Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
Main page; Contents; Current events; Random article; About Wikipedia; Contact us; Pages for logged out editors learn more
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.
{{Infobox planetary system | title = Solar System | image = Planets2013.jpg | image_scale = 1.5 | image_alt = A representative image of the Solar System with sizes but not distances to scale | caption = {{longitem | The [[Sun]] and [[List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System # Planets | planets of the Solar System]].
For guidance to spot each planet, consult an app like SkySafari ($4.99 in the Apple App Store) or Stellarium (free). Bartlett recommends finding out when the International Space Station will pass ...
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 significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies.
The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the term: the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis , which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to ...
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 ...