query: How many planets are in our solar system?

title: Solar System

text: 7 light-years away. Compared to many other planetary systems, the Solar System stands out in lacking planets interior to the orbit of Mercury. The known Solar System also lacks super-Earths (Planet Nine could be a super-Earth beyond the known Solar System). Uncommonly, it has only small rocky planets and large gas giants; elsewhere planets of intermediate size are typical—both rocky and gas—so there is no "gap" as seen between the size of Earth and of Neptune (with a radius 3.8 times as large). Also, these super-Earths have closer orbits than Mercury. This led to hypothesis that all planetary systems start

title: Water on terrestrial planets of the Solar System

text: is only 2.1×10, a factor of 8 lower than Earth's VSMOW ratio. It is unclear how such a difference could exist, if physisorption were indeed the dominant form of HO accretion for Earth in particular and the terrestrial planets in general. Water on terrestrial planets of the Solar System The origin and development of water on terrestrial planets, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the closely related Earth's Moon, varies with each planetary body, with the exact origins remaining unclear. Additionally, the terrestrial dwarf planet, Ceres is known to have water ice on its surface. A significant amount of surface hydrogen has

title: Solar System

text: imagery, and sorted by volume. Some omitted objects are larger than the ones included here, notably Eris, because these have not been imaged in high quality. Solar System The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as the five 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. The Solar System formed

title: Solar System

text: Solar System The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as the five 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. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with

title: The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System

text: The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System is the title of a science book by David Baker, professor of physics at Austin College and Todd Ratcliff, a planetary geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The book is divided into nine sections with a few chapters in each section. The divisions are roughly phenomenological. The book is currently available in two translations with a third in progress. Reviews have been positive including being awarded Honorable Mention in Cosmology and Astronomy in the 2010 PROSE Awards and named an Outstanding University

text: Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries by the Association of American University Presses. The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System is the title of a science book by David Baker, professor of physics at Austin College and Todd Ratcliff, a planetary geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The book is divided into nine sections with a few chapters in each section. The divisions are roughly phenomenological. The book is currently available in two translations with a third in progress. Reviews have been positive including being awarded Honorable

title: History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses

text: occur in the interstellar material from which stars are born) formed the Sun and protoplanets, the latter splitting to form planets. The 2 portions can not remain gravitationally bound to each other, are at a mass ratio of at least 8 to 1, and for inner planets they go into independent orbits while for outer planets one of the portions exits the Solar System. The inner protoplanets were Venus-Mercury and Earth-Mars. The moons of the greater planets were formed from "droplets" in the neck connecting the 2 portions of the dividing protoplanet and these droplets could account for some of

title: Planets in astrology

text: and intense storms. Some astronomers believe that it plays an important protecting role in using its massive gravity to capture or expel from the solar system many comets and asteroids that would otherwise threaten Earth and the inner planets. Jupiter takes 11.9 years to orbit the Sun, spending almost an earth year (361 days) in each sign of the zodiac. Furthermore, Jupiter is usually the fourth-brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus). Astrologically speaking, Jupiter is associated with the principles of growth, expansion, prosperity, and good fortune. Jupiter governs long distance and foreign travel, big

text: Cremin, A.W. 1968. A survey of theories relating to the origin of the solar system. Qtly. Rev. RAS 9: 40–62. ads.abs.harvard.edu/abs</ref> William McCrea, in 1963, divided them into 2 groups also: those that relate the formation of the planets to the formation of the Sun and those where it is independent of the formation of the Sun, where the planets form after the Sun becomes a normal star. Ter Haar and Cameron distinguished between those theories that consider a closed system, which is a development of the Sun and possibly a solar envelope, that starts with a protosun rather than

title: Fictional planets of the Solar System

text: Fictional planets of the Solar System The fictional portrayal of our Solar System has often included planets, moons, and other celestial objects which do not actually exist in reality. Some of these objects were, at one time, seriously considered as hypothetical planets which were either thought to have been observed, or were hypothesized in order to explain certain celestial phenomena. Often such objects continued to be used in literature long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned. Other non-existent Solar System objects used in fiction have been proposed or hypothesized by persons with no scientific standing,

title: Fictional planets of the Solar System

text: fragments of a single planet was gradually abandoned over the course of the middle decades of the 20th century in favor of the conclusion that no planet had ever accreted in the region of the asteroid belt in the first place. In fiction, various other names were given to the same or similar concepts. Fictional planets in our Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune have been employed many times as settings or references in science fiction. Following the general reception of Pluto as the ninth planet of the Solar System in 1930, a hypothetical additional planet was sometimes called

title: Fictional planets of the Solar System

text: a "tenth planet". Since 1992, a very large number of objects have been found beyond Neptune; all the objects in the following list, however, are purely fictional. Common names for trans-Neptunian planets in fiction include Planet X, after a planet once believed to lie beyond Neptune, and Persephone (or Proserpina), after the wife of Pluto. Rogue planets in fiction usually originate outside the Solar System, but their erratic paths lead them to within detectable range of Earth. In reality, no rogue planet has ever been detected transiting the Solar System. Fictional planets of the Solar System The fictional portrayal of

title: Solar System

text: with many close-in planets, and that typically a sequence of their collisions causes consolidation of mass into few larger planets, but in case of the Solar System the collisions caused their destruction and ejection. The orbits of Solar System planets are nearly circular. Compared to other systems, they have smaller orbital eccentricity. Although there are attempts to explain it partly with a bias in the radial-velocity detection method and partly with long interactions of a quite high number of planets, the exact causes remain undetermined. This section is a sampling of Solar System bodies, selected for size and quality of

