What is the Biggest Planet in the Solar System? - Universe Today Universe Today What is the Biggest Planet in the Solar System? Article Updated: 23 Dec , 2015 by Matt Williams Ever since the invention of the telescope four hundred years ago, astronomers have been fascinated by the gas giant of Jupiter. Between it’s constant, swirling clouds, its many, many moons, and its Giant Red Spot, there are many things about this planet that are both delightful and fascinating. But perhaps the most impressive feature about Jupiter is its sheer size. In terms of mass, volume, and surface area, Jupiter is the biggest planet in our Solar System by a wide margin. But just what makes Jupiter so massive, and what else do we know about it? Size and Mass: Jupiter’s mass, volume, surface area and mean circumference are 1.8981 x 1027 kg, 1.43128 x 1015 km3, 6.1419 x 1010 km2, and 4.39264 x 105 km respectively.

To put that in perspective, Jupiter diameter is roughly 11 times that of Earth, and 2.5 the mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined. But, being a gas giant, Jupiter has a relatively low density – 1.326 g/cm3 – which is less than one quarter of Earth’s. This means that while Jupiter’s volume is equivalent to about 1,321 Earths, it is only 318 times as massive. The low density is one way scientists are able to determine that it is made mostly of gases, though the debate still rages on what exists at its core (see below). Composition: Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter. It is the largest of the gas giants, and like them, is divided between a gaseous outer atmosphere and an interior that is made up of denser materials. It’s upper atmosphere is composed of about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium by percent volume of gas molecules, and approx. 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, with the remaining one percent consisting of other elements.

This cut-away illustrates a model of the interior of Jupiter, with a rocky core overlaid by a deep layer of liquid metallic hydrogen. Credit: Kelvinsong/Wikimedia Commons The atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and silicon-based compounds as well as trace amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, and sulfur. Crystals of frozen ammonia have also been observed in the outermost layer of the atmosphere. The interior contains denser materials, such that the distribution is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium and 5% other elements by mass. It is believed that Jupiter’s core is a dense mix of elements – a surrounding layer of liquid metallic hydrogen with some helium, and an outer layer predominantly of molecular hydrogen. The core has also been described as rocky, but this remains unknown as well. In 1997, the existence of the core was suggested by gravitational measurements, indicating a mass of from 12 to 45 times the Earth’s mass, or roughly 4%–14% of the total mass of Jupiter.

The presence of a core is also supported by models of planetary formation that indicate how a rocky or icy core would have been necessary at some point in the planet’s history in order to collect its bulk of hydrogen and helium from the protosolar nebula. However, it is possible that this core has since shrunk due to convection currents of hot, liquid, metallic hydrogen mixing with the molten core. This core may even be absent now, but a detailed analysis is needed before this can be confirmed. The Juno mission , which launched in August 2011, is expected to provide some insight into these questions, and thereby make progress on the problem of the core. The temperature and pressure inside Jupiter increase steadily toward the core. At the “surface”, the pressure and temperature are believed to be 10 bars and 340 K (67 °C, 152 °F). At the “phase transition” region, where hydrogen becomes metallic, it is believed the temperature is 10,000 K (9,700 °C; 17,500 °F) and the pressure is 200 GPa.

The temperature at the core boundary is estimated to be 36,000 K (35,700 °C; 64,300 °F) and the interior pressure at roughly 3,000–4,500 GPa. Moons: The Jovian system currently includes 67 known moons. The four largest are known as the Galilean Moons , which are named after their discoverer, Galileo Galilei . They include: Io , the most volcanically active body in our Solar System; Europa , which is suspected of having a massive subsurface ocean; Ganymede , the largest moon in our Solar System; and Callisto , which is also thought to have a subsurface ocean and features some of the oldest surface material in the Solar System. Then there’s the Inner Group (or Amalthea group), which is made up of four small moons that have diameters of less than 200 km, orbit at radii less than 200,000 km, and have orbital inclinations of less than half a degree. This groups includes the moons of Metis , Adrastea , Amalthea , and Thebe .

