Portal:Solar System

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The Solar System Portal

The Sun and planets of the Solar System (distances not to scale)

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. The name comes from Sōl, the Latin name for the Sun. It formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, creating the Sun and a protoplanetary disc from which the orbiting bodies assembled. The fusion of hydrogen into helium inside the Sun's core releases energy, which is primarily emitted through its outer photosphere. This creates a decreasing temperature gradient across the system. Over 99.86% of the Solar System's mass is located within the Sun.

The most massive objects that orbit the Sun are the eight planets. Closest to the Sun in order of increasing distance are the four terrestrial planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Only the Earth and Mars orbit within the Sun's habitable zone, where liquid water can exist on the surface. Beyond the frost line at about five astronomical units (AU), are two gas giants – Jupiter and Saturn – and two ice giants – Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter and Saturn possess nearly 90% of the non-stellar mass of the Solar System.

There are a vast number of less massive objects. There is a strong consensus among astronomers that the Solar System has at least nine dwarf planets: Ceres, Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, Gonggong, Eris, and Sedna. Six planets, seven dwarf planets, and other bodies have orbiting natural satellites, which are commonly called 'moons', and range from sizes of dwarf planets, like Earth's Moon, to moonlets. There are small Solar System bodies, such as asteroids, comets, centaurs, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust clouds. Some of these bodies are in the asteroid belt (between Mars's and Jupiter's orbit) and the Kuiper belt (just outside Neptune's orbit).

Between the bodies of the Solar System is an interplanetary medium of dust and particles. The Solar System is constantly flooded by outflowing charged particles from the solar wind, forming the heliosphere. At around 70–90 AU from the Sun, the solar wind is halted by the interstellar medium, resulting in the heliopause. This is the boundary to interstellar space. The Solar System extends beyond this boundary with its outermost region, the theorized Oort cloud, the source for long-period comets, extending to a radius of 2,000–200,000 AU. The Solar System currently moves through a cloud of interstellar medium called the Local Cloud. The closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light-years (269,000 AU) away. Both are within the Local Bubble, a relatively small 1,000 light-years wide region of the Milky Way. (Full article...)

Selected article –

Voyager 2 picture of Uranus' rings

The rings of Uranus were discovered on March 10, 1977, by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink. Two additional rings were discovered in 1986 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, and two outer rings were found in 2003–2005 by the Hubble Space Telescope. A number of faint dust bands and incomplete arcs may exist between the main rings. The rings are extremely dark—the Bond albedo of the rings' particles does not exceed 2%. They are likely composed of water ice with the addition of some dark radiation-processed organics. The majority of Uranus's rings are opaque and only a few kilometres wide. The ring system contains little dust overall; it consists mostly of large bodies 0.2–20 m in diameter. The relative lack of dust in the ring system is due to aerodynamic drag from the extended Uranian exosphere—corona. The rings of Uranus are thought to be relatively young, at not more than 600 million years. The mechanism that confines the narrow rings is not well understood. The Uranian ring system probably originated from the collisional fragmentation of a number of moons that once existed around the planet. After colliding, the moons broke up into numerous particles, which survived as narrow and optically dense rings only in strictly confined zones of maximum stability. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected picture

• 
  Tvashtar Paterae

  Photo credit: New Horizons probe

  An animation of an eruption by the Tvashtar Paterae volcanic region on the innermost of Jupiter's Galilean moons, Io. The ejecta plume is 330 km (205 mi) high, though only its uppermost half is visible in this image, as its source lies over the moon's limb on its far side. This animation consists of a sequence of five images taken by NASA's New Horizons probe on March 1, 2007, over the course of eight minutes from 23:50 UTC.
• 

  

  Comet Hale-Bopp 29-03-1997

  Comet Hale–Bopp

  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 inspired a mass suicide among followers of the Heaven's Gate cult.
• 

  

