The Planets

Which planet is closest to us? 

Earth, of course!

Nine planets move, or revolve, around the sun. These planets are all different sizes, are composed, or made of,
different things, and their surfaces all look different. These planets move around the sun in a circle called an
orbit. Some planets have many different moons, and some have rings around them made of rock and bits of ice.
Some of them have ancient volcanoes and at least one has active volcanoes.

Looking up at the night sky, the other planets look like bright stars. When you look through binoculars or a
small telescope though, real stars just look brighter. Planets look like disks, or tiny balls. Also, while star
patterns or constellations stay the same as they move across the sky, the planets change their position.

To view the solar system and the orbits:

All about the solar sytem

When ancient people watched the night sky, they noticed that five "stars" moved
in a different way from the other stars. They called them "planets", the Greek word
for "wanderer". Later, after telescopes were invented, three other planets were
noticed, bringing the total to nine if we include Earth.

There are basically two types of planets. The Earth-like or "terrestrial" planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, and
Mars - are small and rocky. Mercury is the closest to the Sun and is also the smallest of the inner-planets. It has
no real atmosphere. Venus is about the same size as the Earth and has a very thick atmosphere, making the
temperature at the surface over 800 degrees. Mars is rocky and smaller then the Earth. Its atmosphere is very
thin.

Next come the gas planets or "Jovian" planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They are giant gas planets,
and rotate very fast. The Jovian giants are circled by rings made of tiny chunks of ice and bits of rock. Saturn
has the brightest rings. Each of these huge planets has many moons; some of which are larger then the planet
Mercury! Finally comes tiny Pluto. It is the smallest planet, smaller then our moon, and the farthest away from
the Sun. It is made of ice and rock.

Classification of the
Planets 

In this course we will be focusing on the development of our present understanding of the Solar System. Here is
a brief overview of the modern and ancient classifications of the planets.

The Modern Solar System

The planets of the modern solar system are grouped into several different and sometimes overlapping
classifications, as illustrated in the following figure:

The planets inside the orbit of the earth are called the Inferior
Planets: Mercury and Venus.

The planets outside the orbit of the earth are called

the Superior Planets: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
and Pluto.
The planets inside the asteroid belt are termed the Inner Planets (or the Terrestrial Planets): Mercury, Venus,
Earth, and Mars.

The planets outside the asteroid belt are termed the Outer Planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

The planets sharing the gaseous structure of Jupiter are termed the Gas Giant (or Jovian) Planets: Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

The 7 Planets of the Ancients

The term "planet" originally meant "wanderer": it was observed long ago that certain points of light wandered
(changed their position) with respect to the background stars in the sky. In ancient times, before the invention of
the telescope and before one understood the present structure of the Solar System, there were thought to be 7
such wanderers or planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, and the Sun. This list is different
in several respects from our modern list of planets:

The Earth is missing, because it was not understood that the points of light wandering on the celestial sphere
and the Earth on which we stood had anything in common.

Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are missing because they would only be discovered when the telescope made them
easily visible.

Uranus is barely visible to the naked eye; it was discovered in 1781.

Neptune and Pluto are too faint to see at all without a telescope; they were discovered in 1846 and 1930,
respectively.

The Sun and the Moon were classified as planets because they wandered on the celestial sphere, just like Mars
and Jupiter and the other planets.

A central theme of our initial discussion will be how the "7 planets of the Ancients" (only 5 of which are really
planets) evolved into our present list of Solar System planets.

Stars Look Different from Planets

Planets (and the Sun and Moon) have some observational characteristics that distinguish them from what we
would now call the stars:

Observational Differences between Planets & Stars

PLANETS STARS

The planets move relative to stars on celestial The relative positions of the stars
sphere are fixed on celestial sphere

The nearer and larger planets appear as disks in The stars appear as "points" of
telescope light, even through the telescope

The brighter planets do not "twinkle" The stars appear to "twinkle"

The planets are always near the imaginary yearly Stars can be anywhere on the
path of the Sun on the celestial sphere (the ecliptic) celestial sphere

These observational differences, particularly the "wandering" of the planets on the celestial sphere, attracted a
lot of attention from ancient observers of the sky. The attempt to explain these differences ultimately led to the
birth of modern astronomy.
What Kinds of Planets Are Out There?