Along with a number of as-yet-unseen inner moonlets, these moons replenish and maintain Jupiter’s faint ring system. Jupiter also has an array of Irregular Satellites, which are substantially smaller and have more distant and eccentric orbits than the others. These moons are broken down into families that have similarities in orbit and composition, and are believed to be largely the result of collisions from large objects that were captured by Jupiter’s gravity. Illustration of Jupiter and the Galilean satellites. Credit: NASA Interesting Facts: Much like Earth, Jupiter experiences auroras near its northern and southern poles. But on Jupiter, the auroral activity is much more intense and rarely ever stops. The intense radiation, Jupiter’s magnetic field, and the abundance of material from Io’s volcanoes that react with Jupiter’s ionosphere creates a light show that is truly spectacular. Jupiter also has a violent atmosphere. Winds in the clouds can reach speeds of up to 620 kph (385 mph). Storms form within hours and can become thousands of km in diameter overnight. One storm, the Great Red Spot , has been raging since at least the late 1600s.

The storm has been shrinking and expanding throughout its history; but in 2012, it was suggested that the Giant Red Spot might eventually disappear . The discovery of exoplanets has revealed that planets can get even bigger than Jupiter. In fact, the number of “ Super Jupiters ” observed by the Kepler space probe (as well as ground-based telescopes) in the past few years has been staggering. In fact, as of 2015, more than 300 such planets have been identified. Notable examples include PSR B1620-26 b (Methuselah), which was the first super-Jupiter to be observed (in 2003). At 12.7 billion years of age, it is also the third oldest known planet in the universe. There’s also HD 80606 b (Niobe), which has the most eccentric orbit of any known planet, and 2M1207b (Lerna), which orbits the brown dwarf Fomalhaut b (Illion). Scientist theorize that a gas gain could get 15 times the size of Jupiter before it began deuterium fusion, making it a brown dwarf star.

Good thing too, since the last thing the Solar System needs if for Jupiter to go nova! Jupiter was appropriately named by the ancient Romans, who chose to name after the king of the Gods (Jupiter, or Jove). The more we have come to know and understand about this most-massive of Solar planets, the more deserving of this name it appears. If you’re wondering, here’s how big planets can get with a lot of mass, and here’s what is the biggest star in the Universe . And here’s the 2nd largest planet in the Solar System. Here’s another article about the which is the largest planet in the Solar System , and here’s what’s the smallest planet in the Solar System . We have recorded a whole series of podcasts about the Solar System at Astronomy Cast . Check them out here. Source: Smallest and Largest Planets in the Solar System By: Maria Temming | July 15, 2014 There are a couple of different ways to measure how “big” something is. The first is an object’s mass (how much matter it contains) and the second is its volume (how much space it takes up).

The smallest and largest planets in our solar system are Mercury and Jupiter , respectively. The smallest planet in regards to both mass and volume is Mercury —this tiny world is nearly 20 times less massive than Earth, and its diameter is about times 2 ½ smaller. In fact, Mercury is closer in size to our Moon than to Earth. The largest planet in our solar system by far is Jupiter, which beats out all the other planets in both mass and volume. Jupiter’s mass is more than 300 times that of Earth, and its diameter is about 11 times larger than Earth’s diameter. (Jupiter's Great Red Spot, even at its current diminished size , spans 15,900, just over a full Earth diameter.) Jupiter is 2 ½ times more massive than the rest of the planets in the solar system combined. A size comparison of the planets in our solar system. In order of increasing distance from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. NASA Lunar and Planetary Institute Learn more about our solar system's most ostentatious planet — the ringed giant Saturn and its fascinating family of moons — in our FREE ebook, Saturn's Bounty .

Enter your email address to download the ebook, and you'll also receive our weekly e-newsletter with the latest astronomy news. * Planet Jupiter: Facts About Its Size, Moons and Red Spot Planet Jupiter: Facts About Its Size, Moons and Red Spot By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | November 14, 2014 12:59am ET MORE This photo of Jupiter was taken on Sept. 20, 2010 when Jupiter made its closest approach to Earth since 1963. (Uranus [insert] was visible through telescopes near Jupiter.) Credit: Jimmy Eubanks Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Fittingly, it was named after the king of the gods in Roman mythology. In a similar manner, the ancient Greeks named the planet after Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon. Jupiter helped revolutionize the way we saw the universe and ourselves in 1610, when Galileo discovered Jupiter's four large moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, now known as the Galilean moons.