title: Geology of solar terrestrial planets

text: Their size, radius, and density are all similar. Terrestrial planets have numerous similarities to plutoids (objects like Pluto), which also have a solid surface, but are primarily composed of icy materials. During the formation of the Solar System, there were probably many more (planetesimals), but they have all merged with or been destroyed by the four remaining worlds in the solar nebula. The terrestrial planets all have roughly the same structure: a central metallic core, mostly iron, with a surrounding silicate mantle. The Moon is similar, but lacks a substantial iron core. Three of the four solar terrestrial planets (Venus,

title: Sweden Solar System

text: Sweden Solar System The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest permanent scale model of the Solar System. The Sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, the largest hemispherical building in the world. The inner planets can also be found in Stockholm but the outer planets are situated northward in other cities along the Baltic Sea. The system was started by Nils Brenning and Gösta Gahm and is on the scale of 1:20 million. The bodies represented in this model include the Sun, the planets (and some of their moons), dwarf planets and many types of small bodies

title: Geology of solar terrestrial planets

text: Geology of solar terrestrial planets The geology of solar terrestrial planets mainly deals with the geological aspects of the four terrestrial planets of the Solar System – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – and one terrestrial dwarf planet: Ceres. Earth is the only terrestrial planet known to have an active hydrosphere. 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 have an atmosphere.

title: Planets in science fiction

text: and it is extremely hostile to life. Various planets of the Solar System were used as settings for science fiction stories in the first half of the 20th century; but dissatisfaction with the limits imposed by science led many writers early on to forsake the Solar System for fictional planets around distant stars. As increasing knowledge of the Solar System made the prospects of life in the vicinity of Earth marginal at best, the extrasolar planet has become almost the only venue for contemporary science fiction. In many works of science fiction, planets are only described casually, as points of

title: Solar System

text: zone of the Solar System", enclosing the inner and the outer Solar System. The Kuiper belt is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but consisting mainly of objects composed primarily of ice. It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. Though it is estimated to contain anything from dozens to thousands of dwarf planets, it is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies. Many of the larger Kuiper belt objects, such as Quaoar, Varuna, and Orcus, may prove to be dwarf planets with further data. There are estimated to be over 100,000 Kuiper belt

title: Solar System

text: icy objects. Astronomers sometimes informally divide this structure into separate regions. The inner Solar System includes the four terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. The outer Solar System is beyond the asteroids, including the four giant planets. Since the discovery of the Kuiper belt, the outermost parts of the Solar System are considered a distinct region consisting of the objects beyond Neptune. Most of the planets in the Solar System have secondary systems of their own, being orbited by planetary objects called natural satellites, or moons (two of which, Titan and Ganymede, are larger than the planet Mercury), and, in

title: Geology of solar terrestrial planets

text: The objects within the Kuiper belt, together with the members of the scattered disc and any potential Hills cloud or Oort cloud objects, are collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Geology of solar terrestrial planets The geology of solar terrestrial planets mainly deals with the geological aspects of the four terrestrial planets of the Solar System – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – and one terrestrial dwarf planet: Ceres. Earth is the only terrestrial planet known to have an active hydrosphere. Terrestrial planets are substantially different from the giant planets, which might not have solid surfaces and are composed

title: Akaa Solar System Scale Model

text: Model was built in 2017 by amateur astronomer Kari-Pekka Arola. A walking tour of Akaa Solar System Scale Model starts from the Sun and all the planets are located northbound from the Sun. The walking route goes through the center of Toijala and towards the port of Toijala, where the furthest dwarf planet in the scale model, Eris is located. All the planets and most notable dwarf planets are included in the scale model. The current location (140 AU) of Voyager 1 -spacecraft in relation to our solar system is also presented in the scale model (as the most distant

title: Solar System

text: moons. The centaurs and many short-period comets also orbit in this region. Due to their greater distance from the Sun, the solid objects in the outer Solar System contain a higher proportion of volatiles, such as water, ammonia, and methane than those of the inner Solar System because the lower temperatures allow these compounds to remain solid. The four outer planets, or giant planets (sometimes called Jovian planets), collectively make up 99% of the mass known to orbit the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn are together more than 400 times the mass of Earth and consist overwhelmingly of hydrogen and helium.

title: Solar System in fiction

text: Solar System in fiction The Solar System and its various bodies (planets, asteroids, moons, etc.) were the earliest objects to be treated as fictional locations in works of science fiction. Among these, imaginary voyages to and explorations of Earth's Moon are found in seventeenth century literature. By the early twentieth century, following the increase in scientific and technological development spurred by the Industrial Revolution, fictional journeys to (or from) the Solar System's other planets had become common in fiction. Early literature regarding the Solar System, following scientific speculations dating back to the 17th century, assumed that every planet hosted its

title: Fictional planets of the Solar System

text: while yet others are purely fictional and were never intended as serious hypotheses about the structure of the Solar System. Vulcan was a hypothetical planet supposed to revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, invoked to explain certain irregularities in Mercury's orbit. The planet was proposed as a hypothesis in 1859, and abandoned not later than 1915. The name "Vulcan" has been used for various other fictional planets, in and out of the Solar System, that do not correspond to the hypothetical planet Vulcan. The planet Vulcan in the "Star Trek" franchise, for instance, is specified as orbiting

title: Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons

text: asterisk (*) had complicated discoveries. Some took years to be confirmed, and in several cases were actually lost and rediscovered. Others were found in Voyager photographs years after they were taken." The planets and their natural satellites are marked in the following colors: <onlyinclude> </includeonly></onlyinclude> Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons <onlyinclude> The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication

title: Small Solar System body

text: natural satellites (moons) differ from small Solar System bodies not in size, but in their orbits. The orbits of natural satellites are not centered on the Sun, but around other Solar System objects such as planets, dwarf planets, and small Solar System bodies. Some of the larger small Solar System bodies may be reclassified in future as dwarf planets, pending further examination to determine whether or not they are in hydrostatic equilibrium. The orbits of the vast majority of small Solar System bodies are located in two distinct areas, namely the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. These two belts

title: Solar System in fiction

text: and that Mars could hardly support any macroscopic life forms on its surface, much less an advanced civilization. In the 1980s it was shown that the surfaces of Jupiter's moons were just as hostile to life. More recent fiction focused on the Solar System has thus tended to address its exploration for purposes such as terraforming, the engineering of planets for human habitation, than the possibility of any existing life. The following works or series use multiple planets and other locations within the Solar System as their primary settings: Solar System in fiction The Solar System and its various bodies

title: Solar System

text: the early Solar System, but they either merged or were destroyed, leaving the planets, dwarf planets, and leftover minor bodies. Due to their higher boiling points, only metals and silicates could exist in solid form in the warm inner Solar System close to the Sun, and these would eventually form the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Because metallic elements only comprised a very small fraction of the solar nebula, the terrestrial planets could not grow very large. The giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed further out, beyond the frost line, the point between the orbits

title: Solar System

text: disc-like regions of cosmic dust. The first, the zodiacal dust cloud, lies in the inner Solar System and causes the zodiacal light. It was likely formed by collisions within the asteroid belt brought on by gravitational interactions with the planets. The second dust cloud extends from about 10 AU to about 40 AU, and was probably created by similar collisions within the Kuiper belt. The inner Solar System is the region comprising the terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. Composed mainly of silicates and metals, the objects of the inner Solar System are relatively close to the Sun; the radius

title: Solar System model

text: Solar System model Solar System models, especially mechanical models, called "orreries", that illustrate the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System have been built for centuries. While they often showed relative sizes, these models were usually not built to scale. The enormous ratio of interplanetary distances to planetary diameters makes constructing a scale model of the Solar System a challenging task. As one example of the difficulty, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is almost 12,000 times the diameter of the Earth. If the smaller planets are to be easily visible to

title: Small Solar System body

text: Small Solar System body A small Solar System body (SSSB) is an object in the Solar System that is neither a planet, a dwarf planet, nor a natural satellite. The term was first defined in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as follows: "All other objects, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as 'Small Solar System Bodies' ". This encompasses all comets and all minor planets other than those that are dwarf planets. Thus SSSBs are: the classical asteroids, with the exception of the dwarf planet Ceres; the trojans; and the centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects,

title: Solar System

text: course of its year. A body's closest approach to the Sun is called its "perihelion", whereas its most distant point from the Sun is called its "aphelion". The orbits of the planets are nearly circular, but many comets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects follow highly elliptical orbits. The positions of the bodies in the Solar System can be predicted using numerical models. Although the Sun dominates the system by mass, it accounts for only about 2% of the angular momentum. The planets, dominated by Jupiter, account for most of the rest of the angular momentum due to the combination of

title: Stability of the Solar System

text: is unlikely any of the planets will collide with each other or be ejected from the system in the next few billion years, and the Earth's orbit will be relatively stable. Since Newton's law of gravitation (1687), mathematicians and astronomers (such as Laplace, Lagrange, Gauss, Poincaré, Kolmogorov, Vladimir Arnold and Jürgen Moser) have searched for evidence for the stability of the planetary motions, and this quest led to many mathematical developments, and several successive 'proofs' of stability of the Solar System. The orbits of the planets are open to long-term variations. Modeling the Solar System is a case of the

title: Planets beyond Neptune

text: tiny, tiny, field of view, that would suggest that there are something like 200,000 Earth-sized planets in the outer Solar System ... Even better, I just realized that this many Earth-sized planets existing would destabilize the entire Solar System and we would all die." As of 2016 the following observations severely constrain the mass and distance of any possible additional Solar System planet: Planets beyond Neptune Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century and continued at the start of

title: Solar System

text: other bodies orbiting the Sun. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%. The remaining objects of the Solar System (including the four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) together comprise less than 0.002% of the Solar System's total mass. Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's

text: Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons <onlyinclude> The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the discoverer(s) listed. Historically the naming of moons did not always match the times of their discovery. Traditionally, the discoverer enjoys the privilege of naming the new object; however, some neglected to do

title: Solar System

text: interaction of this magnetic field and material with Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles into Earth's upper atmosphere, where its interactions create aurorae seen near the magnetic poles. The heliosphere and planetary magnetic fields (for those planets that have them) partially shield the Solar System from high-energy interstellar particles called cosmic rays. The density of cosmic rays in the interstellar medium and the strength of the Sun's magnetic field change on very long timescales, so the level of cosmic-ray penetration in the Solar System varies, though by how much is unknown. The interplanetary medium is home to at least two

title: Solar System

text: orbit, known as the ecliptic. The planets are very close to the ecliptic, whereas comets and Kuiper belt objects are frequently at significantly greater angles to it. All the planets, and most other objects, orbit the Sun in the same direction that the Sun is rotating (counter-clockwise, as viewed from above Earth's north pole). There are exceptions, such as Halley's Comet. The overall structure of the charted regions of the Solar System consists of the Sun, four relatively small inner planets surrounded by a belt of mostly rocky asteroids, and four giant planets surrounded by the Kuiper belt of mostly

title: Stability of the Solar System

text: planets, it could substantially disrupt the Oort cloud which could cause major comet activity throughout the solar system. There are at least a dozen other stars that have a potential to make a close approach in the next few million years. Project LONGSTOP (Long-term Gravitational Study of the Outer Planets) was a 1982 international consortium of Solar System dynamicists led by Archie Roy. It involved creation of a model on a supercomputer, integrating the orbits of (only) the outer planets. Its results revealed several curious exchanges of energy between the outer planets, but no signs of gross instability. Another project