09.24.07

 
In the Star Wars movies, we see fictional planets covered with forests, oceans, deserts, and volcanoes. But what
kinds of planets are actually out there? 

Image right: This is an artist's concept of an Earthlike planet around another star. Credit: NASA JPL

Until the 1990s, astronomers didn’t know about a single planet outside our solar system. They were forced to
base their ideas largely on the planets they already knew about — the ones orbiting our Sun. The planets in our
solar system exhibit a wide range of diversity, from giant gas-dominated worlds like Jupiter and Saturn to small,
barren balls of rock like Mercury. Still, astronomers’ knowledge was limited, and envisioning new types of
worlds fell mostly in the domain of science fiction.

But all that has changed over the past decade. Astronomers have found more than 230 planets outside the solar
system, and many of them are wildly different from those in our solar system. But most of these worlds are
giant planets. What about worlds the size of Earth? The lesson of the new planets is that astronomers need to
broaden their imaginations.

A team of four astronomers has done just that. They developed

computer models to describe 14 different types of solid planets that
might be orbiting other stars. 

Image left: Astronomers have calculated the diameters of various

types of planets given certain compositions and masses. This image
shows the relative sizes of six different kinds of planets with different
compositions, and depending on whether they have the same mass as
Earth, or five times the mass of Earth. Note that the 5-Earth-mass
planets are larger than their 1-Earth-mass counterparts, but they are
not five times larger due to the gravitational compression that occurs when a planet's mass is increased. The
planets are shown silhouetted against the Sun, as if they are transiting planets seen from afar. Credit: Marc
Kuchner/NASA GSFC.

"We’re thinking seriously about the different kinds of roughly Earth-size planets that might be out there, like
George Lucas, but for real," explains team member Marc Kuchner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. "We let our imaginations run wild and tried to cover all the bases with our models of smaller
planets."

The team studied 14 different types of planets, with compositions ranging from pure water to pure iron. Other
types are made of pure carbon or silicates, to mixtures of various compounds. The four astronomers were
interested in finding out how big a planet would be for a certain amount of mass. Mass is a measure of the total
amount of material an object contains. A 5-Earth-mass planet, for example, contains five times more total
material than Earth.

The team calculated how the inward pull of gravity would compress planets of varying compositions. The
resulting computer models show that a planet with the exact
same mass as Earth, but made of pure water, will be about 9,500
miles across. An iron planet with the same mass will be only
about 3,000 miles in diameter. For comparison, Earth, which is
made mostly of silicate rock, is 7,926 miles across at its equator.

Image right: These theoretical models plot a planet's size and

mass given a certain composition. Future observations might be
able to distinguish a pure water planet from a pure iron planet,
but might have difficulty distinguishing a carbon planet from a
silicate planet, for example. Click here to download an unlabeled
version of this image. Credit: Marc Kuchner/NASA GSFC.
The team hopes that these models will yield insights into planet compositions when astronomers start finding
Earth-sized planets around other stars. Missions such as the French Corot satellite, which launched on
December 27, 2006, and NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, scheduled to launch in 2009, can find planets not much
larger than Earth by watching them pass in front of their host stars, where they block a portion of the star’s
light. 

Astronomers can follow up the discovery to measure the planet’s size and mass. By comparing a planet's size
and mass, astronomers can use these new computer models to help determine whether the planet is mostly water
ice or mostly iron, for example. As Kuchner points out, "Ultimately, we need observations to give us the
answers."

The other team members are Sara Seager of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.,
Catherine Hier-Majumder of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, (deceased), and Burkhard Militzer, also at
Carnegie. The paper describing the group’s research is scheduled to appear in the October 20 issue of the
Astrophysical Journal.