This was the first time celestial bodies were seen circling an object other than Earth, major support of the Copernican view that Earth was not the center of the universe. Physical characteristics Jupiter is the most massive planet in our solar system , more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined, and had it been about 80 times more massive, it would have actually become a star instead of a planet. Its atmosphere resembles that of the sun, made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, and with four large moons and many smaller moons in orbit around it, Jupiter by itself forms a kind of miniature solar system. All told, the immense volume of Jupiter could hold more than 1,300 Earths. The colorful bands of Jupiter are arranged in dark belts and light zones created by strong east-west winds in the planet's upper atmosphere traveling more than 400 mph (640 kph). The white clouds in the zones are made of crystals of frozen ammonia, while darker clouds of other chemicals are found in the belts. At the deepest visible levels are blue clouds. Far from being static, the stripes of clouds change over time . Inside the atmosphere, diamond rain may fill the skies.

The most extraordinary feature on Jupiter is undoubtedly the Great Red Spot , a giant hurricane-like storm seen for more than 300 years. At its widest, the Great Red Spot is three times the diameter of the Earth, and its edge spins counterclockwise around its center at a speed of about 225 mph (360 kph). The color of the storm, which usually varies from brick red to slightly brown, may come from small amounts of sulfur and phosphorus in the ammonia crystals in Jupiter's clouds. The spot grows and shrinks over time, and every now and again, seems to fade entirely. Jupiter's gargantuan magnetic field is the strongest of all the planets in the solar system at nearly 20,000 times the strength of Earth's. It traps electrically charged particles in an intense belt of electrons and other electrically charged particles that regularly blasts the planet's moons and rings with a level of radiation more than 1,000 times the lethal level for a human, damaging even heavily shielded spacecraft such as NASA's Galileo probe.

The magnetosphere of Jupiter, which is composed of these fields and particles, swells out some 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 million to 3 million km) toward the sun and tapers to a tail extending more than 600 million miles (1 billion km) behind Jupiter. Jupiter spins faster than any other planet, taking a little under 10 hours to complete a turn on its axis, compared with 24 hours for Earth. This rapid spin makes Jupiter bulge at the equator and flatten at the poles, making the planet about 7 percent wider at the equator than at the poles. Jupiter broadcasts radio waves strong enough to detect on Earth. These come in two forms — strong bursts that occur when Io, the closest of Jupiter's large moons, passes through certain regions of Jupiter's magnetic field, and continuous radiation from Jupiter's surface and high-energy particles in its radiation belts. These radio waves could help scientists to probe the oceans on its moons.

Composition & structure Atmospheric composition (by volume): 89.8 percent molecular hydrogen, 10.2 percent helium, minor amounts of methane, ammonia, hydrogen deuteride, ethane, water, ammonia ice aerosols, water ice aerosols, ammonia hydrosulfide aerosols Magnetic field: Nearly 20,000 times stronger than Earth's Chemical composition: Jupiter has a dense core of uncertain composition , surrounded by a helium-rich layer of fluid metallic hydrogen, wrapped up in an atmosphere primarily made of molecular hydrogen. Internal structure: A core less than 10 times Earth's mass surrounded by a layer of fluid metallic hydrogen extending out to 80 to 90 percent of the diameter of the planet, enclosed in an atmosphere mostly made of gaseous and liquid hydrogen. Orbit & rotation Average distance from the sun : 483,682,810 miles (778,412,020 km). By comparison: 5.203 times that of Earth Perihelion (closest approach to the sun): 460,276,100 miles (740,742,600 km).

By comparison: 5.036 times that of Earth Aphelion (farthest distance from the sun): 507,089,500 miles (816,081,400 km). By comparison: 5.366 times that of Earth (Source: NASA .) Jupiter's moons Jupiter has at least 63 moons , which are often named after the Roman god's many lovers. The four largest moons of Jupiter, now called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, were discovered by Galileo Galilei himself, and are appropriately known today as the Galilean satellites. Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, larger even than Mercury and Pluto. It is also the only moon known to have its own magnetic field. The moon has at least one thick ocean between layers of ice, although it may contain several layers of both materials. Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system. The sulfur its volcanoes spew out gives Io a blotted yellow-orange appearance that is often compared to a pepperoni pizza.

