Portal:Solar System

The Solar System Portal

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

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc. The Sun is a typical star that maintains a balanced equilibrium by the fusion of hydrogen into helium at its core, releasing this energy from its outer photosphere. Astronomers classify it as a G-type main-sequence star.

The largest objects that orbit the Sun are the eight planets. In order from the Sun, they are four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars); two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn); and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). All terrestrial planets have solid surfaces. Inversely, all giant planets do not have a definite surface, as they are mainly composed of gases and liquids. Over 99.86% of the Solar System's mass is in the Sun and nearly 90% of the remaining mass is in Jupiter and Saturn.

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. There are a vast number of 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). Six planets, seven dwarf planets, and other bodies have orbiting natural satellites, which are commonly called 'moons'.

The Solar System is constantly flooded by the Sun's charged particles, the solar wind, forming the heliosphere. Around 75–90 astronomical units from the Sun, the solar wind is halted, resulting in the heliopause. This is the boundary of the Solar System to interstellar space. The outermost region of the Solar System is the theorized Oort cloud, the source for long-period comets, extending to a radius of 2,000–200,000 AU. The closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light-years (269,000 AU) away. Both stars belong to the Milky Way galaxy. (Full article...)

Selected article –

Neptune, as photographed by Voyager 2.

Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the fourth largest planet by diameter, and the third largest by mass. The planet is named after the Roman god of the sea. Discovered on September 23, 1846, Neptune was the first planet found by mathematical prediction rather than regular observation. Unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led astronomers to deduce the gravitational perturbation of an unknown planet. Neptune was found within a degree of the predicted position. The moon Triton was found shortly thereafter, but none of the planet's other 12 moons were discovered before the 20th century. Neptune has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, which flew by the planet on August 25, 1989. Neptune is similar in composition to Uranus, and both have different compositions from those of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Traces of methane in the atmosphere, in part, account for the planet's blue appearance. At the time of the 1989 Voyager 2 flyby, its southern hemisphere possessed a Great Dark Spot comparable to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system, which may have been detected during the 1960s but was only indisputably confirmed by Voyager 2. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected picture

• 
  C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

  Photograph: John Vermette

  C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) is a long-period comet discovered in 2014 by Australian astronomer Terry Lovejoy using a 0.2-meter (8 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. It was discovered at apparent magnitude 15 in the southern constellation of Puppis, and is the fifth comet discovered by Lovejoy. Its blue-green glow is the result of organic molecules and water released by the comet fluorescing under the harsh UV and optical light of the sun as it passes through space.
• 
  Cassini–Huygens

  Photograph credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute

  The Cassini–Huygens space-research project involved a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and its natural satellites.
  
  This natural-color mosaic image, combining thirty photographs, was taken by the Cassini orbiter over the course of approximately two hours on 23 July 2008 as it panned its wide-angle camera across Saturn and its ring system as the planet approached equinox. Six moons are pictured in the panorama, with the largest, Titan, visible at the bottom left.
• 

  

  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.
• 

  

  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.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  Lunar phase

  Image: Tom Ruen

  An animation of the phases of the Moon. As the Moon revolves around the Earth, the Sun lights the Moon from a different side, creating the different phases. In the image, the Moon appears to get bigger as well as "wobble" slightly. Tidal locking synchronizes the Moon's rotation period on its axis to match its orbital period around the earth. These two periods nearly cancel each other out, except that the Moon's orbit is elliptical. This causes its orbital motion to speed up when closer to the Earth, and slow down when farther away, causing the Moon's apparent diameter to change, as well as the wobbling motion observed.
• 
  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.
• 
  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).
• 
  Husband Hill

  Photo credit: Spirit rover

  A 360° panorama taken during the descent from the summit of Husband Hill, one of the Columbia Hills in Gusev crater, Mars. This stitched image is composed of 405 individual images taken with five different filters on the panoramic camera over the course of five Martian days.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  Pluto

  Photograph: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

  Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. Discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto was originally considered to be the ninth planet from the Sun. Following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt, its status as a planet was questioned, and in 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) gave a definition of the term "planet" that excluded Pluto. The largest and second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock. It is relatively small, with a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit.
  
  This photograph of Pluto is a composite of four near-true color images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The most prominent feature in the image, the bright, youthful, nitrogen ice plains of Sputnik Planitia, the left lobe of heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio, is at right center. This contrasts with the darker, more cratered terrain of Cthulhu Macula at lower left.
• 
  Full moon

  Photo credit: Luc Viatour

  Full moon is a lunar phase that occurs when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, and when the three celestial bodies are aligned as closely as possible to a straight line. At this time, as seen by viewers on Earth, the hemisphere of the Moon that is facing the Earth (the near side) is fully illuminated by sunlight and appears round. Only during a full moon is the opposite hemisphere of the Moon, which is not visible from Earth (the far side), completely unilluminated.
• 

  

  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.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  Polar map of Jupiter

  Photo credit: Cassini orbiter

  This polar map of Jupiter, taken by the Cassini orbiter as it neared Jupiter during a flyby on its way to Saturn, is the most detailed global color map of the planet ever produced. The south pole is in the center of the map and the equator is at the edge. The map shows a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals, and many small vortexes. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence.
• 
  Retrograde and direct motion

  Image credit: Seav

  An animated image showing the apparent retrograde motion of Mars in 2003 as seen from Earth. All the true planets appear to periodically switch direction as they cross the sky. Because Earth completes its orbit in a shorter period of time than the planets outside its orbit, we periodically overtake them, like a faster car on a multi-lane highway. When this occurs, the planet will first appear to stop its eastward drift, and then drift back toward the west. Then, as Earth swings past the planet in its orbit, it appears to resume its normal motion west to east.
• 
  Sun

