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In 1952, science fiction writer James Blish coined the term gas giant [3] and it was used to refer to the large non-terrestrial planets of the Solar System.However, since the late 1940s [4] the compositions of Uranus and Neptune have been understood to be significantly different from those of Jupiter and Saturn.
Although there are many icy objects in the Solar System, none of them qualify as planets under the IAU definition of planet.However, most planetary-mass moons are ice-rock (e.g. Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus, Titan, and Triton) or even primarily ice (e.g. Mimas, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, and Iapetus) and so qualify as ice planets under geophysical definitions of the term.
Parts-per-million chart of the relative mass distribution of the Solar System, each cubelet denoting 2 × 10 24 kg. This article includes a list of the most massive known objects of the Solar System and partial lists of smaller objects by observed mean radius. These lists can be sorted according to an object's radius and mass and, for the most ...
According to the IAU's explicit count, there are eight planets in the Solar System; four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and four giant planets, which can be divided further into two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). When excluding the Sun, the four giant planets account for more than ...
A giant planet, sometimes referred to as a jovian planet (Jove being another name for the Roman god Jupiter), is a diverse type of planet much larger than Earth. Giant planets are usually primarily composed of low- boiling point materials ( volatiles ), rather than rock or other solid matter, but massive solid planets can also exist.
Animations of the Solar System's inner planets orbiting. Each frame represents 2 days of motion. Animations of the Solar System's outer planets orbiting. This animation is 100 times faster than the inner planet animation. The planets and other large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic ...
There are eight planets within the Solar System; planets outside of the solar system are also known as exoplanets. Artist's concept of the potentially habitable exoplanet Kepler-186f. As of 24 January 2025, there are 5,830 confirmed exoplanets in 4,354 planetary systems, with 976 systems having more than one planet. [1]
The five-planet Nice model is a numerical model of the early Solar System that is a revised variation of the Nice model.It begins with five giant planets, the four that exist today plus an additional ice giant between Saturn and Uranus in a chain of mean-motion resonances.