As Io orbits Jupiter, the planet's immense gravity causes 'tides' in Io's solid surface that rise 300 feet (100 meters) high, generating enough heat for volcanic activity. The frozen crust of Europa is made up mostly of water ice, and it may hide a liquid ocean holding twice as much water as Earth does. Icy oceans may also exist beneath the crusts of Callisto and Ganymede. Some of this liquid spouts from the surface in newly spotted sporadic plumes at the southern pole. Its potential to host life caused NASA to request funding for a mission to explore Europa . Callisto has the lowest reflectivity, or albedo, of the four Galilean moons. This suggests that its surface may be composed of dark, colorless rock. Jupiter's rings Jupiter's three rings came as a surprise when NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered them around the planet's equator in 1979. Each are much fainter than Saturn's rings. The main ring is flattened. It is about 20 miles (30 km) thick and more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) wide.

The inner cloud-like ring, called the halo, is roughly 12,000 miles (20,000 km) thick. The halo extends halfway from the main ring down to the planet's cloud tops and expands by interaction with Jupiter's magnetic field. Both the main ring and halo are composed of small, dark particles. The third ring, known as the gossamer ring because of its transparency, is actually three rings of microscopic debris from three of Jupiter's moons, Amalthea, Thebe and Adrastea. It is probably made up of dust particles less than 10 microns in diameter, about the same size of the particles found in cigarette smoke, and extends to an outer edge of about 80,000 miles (129,000 km) from the center of the planet and inward to about 18,600 miles (30,000 km). Ripples in the rings of both Jupiter and Saturn may be signs of impacts from comets and asteroids.

Research & exploration Seven missions have flown by Jupiter — Pioneer 10 , Pioneer 11 , Voyager 1 , Voyager 2 , Ulysses, Cassini and New Horizons — while another, NASA's Galileo, actually orbited the planet. Pioneer 10 revealed how dangerous Jupiter's radiation belt is, while Pioneer 11 provided data on the Great Red Spot and close-up pictures of its polar region. Voyager 1 and 2 helped astronomers create the first detailed maps of the Galilean satellites, discovered Jupiter's rings, revealed sulfur volcanoes on Io, and saw lightning in Jupiter's clouds. Ulysses discovered the solar wind has a much greater impact on Jupiter's magnetosphere than before suggested. New Horizons took close-up pictures of Jupiter and its largest moons. In 1995, Galileo sent a probe plunging towards Jupiter, making the first direct measurements of its atmosphere and measuring the amount of water and other chemicals there. When Galileo ran low on fuel, the craft was intentionally crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere to avoid any risk of it slamming into and contaminating Europa, which might have an ocean below its surface capable of supporting life.

Another spacecraft, named Juno , is heading toward Jupiter and will reach the planet in 2016. It will study Jupiter from a polar orbit to figure out how it and the rest of the solar system formed, which could shed light on how alien planetary systems might have developed. Jupiter's gravitational impact on the solar system As the most massive body in the solar system after the sun, the pull of Jupiter's gravity has helped shape the fate of our system. It may have violently hurled Neptune and Uranus outward , according to calculations published in the journal Nature. Jupiter, along with Saturn, may have slung a barrage of debris toward the inner planets early in the system's history, according to an article in Science magazine. It may even nowadays help keep asteroids from bombarding Earth, and recent events certainly have shown that it can absorb potentially deadly impacts . Currently, Jupiter's gravitational field influences numerous asteroids that have clustered into the regions preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. These are known as the Trojan asteroids, after three large asteroids there, Agamemnon, Achilles and Hector, names drawn from the Iliad, Homer's epic about the Trojan War.

Possibility of life on Jupiter If one were to dive into Jupiter's atmosphere , one would discover it to grow warmer with depth, reaching room temperature, or 70 degrees F (21 degrees C), at an altitude where the atmospheric pressure is about 10 times as great as it is on Earth. Scientists have conjectured that if Jupiter has any form of life, it might dwell at this level, and would have to be airborne. However, researchers have found no evidence for life on Jupiter. Additional reporting by Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor Explore the solar system Jupiter: The Largest Planet (Our Solar System): Daisy Allyn: 9781433938221: Amazon.com: Books From Booklist Designed to introduce young readers to the building blocks of astronomy, the Our Solar System series presents basic information in a reliable format. The small, square books feature a few sentences of large-print text on the left-hand side of each spread, faced by a cosmic photo enhanced by light design elements on the right-hand side.