text: Water on terrestrial planets of the Solar System The origin and development of water on terrestrial planets, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the closely related Earth's Moon, varies with each planetary body, with the exact origins remaining unclear. Additionally, the terrestrial dwarf planet, Ceres is known to have water ice on its surface. A significant amount of surface hydrogen has been observed globally by the Mars Odyssey GRS. Stoichiometrically estimated water mass fractions indicate that—when free of carbon dioxide—the near surface at the poles consists almost entirely of water covered by a thin veneer of fine material. This is reinforced by

title: Outer planets

text: concepts: Outer planets The outer planets are those planets in the Solar System beyond the asteroid belt, and hence refers to the gas giants and ice giants, which are in order of their distance from the Sun: The outer planets all have ring systems, although all but Saturn's are faint when viewed from Earth. Another aspect common to the gas giants is their many natural satellites (moons), two of which are larger than the planet Mercury (Jupiter's Ganymede and Saturn's Titan). That pair and Io, Callisto, Europa, and Triton, are larger than Pluto and Eris. This region of space is

title: Outer planets

text: Outer planets The outer planets are those planets in the Solar System beyond the asteroid belt, and hence refers to the gas giants and ice giants, which are in order of their distance from the Sun: The outer planets all have ring systems, although all but Saturn's are faint when viewed from Earth. Another aspect common to the gas giants is their many natural satellites (moons), two of which are larger than the planet Mercury (Jupiter's Ganymede and Saturn's Titan). That pair and Io, Callisto, Europa, and Triton, are larger than Pluto and Eris. This region of space is also

title: Numerical model of the Solar System

text: can no longer be considered as particles, but their shape and density must also be considered. For example, the flattening of the Earth causes precession, which causes the axial tilt to change, which affects the long-term movements of all planets. Long term models, going beyond a few tens of millions of years, are not possible due to the lack of stability of the Solar System. Numerical model of the Solar System A numerical model of the Solar System is a set of mathematical equations, which, when solved, give the approximate positions of the planets as a function of time. Attempts

title: Stability of the Solar System

text: Stability of the Solar System The stability of the Solar System is a subject of much inquiry in astronomy. Though the planets have been stable when historically observed, and will be in the short term, their weak gravitational effects on one another can add up in unpredictable ways. For this reason (among others) the Solar System is chaotic, and even the most precise long-term models for the orbital motion of the Solar System are not valid over more than a few tens of millions of years. The Solar System is stable in human terms, and far beyond, given that it

title: Solar System

text: Identified dwarf planets include the asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to these two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds, freely travel between regions. Six of the planets, at least four of the dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after the Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a bubble-like region in the interstellar medium

title: Planets in science fiction

text: Planets in science fiction Planets in science fiction are fictional planets that appear in various media of the science fiction genre as story-settings or depicted locations. Before Galileo turned his telescope to the heavens, the planets of the Solar System were not widely recognized as worlds, or places where a person could potentially set foot; they were visible to observers merely as bright points of light, distinguishable from stars only by their motion. In the system of Claudius Ptolemy ("fl. c." 150), the Alexandrian astronomer whose works were the basis of all European astronomy throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance,

title: Formation and evolution of the Solar System

text: transforming it into an active galactic nucleus. The force of these interactions will likely push the Solar System into the new galaxy's outer halo, leaving it relatively unscathed by the radiation from these collisions. It is a common misconception that this collision will disrupt the orbits of the planets in the Solar System. Although it is true that the gravity of passing stars can detach planets into interstellar space, distances between stars are so great that the likelihood of the Milky Way–Andromeda collision causing such disruption to any individual star system is negligible. Although the Solar System as a whole

title: Geology of solar terrestrial planets

text: billions of years ago in the cores of massive stars. These elements constituted only 0.6% of the material in the solar nebula. That is why the terrestrial planets could not grow very large and could not exert large pull on hydrogen and helium gas. Also, the faster collisions among particles close to the Sun were more destructive on average. Even if the terrestrial planets had had hydrogen and helium, the Sun would have heated the gases and caused them to escape. Hence, solar terrestrial planets such as Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are dense small worlds composed mostly from 2%

text: could be affected by these events, the Sun and planets are not expected to be disturbed. However, over time, the cumulative probability of a chance encounter with a star increases, and disruption of the planets becomes all but inevitable. Assuming that the Big Crunch or Big Rip scenarios for the end of the Universe do not occur, calculations suggest that the gravity of passing stars will have completely stripped the dead Sun of its remaining planets within 1 quadrillion (10) years. This point marks the end of the Solar System. Although the Sun and planets may survive, the Solar System,

title: Colonization of the outer Solar System

text: one of Neptune's satellites could be used for colonization. Triton's surface shows signs of extensive geological activity that implies a subsurface ocean, perhaps composed of ammonia/water. If technology advanced to the point that tapping such geothermal energy was possible, it could make colonizing a cryogenic world like Triton feasible, supplemented by nuclear fusion power. The noted physicist Freeman Dyson identified comets, rather than planets, as the major potential "habitat" of life in space. There would be many problems in colonizing the outer Solar System. These include: Colonization of the outer Solar System Many parts of the outer Solar System have

title: Solar System

text: lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic. The Solar System also contains smaller objects. The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly discovered population of sednoids. Within these populations are several dozen to possibly tens of thousands of objects large enough that they have been rounded by their own gravity. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets.