Solar System Planets: Order of the 8 (or 9) Planets

By Robert Roy Britt | November 14, 2017 12:00pm ET

The planets of the solar system as depicted by a NASA computer illustration. Orbits and sizes are not shown to
scale.

Credit: NASA

Ever since the discovery of Pluto in 1930, kids grew up learning about the nine planets of our solar system. That
all changed starting in the late 1990s, when astronomers began to argue about whether Pluto was a planet. In a
highly controversial decision, the International Astronomical Union ultimately decided in 2006 to call Pluto a
"dwarf planet," reducing the list of "real planets" in our solar system to eight. 

However, astronomers are now hunting for another planet in our solar system, a true ninth planet, after evidence
of its existence was unveiled on Jan. 20, 2016. The so-called "Planet Nine," as scientists are calling it, is about
10 times the mass of Earth and 5,000 times the mass of Pluto. [The Evidence for 'Planet Nine' in Our Solar
System (Gallery)]

Did You Know? Three of the planets in the solar system are currently visible in the night sky in June 2017.
They are: Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. You can find out how and when to see the brightest planets in June's night
sky here: The Brightest Planets in June's Night Sky: How to See them (and When)

Here's the order of the planets, starting nearest the sun and working outward through the solar
system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune — and Planet Nine.

Solar System Pictures: A Photo Tour

If you insist on including Pluto, then that world would come after Neptune on the list; Pluto is truly way out
there, and on a wildly tilted, elliptical orbit (two of the several reasons it got demoted). Interestingly, Pluto used
to be the eighth planet, actually. More on that below.

Terrestrial planets

The inner four worlds are called “terrestrial planets,” because, like Earth, their surfaces are all rocky. Pluto, too,
has a solid surface (and a very frozen one) but has never been grouped with the four terrestrials.

Jovian planets

The four large outer worlds — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — are known as the “Jovian planets”
(meaning “Jupiter-like”) because they are all huge compared to the terrestrial planets, and because they are
gaseous in nature rather than having rocky surfaces (though some or all of them may have solid cores,
astronomers say). According to NASA, "two of the outer planets beyond the orbit of Mars — Jupiter and Saturn
— are known as gas giants; the more distant Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants." This is because, while
the first two are dominated by gas, while the last two have more ice. All four contain mostly hydrogen and
helium.

Dwarf planets

The IAU definition of a full-fledged planet goes like this: A body that circles the sun without being some other
object's satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo
nuclear fusion, like a star) and has "cleared its neighborhood" of most other orbiting bodies. Yeah, that’s a
mouthful.

The problem for Pluto, besides its small size and offbeat orbit, is that it shares its space with lots of other
objects in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune. Still, the demotion of Pluto remains controversial.

The IAU planet definition puts other small, round worlds in the dwarf planetcategory, including the Kuiper Belt
objects Eris, Haumea, and Makemake.

Also now a dwarf planet is Ceres, a round object in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres was
actually considered a planet when discovered in 1801 and then later deemed to be an asteroid. Some
astronomers like to consider Ceres as a 10th planet (not to be confused with Nibiru or Planet X), but that line of
thinking opens up the possibility of there being 13 planets, with more bound to be discovered.

The planets

Below is a brief overview of the eight primary planets in our solar system, in

order from the inner solar system outward:

Mercury

The closest planet to the sun, Mercury is only a bit larger than Earth's moon. Its
day side is scorched by the sun and can reach 840 degrees Fahrenheit (450
Celsius), but on the night side, temperatures drop to hundreds of degrees below freezing. Mercury has virtually
no atmosphere to absorb meteor impacts, so its surface is pockmarked with craters, just like the moon. Over its
four-year mission, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has revealed views of the planet that have challenged
astronomers' expectations.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Messenger of the Roman gods

Diameter: 3,031 miles (4,878 km)

Orbit: 88 Earth days

Day: 58.6 Earth days

Related:

More Mercury Facts

Mercury Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Mercury

Venus' southern hemisphere, as seen in the ultraviolet.