  Sunspot TRACE image

  Sunspot

  Credit: NASA/TRACE

  A TRACE image of sunspots on the surface, or photosphere, of the Sun from September 2002, is taken in the far ultraviolet on a relatively quiet day for solar activity. However, the image still shows a large sunspot group visible as a bright area near the horizon. Although sunspots are relatively cool regions on the surface of the Sun, the bright glowing gas flowing around the sunspots have a temperature of over one million °C (1.8 million °F). The high temperatures are thought to be related to the rapidly changing magnetic field loops that channel solar plasma.
• 
  Hyperion

  Photo credit: Cassini orbiter

  Hyperion, a moon of Saturn, is one of the largest highly irregular (non-spherical) bodies in the Solar System. Enhanced image processing was used to bring out details and color differences in this photo taken by the Cassini orbiter. Hyperion is entirely saturated with deep, sharp-edged craters that give it the appearance of a giant sponge. Dark material fills the bottom of each crater.
• 

  

  Solar eclipse of 11 August 1999

  Solar eclipse of 1999 August 11

  Credit: Luc Viatour

  The solar eclipse of 1999 August 11, as seen from France. This was the most viewed total eclipse in human history, although some areas offered impaired visibility due to adverse weather conditions. The path of the Moon's shadow began in the Atlantic Ocean, before traversing Cornwall, northern France, southern Germany, Austria, Hungary and northern Serbia. Its maximum was in Romania, and it continued across the Black Sea, Turkey, Iran, southern Pakistan and India.
• 

  

  Five global views of Venus by Magellan.

  Magellan (spacecraft)

  Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

  These images are composites of the complete radar image collection obtained by the Magellan mission. The Magellan spacecraft was launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in May 1989 and began mapping the surface of Venus in September 1990. The spacecraft continued to orbit Venus for four years, returning high-resolution images, altimetry, thermal emissions and gravity maps of 98 percent of the surface. Magellan spacecraft operations ended on October 12, 1994, when the radio contact was lost with the spacecraft during its controlled descent into the deeper portions of the Venusian atmosphere.
• 
  Atmosphere of Jupiter

  Animation: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

  A 14-frame clip showing the atmosphere of Jupiter as viewed from the NASA probe Cassini. Taken over a span of 24 Jupiter rotations between October 31 and November 9, 2000, this clip shows various patterns of motion across the planet. The Great Red Spot rotates counterclockwise, and the uneven distribution of its high haze is obvious. To the east (right) of the Red Spot, oval storms, like ball bearings, roll over and pass each other. East-west bands adjacent to each other move at different rates. Strings of small storms rotate around northern-hemisphere ovals. The large grayish-blue "hot spots" at the northern edge of the white Equatorial Zone change over time as they proceed eastward across the planet. Ovals in the north rotate counter to those in the south. Small, very bright features appear quickly and randomly in turbulent regions, possibly lightning storms. The smallest visible features at the equator are about 600 km (370 miles) across.
• 
  Milky Way

  Photograph credit: ESO / Stéphane Guisard

  The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος (galaxías kýklos, 'milky circle'). From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.
  
  This picture shows a portion of the Milky Way as seen from Cerro Paranal in Chile, home to the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s Very Large Telescope, depicting the region spanning the constellations from Sagittarius to Scorpius. The colourful nebulae surrounding Rho Ophiuchi and Antares can be seen to the right, while the dusty lane of the galaxy runs obliquely through the image, dotted with reddish objects such as the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae. This region of the Milky Way also includes the Galactic Center, likely containing a supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.
• 
  Planum Boreum

  Photo credit: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

  False-color Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a side of the Chasma Boreale, a canyon in the polar ice cap of the Planum Boreum (north pole of Mars). Light browns are layers of surface dust, greys and blues are layers of water and carbon dioxide ice. Regular geometric cracking is indicative of higher concentrations of water ice.
  