title: Solar System

text: km. The first centaur discovered, 2060 Chiron, has also been classified as comet (95P) because it develops a coma just as comets do when they approach the Sun. Comets are small Solar System bodies, typically only a few kilometres across, composed largely of volatile ices. They have highly eccentric orbits, generally a perihelion within the orbits of the inner planets and an aphelion far beyond Pluto. When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface to sublimate and ionise, creating a coma: a long tail of gas and dust often visible to

title: Small Solar System body

text: with the exception of the dwarf planets Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, Eris, and others that may turn out to be dwarf planets. It is not presently clear whether a lower size bound will be established as part of the definition of small Solar System bodies in the future, or if it will encompass all material down to the level of meteoroids, the smallest macroscopic bodies in orbit around the Sun. (On a microscopic level there are even smaller objects such as interplanetary dust, particles of solar wind and free particles of hydrogen.) Except for the largest, which are in hydrostatic equilibrium,

title: Solar System

text: is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's development of a planetary system because the planets form from the accretion of "metals". The vast majority of the Solar System consists of a near-vacuum known as the interplanetary medium. Along with light, the Sun radiates a continuous stream of charged particles (a plasma) known as the solar wind. This stream of particles spreads outwards at roughly 1.5 million kilometres per hour, creating a tenuous atmosphere that permeates the interplanetary medium out to at least 100 AU "(see )". Activity on the Sun's surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass

title: Colonization of the outer Solar System

text: Colonization of the outer Solar System Many parts of the outer Solar System have been considered for possible future colonization. Most of the larger moons of the outer planets contain water ice, liquid water, and organic compounds that might be useful for sustaining human life. Colonies in the outer Solar System could also serve as centers for long-term investigation of the planet and the other moons. In particular, robotic devices could be controlled by humans without the very long time delays incurred in communicating with Earth. There have also been proposals to place robotic aerostats in the upper atmospheres of

text: astronomy, physics, geology, and planetary science. Since the dawn of the space age in the 1950s and the discovery of extrasolar planets in the 1990s, the model has been both challenged and refined to account for new observations. The Solar System has evolved considerably since its initial formation. Many moons have formed from circling discs of gas and dust around their parent planets, while other moons are thought to have formed independently and later been captured by their planets. Still others, such as Earth's Moon, may be the result of giant collisions. Collisions between bodies have occurred continually up to

title: Planets in astrology

text: center of our solar system, around which the Earth and other planets revolve and provides us with heat and light. The arc that the Sun travels in every year, rising and setting in a slightly different place each day, is therefore in reality a reflection of the Earth's own orbit around the Sun. This arc is larger the farther north or south from the equator latitude, giving a more extreme difference between day and night and between seasons during the year. The Sun travels through the twelve signs of the zodiac on its annual journey, spending about a month in

text: eccentricity, with some planets' orbits becoming significantly more—or less—elliptical. Ultimately, the Solar System is stable in that none of the planets are likely to collide with each other or be ejected from the system in the next few billion years. Beyond this, within five billion years or so Mars's eccentricity may grow to around 0.2, such that it lies on an Earth-crossing orbit, leading to a potential collision. In the same timescale, Mercury's eccentricity may grow even further, and a close encounter with Venus could theoretically eject it from the Solar System altogether or send it on a collision course

title: Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research

text: Research offers the PhD programme "International Max-Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Solar System Science" together with the University of Göttingen. The Solar System School offers a three-year course of study emphasizing actual research. The curriculum covers the entire area of the solar system from small bodies to the planets and the Sun. The goal is a broad, interdisciplinary, and solid scientific education, extended with courses in numerical physics, space technology, project management, scientific writing, and presentation techniques. There are always about 50 graduate students studying at the Solar System School. Two thirds are from abroad from over 30 different countries.

title: Solar System model

text: of this can be seen in planetaria like the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, the Clark Planetarium, the Griffith Observatory, the Louisiana Arts and Sciences Museum, the Adventure Science Center, etc. Solar System model Solar System models, especially mechanical models, called "orreries", that illustrate the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System have been built for centuries. While they often showed relative sizes, these models were usually not built to scale. The enormous ratio of interplanetary distances to planetary diameters makes constructing a scale

title: Wonders of the Solar System

text: 31 March 2011, the series won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary film-making. The first episode illustrates how the formation and behaviour of the Sun affects each planet in the Solar System. During this episode, Cox visits India to view and explain the workings of a total solar eclipse and the partial eclipses that occur on other planets. He travels to the Iguazu Falls to relate the causality between river levels, and sunspot fluctuations. An explanation of the Earth's exposure to the power of the Sun occurs in Death Valley, California, US, with an experiment inspired

title: Small Solar System body

text: possess some internal structure related to perturbations by the major planets (particularly Jupiter and Neptune, respectively), and have fairly loosely defined boundaries. Other areas of the Solar System also encompass small bodies in smaller concentrations. These include the near-Earth asteroids, centaurs, comets, and scattered disc objects. Small Solar System body A small Solar System body (SSSB) is an object in the Solar System that is neither a planet, a dwarf planet, nor a natural satellite. The term was first defined in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as follows: "All other objects, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be

title: Solar System (song)

text: a "silliness that registered as charming". Solar System (song) "Solar System" is a song written by Brian Wilson for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1977 album "The Beach Boys Love You" with a lead vocal by Brian Wilson. During the afternoon of October 26, 1976, Trish Campo, former chief administrator of Brother Studios recalled Brian at the studio sitting at a Hammond B3 organ, absently gazing at the giant circular stained glass window over him depicting planets and stars. Later that afternoon, Campo heard "Solar System" coming out of the studio. Brian explained

title: Solar System (song)

