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English: This chart compares the (at the time of their discovery) smallest known exoplanets, or planets orbiting outside the solar system, to our own planets Mars and Earth. Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission and ground-based telescopes recently discovered the three smallest exoplanets known to circle another star, called Kepler ...
Three of the four inner planets (Venus, Earth, and Mars) have atmospheres substantial enough to generate weather; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features, such as rift valleys and volcanoes. [91] Mercury (0.31–0.59 AU from the Sun) [D 6] is the smallest planet in the Solar System.
Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons, two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.
Terrestrial planets are substantially different from the giant planets, which might not have solid surfaces and are composed mostly of some combination of hydrogen, helium, and water existing in various physical states. Terrestrial planets have a compact, rocky surfaces, and Venus, Earth, and Mars each also has an atmosphere. Their size, radius ...
Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Moon is a relatively large, terrestrial, planet-like natural satellite, with a diameter about one-quarter of Earth's. It is the largest moon in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, although Charon is larger relative to the dwarf planet Pluto.
By Irene Klotz BOSTON (Reuters) - Astronomers have discovered a new type of rocky planet beyond the solar system that weighs more than 17 times as much as Earth while being just over twice the ...
Mars – fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war , it is often referred to as the " Red Planet " [ 1 ] [ 2 ] because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance .
By RYAN GORMAN Scientists may have found Planet X -- the long-rumored object believed to be larger than Earth and further from the sun than Pluto. Planet X and another object dubbed "Planet Y ...