  The Planum Boreum's permanent ice cap has a maximum depth of 3 km (1.9 mi). It is roughly 1200 km (750 mi) in diameter, an area equivalent to about 1½ times the size of Texas. The Chasma Boreale is up to 100 km (62.5 mi) wide and features scarps up to 2 km (1.25 mi) high. For a comparison, the Grand Canyon is approximately 1.6 km (1 mi) deep in some places and 446 km (279 mi) long but only up to 24 km (15 mi) wide.
• 

  

  Jupiter

  Jupiter

  Credit: Cassini probe

  Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest within the Solar System. It is 318 times more massive than Earth, with a diameter 11 times that of Earth, and with a volume 1300 times that of Earth. Its best known feature is the Great Red Spot, a storm larger than Earth, which was first observed by Galileo four centuries ago. This picture, taken by the Cassini orbiter was one of 26 thousand images taken of Jupiter during the course of its flyby and is the most detailed global color portrait of the planet ever produced.
• 
  Planet Mars

  Photo credit: NASA

  Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood red color. Mars has two small, oddly-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. At some point in the future Phobos will be broken up by gravitational forces.
• 
  Sun

  Diagram credit: Kelvin Ma

  The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear-fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy mainly as visible light and infrared radiation. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometres (860,000 mi), or 109 times that of Earth. Its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, and accounts for about 99.86 percent of the total mass of the Solar System. Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen; the rest is mostly helium, with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron. This diagram illustrates the general structure of the Sun, with all features drawn to scale.
• 

  

  Mars

  Mars

  Credit: NASA

  Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood red color. Mars has two small, oddly-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. At some point in the future Phobos will be broken up by gravitational forces. The atmosphere on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide. In 2003 methane was also discovered in the atmosphere. Since methane is an unstable gas, this indicates that there must be (or have been within the last few hundred years) a source of the gas on the planet.
• 
  Geocentric model

  Photo credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

  Illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the Universe (the theory that the Earth is the center of the universe) by Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho. Taken from his treatise Cosmographia, made in Paris, 1568. Notice the distances of the bodies to the centre of the Earth (left) and the times of revolution, in years (right).
• 
  Mercury (planet)

  Photograph: NASA/APL/CIS; edit: Jjron

  Mercury is the smallest and closest to the Sun of the eight planets in the Solar System. It has no known natural satellites. The planet is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger to the gods.
• 
  Climate of Mars

  Photograph credit: NASA / JPL–Caltech / University of Arizona

  Although Mars is smaller than the Earth and 50 percent farther from the Sun, its climate has important similarities with the Earth, such as the presence of polar ice caps, seasonal changes and observable weather patterns. This image shows layered deposits in Planum Boreum, in the north polar region of Mars, which formed from a 3-kilometre-thick (2 mi) stack of dusty water-ice layers about 1,000 km (600 mi) across. The layers record information about the climate of the planet stretching back several million years. Erosion has created scarps and troughs that expose the layering. The tan-colored layers are the dusty water ice of the polar layered deposits, however a section of bluish layers is visible below them. These bluish layers contain sand-sized rock fragments that likely formed a large polar dunefield before the overlying dusty ice was deposited. This photograph, depicting an area approximately 1.3 km (0.8 mi) across, was captured by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
• 
  Titan (moon)

  Image credit: Cassini orbiter

  The most detailed full-disc view of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and second-largest in the Solar System. The brighter region on the right side and equatorial region is named Xanadu, and the large, dark region at the center is Shangri-la. This image has been processed to reduce the effects of the atmosphere and to sharpen surface features. It has been trimmed to show only the illuminated surface and not the atmosphere above the edge of the moon.
• 
  The Blue Marble

  Photo credit: The Apollo 17 crew

  The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of Earth. NASA officially credits the image to the entire Apollo 17 crew — Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Jack Schmitt — all of whom took photographic images during the mission. Apollo 17 passed over Africa during daylight hours and Antarctica is also illuminated. The photograph was taken approximately five hours after the spacecraft's launch, while en route to the Moon. Apollo 17, notably, was the last manned lunar mission; no humans since have been at a range where taking a "whole-Earth" photograph such as "The Blue Marble" would be possible.
• 
  Pale Blue Dot