text: Solar System (song) "Solar System" is a song written by Brian Wilson for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1977 album "The Beach Boys Love You" with a lead vocal by Brian Wilson. During the afternoon of October 26, 1976, Trish Campo, former chief administrator of Brother Studios recalled Brian at the studio sitting at a Hammond B3 organ, absently gazing at the giant circular stained glass window over him depicting planets and stars. Later that afternoon, Campo heard "Solar System" coming out of the studio. Brian explained that the lyrics were written while

title: Discovery and exploration of the Solar System

text: Discovery and exploration of the Solar System Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation, visitation, and increase in knowledge and understanding of Earth's "cosmic neighborhood". This includes the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the major planets including Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, their satellites, as well as smaller bodies including comets, asteroids, and dust. For many thousands of years, astronomers maintained a geocentric world view and did not recognize the existence of a Solar System. Most believed Earth was stationary at the center of the Universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects

title: Planetary system

text: for a natural satellite. Indications suggest that the confirmed extrasolar planet WASP-12b also has at least one satellite. Unlike the Solar System, which has orbits that are nearly circular, many of the known planetary systems display much higher orbital eccentricity. An example of such a system is 16 Cygni. The mutual inclination between two planets is the angle between their orbital planes. Many compact systems with multiple close-in planets interior to the equivalent orbit of Venus are expected to have very low mutual inclinations, so the system (at least the close-in part) would be even flatter than the solar system.

title: Geology of solar terrestrial planets

text: is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 55 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger; 20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies (remnants from the Solar System's formation) and at least one dwarf planet—Pluto, which may be geologically active. But while the asteroid belt is composed primarily of rock and metal, the Kuiper belt is composed largely of ices, such as methane, ammonia, and water.

title: Solar System

text: is , discovered in 2012. Its aphelion is only half that of Sedna's, at 400–500 AU. The Oort cloud is a hypothetical spherical cloud of up to a trillion icy objects that is thought to be the source for all long-period comets and to surround the Solar System at roughly 50,000 AU (around 1 light-year (ly)), and possibly to as far as 100,000 AU (1.87 ly). It is thought to be composed of comets that were ejected from the inner Solar System by gravitational interactions with the outer planets. Oort cloud objects move very slowly, and can be perturbed by

text: primordial ×1.6 SMOW ratio suggests that ~ of has been lost to space via solar wind stripping. The cometary and asteroidal delivery of water to accreting Earth and Mars has significant caveats, even though it is favored by D/H isotopic ratios. Key issues include: An alternative to the cometary and asteroidal delivery of HO would be the accretion via physisorption during the formation of the terrestrial planets in the solar nebula. This would be consistent with the thermodynamic estimate of around two Earth masses of water vapor within 3AU of the solar accretionary disk, which would exceed by a factor

text: MPS is organised in three departments: In addition, since 2002 there is also an International Max Planck Research School. Subjects of research at the Institute are the various objects within the solar system. A major area of study concerns the Sun, its atmosphere, the interplanetary medium as influenced by the solar wind, as well as the impact of solar particles and radiation on the planets. The second area of research involves the interiors, surfaces, atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres of the planets and their moons, as well as of comets and asteroids. A further essential part of the activities at the

text: stars and clusters and the star-clouds of the Milky Way", which proposed that the planets formed in the outer Solar System and were captured by the Sun; the moons were formed in thus manner and were captured by the planets. This caused a feud with Forest Moulton, who co-developed the planetesimal hypothesis. A preview was presented in 1909 at a meeting of the ASP (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) at the Chabot Observatory in Oakland, Cal., and newspaper headlines blared "Prof. See's Paper Causes Sensation" (San Francisco Call) and "Scientists in Furore Over Nebulae" (San Francisco Examiner). Our current knowledge

title: Solar System

text: all have impact craters and tectonic surface features, such as rift valleys and volcanoes. The term "inner planet" should not be confused with "inferior planet", which designates those planets that are closer to the Sun than Earth is (i.e. Mercury and Venus). Asteroids except for the largest, Ceres, are classified as small Solar System bodies and are composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals, with some ice. They range from a few metres to hundreds of kilometres in size. Asteroids smaller than one meter are usually called meteoroids and micrometeoroids (grain-sized), depending on different, somewhat arbitrary definitions. The asteroid

title: Solar 2

text: with asteroids, planets, stars and solar systems. Life forms are also present in the game. They appear on planets sufficiently big to store life, and are represented by a variety of ships of different size and attack power. Spaceships are coloured green if they belong to the player's planet, or to a planet that belongs to the player's solar system; red if they belong to an enemy planet or solar system; and white if they don't belong to any planet or system. All the spaceships in the map are controlled by the game's artificial intelligence (AI), and they will constantly

title: Solar System

text: orbit of Neptune lies the area of the "trans-Neptunian region", with the doughnut-shaped Kuiper belt, home of Pluto and several other dwarf planets, and an overlapping disc of scattered objects, which is tilted toward the plane of the Solar System and reaches much further out than the Kuiper belt. The entire region is still largely unexplored. It appears to consist overwhelmingly of many thousands of small worlds—the largest having a diameter only a fifth that of Earth and a mass far smaller than that of the Moon—composed mainly of rock and ice. This region is sometimes described as the "third

title: Solar System

text: diameter (roughly two-thirds the diameter of a golf ball), the giant planets would be all smaller than about 3 mm, and Earth's diameter along with that of the other terrestrial planets would be smaller than a flea (0.3 mm) at this scale. The Solar System formed 4.568 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a region within a large molecular cloud. This initial cloud was likely several light-years across and probably birthed several stars. As is typical of molecular clouds, this one consisted mostly of hydrogen, with some helium, and small amounts of heavier elements fused by previous generations

