Our Solar System

Our solar system is filled with a wide assortment of celestial bodies - the Sun itself, our eight planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids - and on Earth, life itself! The inner solar system is occasionally visited by comets that loop in from the outer reaches of the solar system on highly elliptical orbits. In the outer reaches of the solar system, we find the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. Still farther out, we eventually reach the limits of the heliosphere, where the outer reaches of the solar system interact with interstellar space. Solar system formation began billions of years ago, when gases and dust began to come together to form the Sun, planets, and other bodies of the solar system.

A near-Earth <a href="/our_solar_system/asteroids.html&dev=1">asteroid</a> - named 2012 DA14 by astronomers - passed within 17,200 miles from Earth on February 15, 2013. On closest approach at about 1:25 p.m. CST on February 15, although it was within the orbit of the <a href="/earth/moons_and_rings.html&dev=1">Moon</a> and even geosynchronous <a href="/space_missions/satellites.html&dev=1">satellites</a>, it didn't strike Earth! Find out more from <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130201315144.html">NASA</a>! Fragments of a meteorite hit Chelyabinsk, Russia on 2/15/2013 <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215">injuring over 500</a>. Learn about <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/meteors/meteors.html">meteors and meteorites</a>.<p><small><em>NASA/JPL-CalTech</em></small></p>Neptune's <a href="/neptune/lower_atmosphere.html&dev=1">atmosphere</a> shows a striped pattern of <a href="/neptune/atmosphere/N_clouds_overview.html&dev=1">clouds</a>. This cloud pattern is very similar to that of <a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html&dev=1">Jupiter</a> and <a href="/saturn/saturn.html&dev=1">Saturn</a>. Neptune even has a <a href="/neptune/atmosphere/N_clouds_GDS.html&dev=1">Great Dark Spot</a> similar to Jupiter's <a href="/jupiter/atmosphere/J_clouds_GRS.html&dev=1">Great Red Spot</a>. The Great Dark Spot of Neptune is thought to be a hole, similar to the hole in the <a href="/earth/Atmosphere/ozone_layer.html&dev=1">ozone layer on Earth</a>, in the <a href="/physical_science/chemistry/methane.html&dev=1">methane</a> cloud deck of Neptune.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>This dramatic view of Jupiter's <a href="/jupiter/atmosphere/J_clouds_GRS.html&dev=1">Great Red Spot</a> and its surroundings was obtained by <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&dev=1">Voyager 1</a> on Feb. 25, 1979, when the spacecraft was 5.7 million miles (9.2 million kilometers) from Jupiter. Cloud details as small as 100 miles (160 kilometers) across can be seen here. The colorful, wavy cloud pattern to the left of the Red Spot is a region of extraordinarily complex end variable wave motion.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>Have you ever seen the <a href="/earth/Magnetosphere/aurora.html&dev=1">Southern or Northern Lights</a>? Earth isn't the only planet that puts on these beautiful light shows, which are also called the "<a href="/earth/Magnetosphere/aurora.html&dev=1">aurora</a>". Aurora have been seen at both <a href="/saturn/saturn_polar_regions.html&dev=1">poles of Saturn</a>, too, as well as at the poles of <a href="/jupiter/magnetosphere/jupiter_aurora.html&dev=1">Jupiter</a>. These "<a href="/earth/Magnetosphere/tour/tour_earth_magnetosphere_09.html&dev=1">curtains of light</a>" sometimes rise 1,200 miles (2,000 km) above the <a href="/saturn/atmosphere/S_clouds_overview.html&dev=1">cloud tops</a> near Saturn's poles. The <a href="/space_missions/HST.html&dev=1">Hubble Space Telescope</a> took this picture in 2004.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, J. Clarke (Boston University), and Z. Levay (STScI)</em></small></p>According to <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-277">NASA scientists</a>, the Voyager 1 spacecraft entered interstellar space in August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the <a href="/our_solar_system/solar_system.html&dev=1">solar system</a>. The space probe is about 19 billion km from the <a href="/sun/sun.html&dev=1">Sun</a>. <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&dev=1">Voyager 1 and 2</a> were launched in 1977 on a <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&dev=1">mission</a> that flew them both by <a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html&dev=1">Jupiter</a> and <a href="/saturn/saturn.html&dev=1">Saturn</a>, with Voyager 2 continuing to <a href="/uranus/uranus.html&dev=1">Uranus</a> and <a href="/neptune/neptune.html&dev=1">Neptune</a>. Voyager 2 is the longest continuously operated spacecraft. It is about 15 billion km away from the <a href="/sun/sun.html&dev=1">Sun</a>.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide support for the hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed (shown in red) polar craters. Areas where polar deposits of ice imaged by Earth-based radar are shown in yellow.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory</em></small></p>

Explore Our Solar System

Solar System Formation

Solar system formation began billions of years ago, when gases and dust began to come together ...Read more

Sun

The Sun is the closest star to Earth and is the center of our solar system. A giant, spinning ...Read more

Planets

By the current count of astronomers, our solar system includes 8 planets and 5 dwarf planets. ...Read more

Dwarf Planets

In 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved a new classification scheme for ...Read more

Asteroids

Asteroids are small bodies that are believed to be left over from the beginning of the solar ...Read more

Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites

Meteors are streaks of light, usually lasting just a few seconds, which people occasionally ...Read more

Comets

Not long ago, many people thought that comets were a sign that something bad was about to ...Read more

Poles in Space

The areas around the North and South Poles of planets, moons, and even the Sun are often interesting ...Read more

Culture, Myth, and Arts

Make important cultural connections about the Sun, planets, and the Moon. ...Read more

Solar System Discoveries

Who discovered the planets? For many of the planets in the solar system, we'll never know! ...Read more

More about Our Solar System

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Earth and Space Science Concept of the Day

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Subduction zone
xSubduction zone : Subduction is the process of the oceanic lithosphere colliding with and descending beneath the continental lithosphere.

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Research Highlights

A Star Is Born... But How?

Daniel Wolf Savin, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Astrophysics Laboratory, has published a paper on the research he and his colleagues have done on how stars began. In their research,...Read more


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