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At that time, Uranus, Neptune, nor the asteroid belts had been discovered yet. Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation, visitation, and increase in knowledge and understanding of Earth 's "cosmic neighborhood". [ 1 ] This includes the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the major planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus ...
The Uranian satellite system is the least massive among those of the giant planets; the combined mass of the five major satellites would be less than half that of Triton (largest moon of Neptune) alone. [12] The largest of Uranus's satellites, Titania, has a radius of only 788.9 km (490.2 mi), or less than half that of the Moon, but slightly ...
Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons, is sometimes described as part of a binary system with Pluto, as the two bodies orbit a barycenter of gravity above their surfaces (i.e. they appear to "orbit each other"). Orcus (30.3–48.1 AU), is in the same 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune as Pluto, and is the largest such object after Pluto itself ...
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 ...
The original core of the Nice model is a triplet of papers published in the general science journal Nature in 2005 by an international collaboration of scientists. [4] [5] [6] In these publications, the four authors proposed that after the dissipation of the gas and dust of the primordial Solar System disk, the four giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) were originally found on ...
The Mars Science Laboratory mission was launched on November 26, 2011, and delivered the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012 UTC. It is larger and more advanced than the Mars Exploration Rovers, with a velocity of up to 90 meters per hour (295 feet per hour). [95]
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Solar System: Solar System – gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being ...
Such a fate awaits the moons Phobos of Mars (within 30 to 50 million years), [111] Triton of Neptune (in 3.6 billion years), [112] and at least 16 small satellites of Uranus and Neptune. Uranus's Desdemona may even collide with one of its neighboring moons. [113] A third possibility is where the primary and moon are tidally locked to each other ...