Credit: ESA
Venus

The second planet from the sun, Venus is terribly hot, even hotter than Mercury. The atmosphere is toxic. The
pressure at the surface would crush and kill you. Scientists describe Venus’ situation as a runaway greenhouse
effect. Its size and structure are similar to Earth, Venus' thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway
"greenhouse effect." Oddly, Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction of most planets.

The Greeks believed Venus was two different objects — one in the morning sky and another in the evening.
Because it is often brighter than any other object in the sky — except for the sun and moon — Venus has
generated many UFO reports.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman goddess of love and beauty

Diameter: 7,521 miles (12,104 km)

Orbit: 225 Earth days

Day: 241 Earth days

Related:

More Venus Facts

Venus Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Venus

An image of the Earth taken by the Russian weather satellite Elektro-L No.1.

Credit: NTsOMZ

Earth

The third planet from the sun, Earth is a waterworld, with two-thirds of the planet covered by ocean. It’s the
only world known to harbor life. Earth’s atmosphere is rich in life-sustaining nitrogen and oxygen. Earth's
surface rotates about its axis at 1,532 feet per second (467 meters per second) — slightly more than 1,000 mph
(1,600 kph) — at the equator. The planet zips around the sun at more than 18 miles per second (29 km per
second).

Diameter: 7,926 miles (12,760 km)

Orbit: 365.24 days

Day: 23 hours, 56 minutes

Related:

More Earth Information

50 Amazing Facts about Earth

Earth Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Earth

Mars researchers are focusing both Earth-based and planet orbiting sensors to better understand sources of
methane on the red planet. Image

Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute

Mars

The fourth planet from the sun, is a cold, dusty place. The dust, an iron oxide, gives the planet its reddish cast.
Mars shares similarities with Earth: It is rocky, has mountains and valleys, and storm systems ranging from
localized tornado-like dust devils to planet-engulfing dust storms. It snows on Mars. And Mars harbors water
ice. Scientists think it was once wet and warm, though today it’s cold and desert-like.

Mars' atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist on the surface for any length of time. Scientists think
ancient Mars would have had the conditions to support life, and there is hope that signs of past life — possibly
even present biology — may exist on the Red Planet.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman god of war

Diameter: 4,217 miles (6,787 km)

Orbit: 687 Earth days

Day: Just more than one Earth day (24 hours, 37 minutes)

Related:

More Mars Facts

Mars Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Mars

Close-up of Jupiter's Great Red Spot as seen by a Voyager spacecraft.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Jupiter

The fifth planet from the sun, Jupiter is huge and is the most massive planet in our solar system. It’s a mostly
gaseous world, mostly hydrogen and helium. Its swirling clouds are colorful due to different types of trace
gases. A big feature is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm which has raged for hundreds of years. Jupiter has a
strong magnetic field, and with dozens of moons, it looks a bit like a miniature solar system.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Ruler of the Roman gods

Diameter: 86,881 miles (139,822 km)

Orbit: 11.9 Earth years

Day: 9.8 Earth hours

Related:

More Jupiter Facts

Jupiter Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Jupiter

The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas dips onto the planet's rings and straddles the Cassini Division in this
natural color image taken as Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Saturn

The sixth planet from the sun is known most for its rings. When Galileo Galilei first studied Saturn in the early
1600s, he thought it was an object with three parts. Not knowing he was seeing a planet with rings, the stumped
astronomer entered a small drawing — a symbol with one large circle and two smaller ones — in his notebook,
as a noun in a sentence describing his discovery. More than 40 years later, Christiaan Huygens proposed that
they were rings. The rings are made of ice and rock. Scientists are not yet sure how they formed. The gaseous
planet is mostly hydrogen and helium. It has numerous moons.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman god of agriculture