  Photo credit: NASA/JPL

  Pale Blue Dot is the name given to this 1990 photo of Earth taken from Voyager 1 when its vantage point reached the edge of the Solar System, a distance of roughly 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometres). Earth can be seen as a blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right. The light band over Earth is an artifact of sunlight scattering in the camera's lens, resulting from the small angle between Earth and the Sun. Carl Sagan came up with the idea of turning the spacecraft around to take a composite image of the Solar System. Six years later, he reflected, "All of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home."
• 
  Uranus

  Photo: NASA/JPL/Voyager 2 mission

  Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the fourth most massive in the Solar System. In this photograph from 1986 the planet appears almost featureless, but recent terrestrial observations have found seasonal changes to be occurring.
• 
  Jupiter

  Diagram: Kelvin Song

  A diagram of Jupiter showing a model of the planet's interior, with a rocky core overlaid by a deep layer of liquid metallic hydrogen and an outer layer predominantly of molecular hydrogen. Jupiter's true interior composition is uncertain. For instance, the core may have shrunk as convection currents of hot liquid metallic hydrogen mixed with the molten core and carried its contents to higher levels in the planetary interior. Furthermore, there is no clear physical boundary between the hydrogen layers—with increasing depth the gas increases smoothly in temperature and density, ultimately becoming liquid.
• 

  

  Earthrise, as seen by Apollo 8

  Apollo 8

  Credit: William Anders

  Earthrise, the first occasion in which humans saw the Earth seemingly rising above the surface of the Moon, taken during the Apollo 8 mission on December 24, 1968. This view was seen by the crew at the beginning of its fourth orbit around the Moon, although the first photograph taken was in black-and-white. Note that the Earth is in shadow here. A photo of a fully lit Earth would not be taken until the Apollo 17 mission.
• 
  Saturn

  Photo credit: Cassini orbiter

  Saturn eclipsing the Sun, as seen by the Cassini orbiter. Individual rings seen in this image include (in order, starting from most distant): E ring, Pallene ring (visible very faintly in an arc just below Saturn), G ring, Janus/Epimetheus ring (faint), F ring (narrow brightest feature), Main rings (A,B,C), and D ring (bluish, nearest Saturn). Interior to the G ring and above the brighter main rings is the pale dot of Earth.

General images

The following are images from various Solar System-related articles on Wikipedia.

• 
  Comparison of the distances between planets, with the white bar showing orbital variations. The size of the planets is not to scale. (from Solar System)
• 
  The orbital eccentricities and inclinations of the scattered disc population compared to the classical and resonant Kuiper belt objects (from Solar System)
• 
  The Ring Nebula, a planetary nebula similar to what the Sun will become (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Milky Way, with galactic features and the relative position of the Solar System labeled. (from Solar System)
• 
  An artist's impression of the Oort cloud, a region still well within the sphere of influence of the Solar System, including a depiction of the much further inside Kuiper belt (inset); the sizes of objects are over-scaled for visibility. (from Solar System)
• 
  A color enhanced photopgraph from the Moon of a range of components of the Solar System. The three dots at the lower left are from left to right the planets Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, and in the middle of the picture rises the Sun's corona over the dark limb of the Moon, which is from the right lit by earthshine. (from Solar System)
• 
  The motion of 'lights' moving across the sky is the basis of the classical definition of planets: wandering stars. (from Solar System)
• 
  Location of the Solar System within the Milky Way (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  The Sun in true white color (from Solar System)
• 
  Relative size of the Sun as it is now (inset) compared to its estimated future size as a red giant (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Animations of the Solar System's outer planets orbiting. This animation is 100 times faster than the inner planet animation. (from Solar System)
• 
  Solar system diagram by Emanuel Bowen in 1747, when neither Uranus, Neptune, nor the asteroid belts had yet been discovered. Orbits of planets are to scale, but the orbits of moons and the sizes of bodies are not. (from Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Sun's magnetosphere and helioshealth (from Solar System)
• 
  Plot of objects around the Kuiper belt and other asteroid populations. J, S, U and N denotes Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (from Solar System)
• 
  The Solar System (left) within the interstellar medium, with the different regions and their distances on a logarithmic scale (from Solar System)
• 
  Neptune and its moon Triton, taken by Voyager 2. Triton's orbit will eventually take it within Neptune's Roche limit, tearing it apart and possibly forming a new ring system. (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  The four terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars (from Solar System)
• 
  The outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, compared to the inner planets Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury at the bottom right (from Solar System)
• 
  The current orbits of Sedna, 2012 VP113, Leleākūhonua (pink), and other very distant objects (red, brown and cyan) along with the predicted orbit of the hypothetical Planet Nine (dark blue) (from Solar System)
• 
  The sparse plasma (blue) and dust (white) in the tail of comet Hale–Bopp are being shaped by pressure from solar radiation and the solar wind, respectively.
• 
  The planets, zodiacal light and meteor shower (top left of image) (from Solar System)
• 
  The four largest asteroids: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Hygiea. Only Ceres and Vesta have been visited by a spacecraft and thus have a detailed picture. (from Solar System)
• 
  Relative orbital distances in the Solar System visualized as a condensed rectangle (from Solar System)
• 
  Overview of the inner Solar System up to Jupiter's orbit (from Solar System)
• 
  Orbit classification of Kuiper belt objects. Some clusters that is subjected to orbital resonance are marked. (from Solar System)
• 
  Hubble image of protoplanetary discs in the Orion Nebula, a stellar nursery approximately 25 ly across and estimated to be similar to the primordial nebula from which the Sun formed (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Artist's conception of the giant impact thought to have formed the Moon (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  The current Sun compared to its peak size in the red-giant phase (from Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Local Interstellar Cloud, the G-Cloud and surrounding stars. As of 2022, the exact position of the Solar System within the interstellar clouds remains an unresolved question in astronomy. (from Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk, out of which Earth and other Solar System bodies formed (from Solar System)
• 
  Pierre-Simon Laplace, one of the originators of the nebular hypothesis (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Artist's conception of a protoplanetary disk (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Meteor Crater in Arizona. Created 50,000 years ago by an impactor about 50 metres (160 ft) across, it shows that the accretion of the Solar System is not over. (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Simulation showing outer planets and Kuiper belt:
  a) Before Jupiter/Saturn 2:1 resonance
  b) Scattering of Kuiper belt objects into the Solar System after the orbital shift of Neptune
  c) After ejection of Kuiper belt bodies by Jupiter
  

    Orbit of Jupiter

    Orbit of Saturn

    Orbit of Uranus

    Orbit of Neptune

  (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Animations of the Solar System's inner planets orbiting. Each frame represents 2 days of motion. (from Solar System)

Did you know –

• ...that the passing of the Great Comet of 1577 (pictured) caused almost century-long debate, during which Galileo argued that comets were merely optical illusions?

• ...that systematic mapping of the Michelangelo quadrangle on Mercury has revealed the presence of four nearly obliterated multi-ring impact basins, possibly the oldest features in the mapped areas of the planet?

• ...that there have been several proposals for space advertising projects, including a giant, 1km² billboard visible from Earth?

• ...that some astrologers claim Earth has a second moon they call Lilith?

• ...that ridges and escarpments in the Victoria quadrangle of the planet Mercury have been associated with the stresses caused by the Sun slowing Mercury's rotation through tidal forces?

• ...that J002E3 was at first thought to be a new moon of Earth when discovered in 2002 but was later found to be the third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V?

• ...that the Tooting impact crater on Mars was named after the London suburb of the same name because the discoverer "thought [his] mum and brother would get a kick out of having their home town paired with a land form on Mars"?

• ...that 99% of the mass of the Carme group, a group of retrograde irregular satellites of Jupiter, is located in Carme?

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Wikinews Space portal

• 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
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• May 31: SpaceX successfully launches its first crewed spaceflight
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• 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
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• November 29: NASA's InSight Lander makes it to Mars
• October 12: Manned Soyuz space mission aborts during launch

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

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The planet Saturn, see here eclipsing the sun

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