text: of 4.6 billion years, suggesting that the Solar System must be at least this old. Studies of discs around other stars have also done much to establish a time frame for Solar System formation. Stars between one and three million years old have discs rich in gas, whereas discs around stars more than 10 million years old have little to no gas, suggesting that giant planets within them have ceased forming. Note: All dates and times in this chronology are approximate and should be taken as an order of magnitude indicator only. Formation and evolution of the Solar System The

title: Solar System

text: of stars. As the region that would become the Solar System, known as the pre-solar nebula, collapsed, conservation of angular momentum caused it to rotate faster. The centre, where most of the mass collected, became increasingly hotter than the surrounding disc. As the contracting nebula rotated faster, it began to flatten into a protoplanetary disc with a diameter of roughly 200 AU and a hot, dense protostar at the centre. The planets formed by accretion from this disc, in which dust and gas gravitationally attracted each other, coalescing to form ever larger bodies. Hundreds of protoplanets may have existed in

title: Solar System

text: belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter. The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometre in diameter. Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of Earth. The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident. The outer region of the Solar System is home to the giant planets and their large

title: The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System

text: the book. Most notably, in the episode, Janet's bragging about herself does not appear to be empty bragging and she constantly raves about how "proof" is needed for all extraordinary claims, prompting her to force Arnold to collect "proof" from every planet in the solar system, so she can prove to the students in her class that she actually traveled to all the planets. Also in this one Arnold surprisingly suggests going to outer space himself to prove to Janet the truth. Also, instead of remaining in the asteroid belt, Ms. Frizzle uses her jet pack to fly off to

title: Solar System

text: and neon, which were always in the gaseous phase in the nebula. Ices, like water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide, have melting points up to a few hundred kelvins. They can be found as ices, liquids, or gases in various places in the Solar System, whereas in the nebula they were either in the solid or gaseous phase. Icy substances comprise the majority of the satellites of the giant planets, as well as most of Uranus and Neptune (the so-called "ice giants") and the numerous small objects that lie beyond Neptune's orbit. Together, gases and ices are referred

title: Earth, Moon, and Planets

text: original research articles on formation of stars and planets, evolution of the Solar System including its origin, and the evolution of extra-solar systems including their origins. The focus also includes asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and near-Earth objects, Earth impact hazards, the Solar System-Earth relationship, and related topics. Research coverage encompasses physical and chemical properties of the above-mentioned celestial bodies, and their related chaotic behavior. This journal is abstracted and indexed in the following databases: Earth, Moon, and Planets Earth, Moon, and Planets is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, published approximately ten times per year by Springer Science+Business Media. It was established in

title: Solar 2

text: Life forms will disappear, but the player will be able to attract planets to form a solar system, further grow the star by absorbing other planets, or a combination of both. The player can also create multi-star systems by selecting planets from their system and make them absorb asteroids until they become another star. Growing the star will increase its gravitational force, which increases the number of planets the solar system can have. They will also be able to attract solar systems composed of stars with lower mass than that of the player, or being attracted to stars with bigger

title: Name conflicts with minor planets

text: Name conflicts with minor planets There are several real or apparent name conflicts between different Solar System bodies, in spite of efforts to give every named body a distinct name. Most of these conflicts are between asteroids and natural satellites of planets, which are named according to different but partially overlapping schemes. Most satellites are named after people and divinities in Greek and Roman mythology; this is rarely true of asteroids currently, with the exception of centaurs and Jupiter trojans, but formerly many asteroids had mythological names, which consequently came into conflict with the names of natural satellites. Some of

text: to be refined. The refined nebular model was developed entirely on the basis of observations of the Solar System because it was the only one known until the mid-1990s. It was not confidently assumed to be widely applicable to other planetary systems, although scientists were anxious to test the nebular model by finding of protoplanetary discs or even planets around other stars. As of August 30, 2013, the discovery of 941 extrasolar planets has turned up many surprises, and the nebular model must be revised to account for these discovered planetary systems, or new models considered. Among the extrasolar planets

title: Planets in astrology

text: Indian and Chinese astrologies have tended to retain the ancient seven-planet system. Meanings have had to be assigned to them by modern astrologers, usually according to the major events that occurred in the world at the time of their discovery. As these astrologers are usually Western, the social and historical events they describe have an inevitable Western emphasis. Astrologers consider the "extra-Saturnian" planets to be "impersonal" or generational planets, meaning their effects are felt more across whole generations of society. Their effects in individuals depend upon how strongly they feature in that individual's birth-chart. The following are their characteristics as

title: Numerical model of the Solar System

text: Numerical model of the Solar System A numerical model of the Solar System is a set of mathematical equations, which, when solved, give the approximate positions of the planets as a function of time. Attempts to create such a model established the more general field of celestial mechanics. The results of this simulation can be compared with past measurements to check for accuracy and then be used to predict future positions. Its main use therefore is in preparation of almanacs. The simulations can be done in either Cartesian or in spherical coordinates. The former are easier, but extremely calculation intensive,

title: Stability of the Solar System

text: that keeps the far side of the Moon away from the Earth. Mercury is in a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance. The planets' orbits are chaotic over longer timescales, such that the whole Solar System possesses a Lyapunov time in the range of 2–230 million years. In all cases this means that the position of a planet along its orbit ultimately becomes impossible to predict with any certainty (so, for example, the timing of winter and summer become uncertain), but in some cases the orbits themselves may change dramatically. Such chaos manifests most strongly as changes in eccentricity, with some planets' orbits

text: the Sun's retinue of planets. Some planets will be destroyed, others ejected into interstellar space. Ultimately, over the course of tens of billions of years, it is likely that the Sun will be left with none of the original bodies in orbit around it. Ideas concerning the origin and fate of the world date from the earliest known writings; however, for almost all of that time, there was no attempt to link such theories to the existence of a "Solar System", simply because it was not generally thought that the Solar System, in the sense we now understand it, existed.

