The Solar System
Our solar system is the Sun and everything bound to it by gravity: eight planets, at least five dwarf planets, and hundreds of moons, along with countless asteroids and comets. The four inner planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — are small and rocky. The four outer ones — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — are giants, the first two made mostly of gas and the last two of ice.
Beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, home to Pluto and other dwarf planets. Some of the most fascinating worlds are moons: Titan has lakes of liquid methane, Europa hides an ocean under ice, and Io is the most volcanic place we know. Here is a tour of the most important objects, each with a fact to remember it by.
Ready to test yourself? Name the mystery objects in Velae Space, our free daily astronomy game.
| Object | Type | Fact |
|---|---|---|
| ☀️ Sun | Star | The star at the center of the solar system. |
| 🪐 Mercury | Planet | The smallest planet and the closest to the Sun. |
| 🪐 Venus | Planet | The hottest planet, wrapped in thick clouds of acid; close to Earth in size. |
| 🪐 Earth | Planet | The only planet known to support life; about 71% ocean. |
| 🪐 Mars | Planet | The Red Planet, home to Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system. |
| 🪐 Jupiter | Planet | The largest planet, marked by a centuries-old storm called the Great Red Spot. |
| 🪐 Saturn | Planet | The gas giant famous for its bright, wide ring system. |
| 🪐 Uranus | Planet | An ice giant that spins on its side, tilted almost 90 degrees. |
| 🪐 Neptune | Planet | The farthest planet from the Sun, a windy deep-blue ice giant. |
| 🌑 Pluto | Dwarf planet | A famous dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, reclassified in 2006. |
| 🌑 Ceres | Dwarf planet | The largest object in the asteroid belt, and the closest dwarf planet. |
| 🌑 Eris | Dwarf planet | A distant, massive dwarf planet whose discovery led to Pluto's reclassification. |
| 🌑 Makemake | Dwarf planet | A bright, reddish dwarf planet far out in the Kuiper Belt. |
| 🌑 Haumea | Dwarf planet | An egg-shaped dwarf planet that spins so fast it is stretched out. |
| 🌙 Moon | Moon | Earth's only natural satellite. |
| 🌙 Titan | Moon | Saturn's largest moon, with a thick atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane. |
| 🌙 Europa | Moon | A moon of Jupiter thought to hide an ocean beneath its icy crust. |
| 🌙 Ganymede | Moon | The largest moon in the solar system, orbiting Jupiter. |
| 🌙 Callisto | Moon | A heavily cratered Galilean moon of Jupiter. |
| 🌙 Io | Moon | The most volcanically active body in the solar system, a moon of Jupiter. |
| 🌙 Enceladus | Moon | A small moon of Saturn that erupts icy geysers into space. |
| 🌙 Triton | Moon | Neptune's largest moon, which orbits in the opposite direction to the planet. |
| 🌙 Phobos | Moon | The larger of Mars's two tiny moons. |
| 🌙 Deimos | Moon | The smaller, outer moon of Mars. |
| 🌙 Charon | Moon | Pluto's largest moon, roughly half its size. |
| ☄️ Halley's Comet | Comet | A famous comet that returns to Earth's skies about every 76 years. |
| 🪨 Vesta | Asteroid | One of the largest bodies in the asteroid belt. |
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