Jupiter is a solid presentation of just how enormous the planet is compared to ours, though at least half the pages end in exclamation points, as if Allyn is unconvinced that readers will understand how neat things such as the Great Red Spot really are. A short glossary and a list of resources conclude each volume, and readers will come away with a better sense of our celestial neighborhood. Grades K-2. --Ian Chipman --This text refers to the Library Binding edition. Biggest Planets In Our Solar System - WorldAtlas.com Biggest Planets In Our Solar System With a radius of 69,911 kilometers, Jupiter is the largest of the 8 planets orbiting our sun. Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System. What Is A Planet? A planet is a celestial object that orbits around the sun and together with other planets forms the solar system. The name planet is derived from Greek word for wanderer. Before the invention of the telescope, planets were seen as object wandering in the sky. Technological advancements have helped scientists to significantly increase their knowledge regarding planets by sending spacecraft, and also from better observations that can now be made from the ground.

Our solar system has 8 known planets, although initially there were considered to be nine following the 1930s when Pluto was discovered. However, in the 1990s Pluto was demoted to the status of a dwarf planet rather than a true planet. Jupiter Jupiter is the biggest planet known among all the eight planets that orbit the Sun. Its radius is 69,911 kilometers. It is so gigantic that all other planets could fit into Jupiter. It is the fifth planet from the sun. Its name was derived from the Roman king of gods. Its atmosphere is composed of gasses mainly hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s surface is made of an ocean of liquid hydrogen. Jupiter appears to have white, yellow, thick red and brown clouds. These clouds move around the planet at high speeds in the opposite direction as the planet spin on its axis. The largest of these storms is the Great Red Spot which move around the equator at high speed that resembles a hurricane. Jupiter has the strongest magnetosphere of all other planets, nearly 20,000 times that of Earth. Jupiter rotates on its axis faster than any other planet in just less than 10 hours.

Jupiter has three faint rings composed of dust particles which result from the impact of comets and asteroids. The planet revolves around the sun once in a period of 11.86 Earth years. Saturn The planet Saturn has a radius of 58,282 kilometers and is ranked second regarding planet size. This radius is not inclusive of its rings. It is easily visible to the naked eye and is the sixth planet from the sun. Its discovery is not credited to any one person. It was named after Saturnus the Roman gods. It rotates on its axis every 10 hours and 34 minutes and orbits around the sun in 29.4 Earth years. Its atmosphere has three layers, the first layer is composed mostly of ammonia ice, and the second layer is made of water ice, while a mixture of hydrogen and sulfur makes up most of the third layer. Saturn is mostly made of hydrogen. It has thin and extensive rings made up of particles of ice and small chunks of carbonaceous dust. These particles are thought to be results of asteroids, moons, and comets breaking apart in Saturn’s vicinity. The planet is 1,424,600,000 kilometers away from the Sun.

Saturn has 62 known moons and is the flattest planet largely because of its low density and fast rotation speed. Uranus The existence of the planet Uranus is credited to a British astronomer William Herschel. It was an unprecedented discovery made on March 13, 1781.In regards to distance from the sun, Uranus assumes the seventh position preceding only the planet Neptune. Uranus is ranked third in regards to size of the planets with a mean radius of 25,362 kilometers. Its name was derived from the ancient Greek deity of the sky called Ouranos. It takes Uranus 17.24 Earth days to spin on its axis. Uranus orbits around the Sun in 84 Earth years. Uranus and Venus are the only two planets out of the eight known planets that follow a clockwise path while orbiting around the Sun. 80% of the Uranus planet is composed of ice. Uranus has a pale blue color because of the presence of water, ammonia, and methane ice on its outer atmosphere. It has a hydrogen and helium layer underneath this upper atmosphere. The planet has a core of iron and magnesium silicate.

Neptune Of all known planets, Neptune is the most distant from the Sun.It was discovered on September 23rd, 1846, by Johann Gall. The discovery was facilitated by prior information from a French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier and another independent British astronomer named John Couch Adams. It orbits the Sun in 164.79 Earth years and has 14 moons has five faint rings. Neptune is a gas planet made mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The methane in the atmosphere absorbs red light in substantial quantities such that Neptune appears to be the color of azure blue. The name Neptune can be traced to Roman mythology where Neptune was the name given to a god the Romans believed to be the sea. The planet’s core is mainly made of rock. It has a massive violent storm called the Great Dark Spot. The climate on Neptune is very active with large storms and winds swirling around it at high speeds. Only one spacecraft has been sent to Neptune in 1989 called the Voyager 2.

Other Planets and the Case of Pluto Other planets, by their size, include Earth with a radius of 6,371 kilometers, Venus with a radius of 6,052 kilometers, Mars with a radius of 3,390 kilometers, and Mercury with a radius of 2,440 kilometers. Notably missing from the list is Pluto, which ceased to be considered a planet in 2009. A new definition of planets was made by astronomers who required them to meet 3 criteria. The third criterion states that a planet must have enough gravitational force to clear the neighborhood of its orbit of other objects. Objects in the Kuiper Belt, which is in Pluto's vicinity, have been discovered and therefore it was disqualified from the list of planets. Biggest Planets In Our Solar System Rank Meet the largest unmanned world in our solar system - CNN.com By Jareen Imam , CNN Updated 5:26 PM ET, Thu May 12, 2016 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Scientists believe there may be thousands of worlds like 2007 OR10 in our solar system.

Story highlights Astronomers believe a distant dwarf planet is much larger than initially thought World 2007 OR10 may give scientists new clues about the early history of our solar system (CNN) A majority of dwarf planets lie tucked away in the depths of our solar system. A handful have been identified in the last decade thanks to new technology, but many remain a mystery, undiscovered by astronomers. However, scientists believe they have stumbled upon the largest unnamed world in our solar system after analyzing data from two space observatories, according to a new report by NASA . The world, 2007 OR10, is much larger than astronomers previously thought, making it the third largest dwarf planet on a list of half a dozen worlds. Scientists believe there may be thousands of worlds like this in our solar system. Many dwarf planets are hard to detect because they look like tiny points of light. It is hard to tell if that light is coming from a small world or a large world. That was one of the challenges of finding 2007 OR10.

Although its elliptical orbit brings it as close to our sun as Neptune, the eighth planet in our solar system, 2007 OR10 is twice as far away as Pluto. Read More Using Kepler, NASA's planet-hunting space telescope, and archival data from European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory mission, astronomers were able to revise the size of 2007 OR10. The world has a diameter of 955 miles, making it about one-third Pluto's size, according to findings published in the Astronomical Journal in April . "Our revised larger size for 2007 OR10 makes it increasingly likely the planet is covered in volatile ices of methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen, which would be easily lost to space by a smaller object," said András Pál at Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary, who led the research.

"It's thrilling to tease out details like this about a distant, new world -- especially since it has such an exceptionally dark and reddish surface for its size." One observation scientists have made is that 2007 OR10 is a very dark world, which could give us clues about the early history of our solar system "We think this object is left over from when our sun and solar system first formed," NASA scientist Geert Barentsen said. "It's almost as old as the sun itself." The reason 2007 OR10 is so dark is because it's likely frozen material that reflects very little sunlight. Scientists are interested in studying the world in order to learn more about how Earth formed. "It may be one of the darkest dwarf planets in our solar system," Barentsen said. It's up to the team of astronomers who discovered 2007 OR10 to give the world a name. Usually dwarf planets are named after a certain characteristic, but astronomers didn't know enough about 2007 OR10 to officially name it until now, according to Meg Schwamb, who was one of the astronomers to identify the world in 2007 during a survey.

With the exception of Ceres, which is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter, almost all other minor planets are floating beyond Neptune. The chances of us reaching 2007 OR10 in our lifetime are slim, especially because it has taken scientists about a decade to reach Pluto . But we can still learn a lot about this world with our current satellite technology, Barentsen said. The Smallest And Largest Planets in the Solar System The Smallest And Largest Planets in the Solar System {{article.article.images.featured.caption}} Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Full Bio The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Loading ... This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe Jupiter's Great Red Spot (Credit: NASA) The smallest and largest planet that form our solar system range incredibly in temperature, composition, geology, and of course size. Here we will delve into what makes these two planets unique and what insight we have gained from these distant planets.