title: Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute

text: on one or more aspects of lunar science investigations of the Moon (including lunar samples), from the Moon, and on the Moon. In 2013 the NLSI became the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute and expanded its scope to include Near-Earth asteroids and Phobos and Deimos. The Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) is composed of thirteen U.S. teams, and ten international partners. The teams are listed below: US TEAMS: Focus: Formation of terrestrial planets and asteroid belt, modeling of the Moon's origin and Phobos/Deimos, history of NEAs and lunar bombardment, NEA origins, identification and characterization boulder.swri.edu Focus: Studies

title: Inferior and superior planets

text: Inferior and superior planets In the Solar System, a planet is said to be inferior or interior with respect to another planet if its orbit lies inside the other planet's orbit around the Sun. In this situation, the latter planet is said to be superior to the former. In the reference frame of the Earth, in which the terms were originally used, the inferior planets are Mercury and Venus, while the superior planets are Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Dwarf planets like Ceres or Pluto and most asteroids are 'superior' in the sense that they almost all orbit outside

text: have been forged from the remnants in less violent collisions. Moons around some asteroids currently can only be explained as consolidations of material flung away from the parent object without enough energy to entirely escape its gravity. Moons have come to exist around most planets and many other Solar System bodies. These natural satellites originated by one of three possible mechanisms: Jupiter and Saturn have several large moons, such as Io, Europa, Ganymede and Titan, which may have originated from discs around each giant planet in much the same way that the planets formed from the disc around the Sun.

text: through further collisions, growing at the rate of centimetres per year over the course of the next few million years. The inner Solar System, the region of the Solar System inside 4 AU, was too warm for volatile molecules like water and methane to condense, so the planetesimals that formed there could only form from compounds with high melting points, such as metals (like iron, nickel, and aluminium) and rocky silicates. These rocky bodies would become the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars). These compounds are quite rare in the Universe, comprising only 0.6% of the mass of the

title: Opposition (planets)

text: Sun. An inferior conjunction occurs when the two planets align on the same side of the Sun. At inferior conjunction, the superior planet is "in opposition" to the Sun as seen from the inferior planet (see the diagram). Opposition (planets) In positional astronomy, two astronomical objects are said to be in opposition when they are on opposite sides of the celestial sphere, as observed from a given body (usually Earth). A planet (or asteroid or comet) is said to be "in opposition" when it is in opposition to the Sun. Because most orbits in the Solar System are nearly coplanar

text: the present day and have been central to the evolution of the Solar System. The positions of the planets might have shifted due to gravitational interactions. This planetary migration is now thought to have been responsible for much of the Solar System's early evolution. In roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will cool and expand outward to many times its current diameter (becoming a red giant), before casting off its outer layers as a planetary nebula and leaving behind a stellar remnant known as a white dwarf. In the far distant future, the gravity of passing stars will gradually reduce

text: the planets. However, Laplace refuted this idea in 1796, showing that any planets formed in such a way would eventually crash into the Sun. Laplace felt that the near-circular orbits of the planets were a necessary consequence of their formation. Today, comets are known to be far too small to have created the Solar System in this way. In 1755, Immanuel Kant speculated that observed nebulae may in fact be regions of star and planet formation. In 1796, Laplace elaborated by arguing that the nebula collapsed into a star, and, as it did so, the remaining material gradually spun outward

text: is captured by the Sun and planets form from it. In this there were 6 original planets, corresponding to 6 point-masses in the filament, with planets A and B, the 2 innermost, colliding, the former at twice the mass of Neptune, and ejecting out of the Solar System, and the latter at 1/3 the mass of Uranus, and splitting into Earth and Venus. Mars and the Moon are former moons of A. Mercury is either a fragment of B or an escaped moon of A. The collision also produced the asteroid belt and the comets. T.J.J. See was an American

title: Satellite system (astronomy)

text: well as many asteroids and plutinos. Apart from the Earth-Moon system and Mars' system of two tiny natural satellites, the other terrestrial planets are generally not considered satellite systems, although some have been orbited by artificial satellites originating from Earth. Little is known of satellite systems beyond the Solar System, although it is inferred that natural satellites are common. J1407b is an example of an extrasolar satellite system. It is also theorised that Rogue planets ejected from their planetary system could retain a system of satellites. Satellite systems, like planetary systems, are the product of gravitational attraction, but are also

text: equals c. 2000 trillion trillion kg; Earth is at about 6 trillion trillion kg). T Tauri (see T Tauri type stars) eruptions of the Sun stripped the gases away from the inner planets. Mercury was incompletely condensed and a portion of its gases were stripped away and transported to the region between Mars and Jupiter, where it fused with in-falling oxidized condensate from the outer reaches of the Solar System and formed the parent material for ordinary chondrite meteorites, the Main-Belt asteroids, and veneer for the inner planets, especially Mars. The differences between the inner planets are primarily the consequence

text: Formation and evolution of the Solar System The formation and evolution of the Solar System began 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed. This model, known as the nebular hypothesis was first developed in the 18th century by Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, and Pierre-Simon Laplace. Its subsequent development has interwoven a variety of scientific disciplines including

title: Planets beyond Neptune

text: whether it and its neighbours should, like the asteroids, be given their own separate classification. Although a number of the larger members of this group were initially described as planets, in 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified Pluto and its largest neighbours as dwarf planets, leaving Neptune the farthest known planet in the Solar System. While the astronomical community widely agrees that Planet X, as originally envisioned, does not exist, the concept of an as-yet-unobserved planet has been revived by a number of astronomers to explain other anomalies observed in the outer Solar System. As of March 2014, observations