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 –

Comet P/Halley as taken March 8, 1986, by W. Liller

Halley's Comet is the best-known of the short-period comets, and is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye, and thus, the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime. Other naked-eye comets may be brighter and more spectacular, but will appear only once in thousands of years. Halley's returns to the inner Solar System have been observed by astronomers since at least 240 BC, and recorded by Chinese, Babylonian, and mediaeval European chroniclers, but were not recognised as reappearances of the same object. The comet's periodicity was first determined in 1705 by English astronomer Edmond Halley, after whom it is now named. It last appeared in the inner Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid-2061. During its 1986 apparition, Halley's Comet became the first to be observed in detail by spacecraft, providing the first observational data on the structure of the comet nucleus and the mechanism of coma and tail formation. These observations supported a number of longstanding hypotheses about comet construction, particularly Fred Whipple's "dirty snowball" model, which correctly surmised that Halley would be composed of a mixture of volatile ices, such as water, carbon dioxide and ammonia, and dust. However, the missions also provided data which substantially reformed and reconfigured these ideas. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected picture

• 
  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.
• 
  Victoria Crater, Mars

  Photo credit: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

  Victoria Crater, an impact crater at Meridiani Planum, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately 800 meters (half a mile) in diameter. It has a distinctive scalloped shape to its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material. Layered sedimentary rocks are exposed along the inner wall of the crater, and boulders that have fallen from the crater wall are visible on the crater floor. The floor of the crater is occupied by a striking field of sand dunes. The Mars rover Opportunity can be seen in this image, at roughly the "ten o'clock" position along the rim of the crater.
• 
  Comet McNaught

  Photo credit: Fir0002

  Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught), as seen from Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia. This non-periodic comet, the brightest in over 40 years, was discovered on August 7, 2006 by British-Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught. It was first visible in the northern hemisphere, reaching perihelion on January 12, 2007 at a distance of 0.17 AU.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  Olympus Mons

  Image credit: United States Geological Survey

  A composite image of Olympus Mons on Mars, the tallest known volcano and mountain in the Solar System. This image was created from black-and-white imagery from the USGS's Mars Global Digital Image Mosaic and color imagery acquired from the 1978 visit of Viking 1.
• 
  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.
• 
  Io

  Photo: NASA

  A true-color image of Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, taken by the Galileo spacecraft. The dark spot just left of the center is the erupting volcano Prometheus. The whitish plains on either side of it are coated with volcanically deposited sulfur dioxide frost, whereas the yellower regions contain a higher proportion of sulfur.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  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.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  Rhea

  Photo credit: Cassini orbiter

  Rhea, at 1,528 kilometres (949 mi) across, is the second-largest moon of Saturn and the ninth largest moon in the Solar System. It was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who named it after the Titan Rhea of Greek mythology, "mother of the gods".
  
  The giant Tirawa impact basin is seen above and to the right of center. Tirawa, and another basin to its southwest, are both covered in impact craters, indicating they are quite ancient.
• 
  Great Red Spot

  Photo credit: Voyager 1

  False-color detail of Jupiter's atmosphere, imaged by Voyager 1, showing the Great Red Spot and a passing white oval. The wavy cloud pattern to the left of the Red Spot is a region of extraordinarily complex and variable wave motion. To give a sense of Jupiter's scale, the white oval storm directly below the Great Red Spot is approximately the same diameter as Earth.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  Neptune

  Photograph credit: NASA / JPL

  Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the third-most-massive planet and the densest giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth, slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus. Neptune is denser and physically smaller than Uranus because its greater mass causes more gravitational compression of its atmosphere. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of 30.1 au (4.5 billion km; 2.8 billion mi). It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol ♆, a stylised version of the god Neptune's trident.
  
  This picture of Neptune was taken by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989, at a range of 4.4 million miles (7.1 million kilometres) from the planet, approximately four days before closest approach. The photograph shows the Great Dark Spot, a storm about the size of Earth, in the centre, while the fast-moving bright feature nicknamed the "Scooter" and the Small Dark Spot can be seen on the western limb. These clouds were seen to persist for as long as the spacecraft's cameras could resolve them.
• 

  

  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.
• 
  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).
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 

  

  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.

General images

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

• 
  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)
• 
  The motion of 'lights' moving across the sky is the basis of the classical definition of planets: wandering stars. (from Solar System)
• 
  Artist's conception of a protoplanetary disk (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Sun's magnetosphere and helioshealth (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 orbital eccentricities and inclinations of the scattered disc population compared to the classical and resonant Kuiper belt objects (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)
• 
  The Sun in true white color (from Solar System)
• 
  The planets, zodiacal light and meteor shower (top left of image) (from Solar System)
• 
  Artist's conception of the giant impact thought to have formed the Moon (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 outer planets orbiting. This animation is 100 times faster than the inner planet animation. (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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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 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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  Comet Hale–Bopp seen in 1997 (from Solar System)
• 
  Animations of the Solar System's inner planets orbiting. Each frame represents 2 days of motion. (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 four terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars (from Solar System)
• 
  Location of the Solar System within the Milky Way (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk, out of which Earth and other Solar System bodies formed (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 Solar System (left) within the interstellar medium, with the different regions and their distances on a logarithmic scale (from Solar System)
• 
  Diagram of the Milky Way, with galactic features and the relative position of the Solar System labeled. (from Solar System)
• 
  The Ring nebula, a planetary nebula similar to what the Sun will become (from Formation and evolution of the Solar System)
• 
  The current Sun compared to its peak size in the red-giant phase (from Solar System)
• 
  Pierre-Simon Laplace, one of the originators of the nebular hypothesis (from Formation and evolution of the 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)

Did you know –

• ... that Jupiter is the only planet capable of pulling an interstellar comet into a Sun-centered orbit?

• ...that the Solar Sentinels, a NASA spacecraft designed to study the Sun, will have to survive at distances from the Sun only one-quarter of Earth's distance?

• ...that just over 50 kilometres above its surface, the atmosphere of Venus has very similar pressure and temperature as does Earth, making it the most Earth-like area in the Solar System?

• ...that NASA conducts field trials, called Desert RATS, for new technologies for manned exploration of the surface of the Moon, Mars, or beyond?

• ...that the south pole of the planet Mercury is located in the Bach quadrangle?

• ...that the Sweden Solar System is currently the world's largest scale model of the Solar System?

• ...that the dominant feature in the Shakespeare quadrangle is the 1300 km wide Caloris Planitia, the largest and best preserved impact basin on Mercury observed by the spacecraft Mariner 10?

• ...that the nearly circular shape of Lukanga Swamp, a wetland covering 2,600 km² in Central Province, Zambia, has led to speculation that it may be a crater formed by the impact of a meteorite?

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