The smallest planet in the solar system, Mercury and the largest planet, Jupiter provide many clues to the formation of our solar system, the geochemical variability therein, and the evolution of earth. Pluto, a dwarf planet, will also be touched on and where it calls within the list of planets. One in 200 stars has habitable Earth-like planets surrounding it - in the galaxy, half a billion stars have Earth-like planets going around them - that's huge, half a billion. So when we look at the night sky, it makes sense that someone is looking back at us. - Michio Kaku The Largest Planet In The Solar System - Jupiter Jupiter is the largest planet that we find in our Solar system. It's so large, in fact, that over 1,000 Earths or every plan would fit inside of Jupiter and still have room. Jupiter is named after the king of the Roman gods and is a giant gas planet; much different from the planet we live on. Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system (Credit: NASA) This giant gas planet is primarily hydrogen and helium gas, similar to our sun in composition. There are continual storms throughout Jupiter, the largest being the Great Red Spot.

The Great Red Spot is an ongoing storm approximately 3.5 times the diameter of the Earth and has latest for at least 185 years. You will also notice that Jupiter has four rings that are composed of small dust particles that rotate around the planet. Unlike Earth's 1 moon, Jupiter has 62 identified moons, with 4 primary and largest moons. In the near future we will hopefully know a lot more about Jupiter, as the Juno spacecraft is anticipated to arrive at Jupiter in 2016. The goal of the mission is to help scientists understand how Jupiter formed, its origin and evolution. Equatorial Circumference 'Super Jupiter' Discovery Dwarfs Solar System's Largest Planet (Photo) November 19, 2012 12:01am ET MORE The "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b, shown here in an artist's rendering, circles its star at nearly twice the distance that Neptune orbits the sun. With a mass about 13 times Jupiter's, the object glows with a reddish color. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S.

Wiessinger In a rare direct photo of a world beyond Earth, astronomers have spotted a planet 13 times more massive than Jupiter, the largest planet in our own solar system. The planet orbits a star called Kappa Andromedae that is 2.5 times the mass of the sun and is located 170 light-years away from Earth. As a gas giant larger than Jupiter , it's classified as a "super-Jupiter." Astronomers say the object's immense size places it right on the edge of the classifications for giant planets and a type of failed star known as a brown dwarf. Its official name is Kappa Andromedae b, or Kappa And b for short, and it likely has a reddish glow, researchers said. "According to conventional models of planetary formation, Kappa And b falls just shy of being able to generate energy by fusion, at which point it would be considered a brown dwarf rather than a planet," Michael McElwain, a member of the discovery team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a Nov. 19 statement.

"But this isn't definitive, and other considerations could nudge the object across the line into brown dwarf territory." [ Super-Jupiter Discovery in Photos (Gallery) ] The Planets in Our Solar System in Order of Size - Universe Today Universe Today The Planets in Our Solar System in Order of Size Article Updated: 23 Dec , 2015 by Elizabeth Howell If you’re interested in planets, the good news is there’s plenty of variety to choose from in our own Solar System. From the ringed beauty of Saturn, to the massive hulk of Jupiter, to the lead-melting temperatures on Venus, each planet in our solar system is unique — with its own environment and own story to tell about the history of our Solar System. What also is amazing is the sheer size difference of planets. While humans think of Earth as a large planet, in reality it is dwarfed by the massive gas giants lurking at the outer edges of our Solar System. This article explores the planets in order of size, with a bit of context as to how they got that way.

A short history of the Solar System No human was around 4.5 billion years ago when the Solar System was formed, so what we know about its birth comes from several sources: examining rocks on Earth and other places, looking at other solar systems in formation and doing computer models, among other methods. As more information comes in, some of our theories of the Solar System must change to suit the new evidence. Today, scientists believe the Solar System began with a spinning gas and dust cloud. Gravitational attraction at its center eventually collapsed to form the Sun. Some theories say that the young Sun’s energy began pushing the lighter particles of gas away, while larger, more solid particles such as dust remained closer in. Artist’s conception of a solar system in formation. Credit: NASA/FUSE/Lynette Cook Over millions and millions of years, the gas and dust particles became attracted to each other by their mutual gravities and began to combine or crash. As larger balls of matter formed, they swept the smaller particles away and eventually cleared their orbits. That led to the birth of Earth and the other eight planets in our Solar System.