  Photograph credit: NASA/SDO

  The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of plasma, heated by nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometres (860,000 miles) or 109 times that of Earth, while its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% 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 false-color photograph of the Sun was taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) at a wavelength of 304 angstroms, in the extreme ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• 
  Lunar distance

  Model: Nickshanks

  Lunar distance is a measurement of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. This diagram shows the distance, averaging 384,400 km (238,900 mi), to scale, as well as the Earth and the Moon (scroll to see the entire image).
• 
  Tranquility Base

  Photograph credit: Neil Armstrong

  Tranquility Base is the landing site of the Apollo 11 mission on the Moon where, on July 20, 1969, humans first landed and walked on a celestial body other than the Earth. This photograph was taken at Tranquility Base by Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 commander, and depicts crewmember Buzz Aldrin with scientific equipment he had just deployed on the lunar surface. In the background on the right of the image is the lunar module, Eagle; the United States flag planted at the site during the mission was blown over the next day by the exhaust of the ascent rocket.
• 
  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.
• 
  Mimas (moon)

  Photo: NASA/JPL/SSI

  Saturn's moon Mimas, as imaged by the Cassini spacecraft. It was discovered on 17 September 1789 by English astronomer William Herschel, and was named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, by Herschel's son John. The large Herschel Crater is the dominating feature of the moon. With a diameter of 396 km (246 mi), it is the smallest astronomical body that is known to be rounded due to self-gravitation.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

  Photograph: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

  A black-and-white photographic mosaic depicting the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as photographed by the probe Rosetta. This Jupiter-family comet, which was originally from the Kuiper belt, is about 4.3 km (2.7 mi) across, has a current orbital period of 6.45 years, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours, and a maximum velocity of 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph). It was first observed on photographic plates in 1969 by Soviet astronomers Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko, after whom it is named.

General images

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

• 
  The Solar System (left) within the interstellar medium, with the different regions and their distances on a logarithmic scale (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 Sun in true white color (from Solar System)
• 
  Pierre-Simon Laplace, one of the originators of the nebular hypothesis (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Sun's magnetosphere and helioshealth (from 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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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 four terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars (from Solar System)
• 
  Artist's conception of the giant impact thought to have formed the Moon (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Location of the Solar System within the Milky Way (from Formation and evolution of the 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 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)
• 
  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)
• 
  To-scale diagram of distance between planets, with the white bar showing orbital variations. The size of the planets is not to scale. (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)
• 
  Comparison of the habitable zones for different stellar temperatures, with a sample of known exoplanets plus the Earth, Mars, and Venus (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)
• 
  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)
• 
  Artist's conception of a protoplanetary disk (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)
• 
  The planets, zodiacal light and meteor shower (top left of image) (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)
• 
  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)
• 
  The Ring nebula, a planetary nebula similar to what the Sun will become (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)
• 
  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)
• 
  Hubble image of protoplanetary discs in the Orion Nebula, a light-years-wide stellar nursery probably very similar to the primordial nebula from which the Sun formed (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Solar System diagram made by Emanuel Bowen in 1747. At that time, Uranus, Neptune, nor the asteroid belts have been discovered yet. Orbits of planets are drawn to scale, but the orbits of moons and the size of bodies are not. (from Solar System)
• 
  Comet Hale–Bopp seen in 1997 (from Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Local Interstellar Cloud, the G-Cloud and surrounding stars. As of 2022, the precise location of the Solar System in the clouds is an open question in astronomy. (from Solar System)
• 
  The current Sun compared to its peak size in the red-giant phase (from Solar System)

Did you know –

• ...that New York's Panther Mountain (pictured) was the site of a prehistoric meteor crash?

• ...that the Beethoven crater in the Beethoven quadrangle on Mercury is the eleventh largest named impact crater in the Solar System?

• ...that the planet Mars appears red primarily because of a ubiquitous layer of dust containing nanophase ferric oxides?

• ...that the 1997 volcanic eruption of Pillan Patera on Jupiter's moon Io was the largest effusive eruption ever witnessed?

• ...that scarps, ridges, and troughs, such as the 650 km long and 2 km high Discovery Rupes cutting through the Rameau crater, are common features in the Discovery quadrangle on the planet Mercury?

• ...that the Kármán line dividing the Earth's atmosphere and outer space is defined by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as 100 km above mean sea level?

• ...that Mars' south polar ice cap may be melting due to global warming?

• ...that Lowell Observatory staff resisted building the telescope used to discover the dwarf planet Pluto until trustee Roger Putnam ordered them to do so?

Categories

Major categories

	Solar System
Celestial mechanics	Comets	...in fiction
Minor planets	Moons	Planetary missions
Planets...	Sun	Surface feature nomenclature...

Full category tree

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Solar System

Bodies of the Solar System

Astronomical events of the Solar System

Solar System in culture

Discovery and exploration of the Solar System

Dynamics of the Solar System

Fiction about the Solar System

Solar System images

Solar System-related lists

Solar System models

Trans-Neptunian region

In the news

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
• 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

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.

Things you can do

The planet Saturn, see here eclipsing the sun

Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : See Requested articles Assess : To help us assess the quality and importance of Solar System articles, please see: Category:Unassessed Solar System articles and Category:Unknown-importance Solar System articles. Expand : articles on the planets to help make them featured articles Infobox : Solar System articles needing infoboxes Maintain : Solar System articles needing attention Photo : Wikipedia requested photographs of astronomical bodies Stubs : Expand Solar System stub articles and Astronomy stub articles Join : WikiProject Solar System and other WikiProjects related to this subject

Related portals

Related WikiProjects

Solar System	Moon	Mars
Astronomy	Astronomical objects	Spaceflight

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals