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It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most- massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is slightly less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets.
Originally presented as satellite planets orbiting the planet Saturn. Planetary status later rescinded, leaving them only as satellites. Titan is the second largest satellite in the Solar System, and is slightly larger than Mercury, but less massive. [ 12 ][ 6 ][ 7 ] Iapetus. 1671. 1700s. [ 13 ][ 11 ][ 6 ][ 7 ] Rhea.
The Kuiper belt (/ ˈkaɪpər / KY-pər) [ 1 ] is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. [ 2 ] It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. [ 3 ][ 4 ] Like the asteroid belt ...
The inner Solar System is the region comprising the terrestrial planets and the asteroids. [ 89 ] Composed mainly of silicates and metals, [ 90 ] the objects of the inner Solar System are relatively close to the Sun; the radius of this entire region is less than the distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
Gonggong (2007) A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the ...
The decision to name the object Pluto was intended in part to honour Percival Lowell, as his initials made up the word's first two letters. [29] After discovering Pluto, Tombaugh continued to search the ecliptic for other distant objects. He found hundreds of variable stars and asteroids, as well as two comets, but no further planets. [30]
o: 25 March 1655 p: 5 March 1656. Titan. Saturn VI Saturn II (1673–1684), Saturn IV (1686–1789) Huygens [ 12 ] first "published" his discovery as an anagram, sent out on 13 June 1655; later published in pamphlet form as De Saturni luna Observatio Nova and in full in Systema Saturnium[ 13 ] (July 1659). 1670s.
In both the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, Jupiter was named after the chief god of the divine pantheon: Zeus to the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans. [18] The International Astronomical Union formally adopted the name Jupiter for the planet in 1976 and has since named its newly discovered satellites for the god's lovers, favourites, and descendants. [19]