Diameter: 74,900 miles (120,500 km)

Orbit: 29.5 Earth years

Day: About 10.5 Earth hours

Related:

More Saturn Facts

Saturn Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Saturn

Near-infrared views of Uranus reveal its otherwise faint ring system, highlighting the extent to which the planet
is tilted.
Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison), Keck Observatory

Uranus

The seventh planet from the sun, Uranus is an oddball. It’s the only giant planet whose equator is nearly at right
angles to its orbit — it basically orbits on its side. Astronomers think the planet collided with some other planet-
size object long ago, causing the tilt. The tilt causes extreme seasons that last 20-plus years, and the sun beats
down on one pole or the other for 84 Earth-years. Uranus is about the same size as Neptune. Methane in the
atmosphere gives Uranus its blue-green tint. It has numerous moons and faint rings.

Discovery: 1781 by William Herschel (was thought previously to be a star)

Named for: Personification of heaven in ancient myth

Diameter: 31,763 miles (51,120 km)

Orbit: 84 Earth years

Day: 18 Earth hours

Related:

More Uranus Facts

Uranus Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Uranus

Neptune’s winds travel at more than 1,500 mph, and are the fastest planetary winds in the solar system.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Neptune

The eighth planet from the sun, Neptune is known for strong winds — sometimes faster than the speed of
sound. Neptune is far out and cold. The planet is more than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth. It has a rocky
core. Neptune was the first planet to be predicted to exist by using math, before it was detected. Irregularities in
the orbit of Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest some other might be exerting a
gravitational tug. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find Neptune in a telescope.
Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth.

Discovery: 1846

Named for: Roman god of water

Diameter: 30,775 miles (49,530 km)

Orbit: 165 Earth years

Day: 19 Earth hours

Related:

More Neptune Facts

Neptune Pictures
NASA Solar System Exploration: Neptune

Pluto and its moons orbit the sun near the edge of our solar system. Learn all about Pluto's weirdly eccentric
orbit, four moons and more in this Space.com infographic.

Credit: SPACE.com/Karl Tate

Pluto (Dwarf Planet)

Once the ninth planet from the sun, Pluto is unlike other planets in many respects. It is smaller than Earth's
moon. Its orbit carries it inside the orbit of Neptune and then way out beyond that orbit. From 1979 until early
1999, Pluto had actually been the eighth planet from the sun. Then, on Feb. 11, 1999, it crossed Neptune's path
and once again became the solar system's most distant planet — until it was demoted to dwarf planet status.
Pluto will stay beyond Neptune for 228 years. Pluto’s orbit is tilted to the main plane of the solar system —
where the other planets orbit — by 17.1 degrees. It’s a cold, rocky world with only a very ephemeral
atmosphere. NASA's New Horizons mission performed history's first flyby of the Pluto system on July 14,
2015. [Related: New Horizons' Pluto Flyby: Latest News, Images and Video]

Discovery: 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh

Named for: Roman god of the underworld, Hades

Diameter: 1,430 miles (2,301 km)

Orbit: 248 Earth years

Day: 6.4 Earth day

Related:

More Pluto Facts

Pluto Pictures

NASA Solar System Exploration: Dwarf Planets

Planet Nine

Planet Nine orbits the sun at a distance that is 20 times farther out than the orbit of Neptune. (The orbit of
Neptune is 2.7 billion miles from the sun at its closest point.)  The strange world's orbit is about 600 times
farther from the sun than the Earth's orbit is from the star.

Scientists have not actually seen Planet Nine directly. Its existence was inferred by its gravitational effects on
other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region at the fringe of the solar system that is home to icy objects left over
from the birth of the sun and planets.

'Planet Nine': Facts About the Mysterious Solar System World (Infographic)

Scientists Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena described
the evidence for Planet Nine in a study published in the Astronomical Journal. The research is based on
mathematical models and computer simulations using observations of six other smaller Kuiper Belt Objects
with orbits that aligned in a similar matter.