85
- October 10: Swedish academy announces 2019 Nobel Prize winners in physics
- September 14: Astronomers find water vapour in atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b
- March 5: SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docks with International Space Station
- January 9: Simple animals could live in Martian brines: Wikinews interviews planetary scientist Vlada Stamenković
- November 29: NASA's InSight Lander makes it to Mars
- October 12: Manned Soyuz space mission aborts during launch
Related portals
Major categories
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| Celestial mechanics | Comets | ...in fiction |
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| Minor planets | Moons | Planetary missions |
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| Planets... | Sun | Surface feature nomenclature... |
Related WikiProjects
Associated Wikimedia
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| Definition | Text | Images |
Major topics
Solar System: Planets (Definition · Planetary habitability · Terrestrial planets · Gas giants · Rings) · Dwarf planets (Plutoid) · Colonization · Discovery timelineˑ Exploration · Moons · Planetariums
- Sun: Sunspot · Solar wind · Solar flare · Solar eclipse
- Mercury: Geology · Exploration (Mariner 10 · MESSENGER · BepiColombo) · Transit
- Venus: Geology · Atmosphere · Exploration (Venera · Mariner program 2/5/10 · Pioneer · Vega 1/2ˑ Magellan · Venus Express) · Transit
- Earth: History · Geology · Geography · Atmosphere · Rotation
- Moon: Geology · Selenography · Atmosphere · Exploration (Luna · Apollo 8/11) · Orbit · Lunar eclipse
- Mars: Moons (Phobos · Deimos) · Geology · Geography · Atmosphere · Exploration (Mariner · Mars · Viking 1/2 · Pathfinder · MER)
- Ceres: Exploration (Dawn)
- Jupiter: Moons (Amalthea, Io · Europa · Ganymede · Callisto) · Rings · Atmosphere · Magnetosphere · Exploration (Pioneer 10/11 · Voyager 1/2 · Ulysses · Cassini · Galileo · New Horizons)
- Saturn: Moons (Mimas · Enceladus · Tethys · Dione · Rhea · Titan · Iapetus) · Rings · Exploration (Pioneer 11 · Voyager 1/2 · Cassini–Huygens)
- Uranus: Moons (Miranda · Ariel · Umbriel · Titania · Oberon) · Rings · Exploration (Voyager 2)
- Neptune: Moons (Triton) · Rings · Exploration (Voyager 2)
- Planets beyond Neptune
- Pluto: Moons (Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, Styx) · Geology · Atmosphere · Exploration (New Horizons)
- Haumea: Moons (Hi'iaka, Namaka) · Ring
- Quaoar: Weywot · Rings
- Makemake: S/2015 (136472) 1
- Gonggong: Xiangliu
- Eris: Dysnomia
- Sedna
- Small bodies: Meteoroids · Asteroids (Asteroid belt) · Centaurs · TNOs (Kuiper belt · Scattered disc · Oort cloud) · Comets (Hale–Bopp · Halley's · Hyakutake · Shoemaker–Levy 9)
- Formation and evolution of the Solar System: History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses · Nebular hypothesis
- See also: Featured content · Featured topic · Good articles · List of objects
Bold articles are featured.
Italicized articles are on dwarf planets or major moons.
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