Since much of the gas ended up in the outer parts of the system, this may explain why there are gas giants — although this presumption may not be true for other solar systems discovered in the universe. Until the 1990s, scientists only knew of planets in our own Solar System and at that point accepted there were nine planets. As telescope technology improved, however, two things happened. Scientists discovered exoplanets, or planets that are outside of our solar system. This began with finding massive planets many times larger than Jupiter, and then eventually finding planets that are rocky — even a few that are close to Earth’s size itself . The other change was finding worlds similar to Pluto, then considered the Solar System’s furthest planet, far out in our own Solar System. At first astronomers began treating these new worlds like planets, but as more information came in, the International Astronomical Union held a meeting to better figure out the definition. Hubble image of Pluto and some of its moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A.

Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team The result was redefining Pluto and worlds like it as a dwarf planet. This is the current IAU planet definition: “A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” Size of the eight planets According to NASA , this is the estimated radii of the eight planets in our solar system, in order of size. We also have included the radii sizes relative to Earth to help you picture them better.

Jupiter (69,911 km / 43,441 miles) – 1,120% the size of Earth Saturn (58,232 km / 36,184 miles) – 945% the size of Earth Uranus (25,362 km / 15,759 miles) – 400% the size of Earth Neptune (24,622 km / 15,299 miles) – 388% the size of Earth Earth (6,371 km / 3,959 miles) Venus (6,052 km / 3,761 miles) – 95% the size of Earth Mars (3,390 km / 2,460 miles) – 53% the size of Earth Mercury (2,440 km / 1,516 miles) – 38% the size of Earth Eight planets and a dwarf planet in our Solar System, approximately to scale. Pluto is a dwarf planet at far right. At far left is the Sun.

The planets are, from left, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute Jupiter is the behemoth of the Solar System and is believed to be responsible for influencing the path of smaller objects that drift by its massive bulk. Sometimes it will send comets or asteroids into the inner solar system, and sometimes it will divert those away. Saturn, most famous for its rings, also hosts dozens of moons — including Titan, which has its own atmosphere. Joining it in the outer solar system are Uranus and Neptune, which both have atmospheres of hydrogen, helium and methane. Uranus also rotates opposite to other planets in the solar system. The inner planets include Venus (once considered Earth’s twin, at least until its hot surface was discovered); Mars (a planet where liquid water could have flowed in the past); Mercury (which despite being close to the sun, has ice at its poles) and Earth, the only planet known so far to have life.

To learn more about the Solar System, check out these resources: Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System: Largest unnamed world in the solar system Largest unnamed world in the solar system By Preston Dyches, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab New K2 results peg 2007 OR10 as the largest unnamed body in our solar system and the third largest of the current roster of about half a dozen dwarf planets. The dwarf planet Haumea has an oblong shape that is wider on its long axis than 2007 OR10, but its overall volume is smaller. Credit: Konkoly Observatory/András Pál, Hungarian Astronomical Association/Iván Éder, NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Dwarf planets tend to be a mysterious bunch. With the exception of Ceres, which resides in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, all members of this class of minor planets in our solar system lurk in the depths beyond Neptune. They are far from Earth – small and cold – which makes them difficult to observe, even with large telescopes. So it's little wonder astronomers only discovered most of them in the past decade or so.

Pluto is a prime example of this elusiveness. Before NASA's New Horizons spacecraft visited it in 2015, the largest of the dwarf planets had appeared as little more than a fuzzy blob, even to the keen-eyed Hubble Space Telescope. Given the inherent challenges in trying to observe these far-flung worlds, astronomers often need to combine data from a variety of sources in order to tease out basic details about their properties. NASA's Kepler spacecraft observed dwarf planet 2007 OR10 for 19 days in late 2014. The object's apparent movement (indicated by the arrow) against the stars is caused by Kepler's changing position as it orbits the sun. The diffuse light at right is from Mars, which was near the field of view. Credit: Konkoly Observatory/László Molnár/András Pál Recently, a group of astronomers did just that by combining data from two space observatories to reveal something surprising: a dwarf planet named 2007 OR10 is significantly larger than previously thought.

The results peg 2007 OR10 as the largest unnamed world in our solar system and the third largest of the current roster of about half a dozen dwarf planets. The study also found that the object is quite dark and rotating more slowly than almost any other body orbiting our sun, taking close to 45 hours to complete its daily spin. For their research, the scientists used NASA's repurposed planet-hunting Kepler space telescope -- its mission now known as K2 -- along with the archival data from the infrared Herschel Space Observatory. Herschel was a mission of the European Space Agency with NASA participation. The research paper reporting these results is published in The Astronomical Journal. "K2 has made yet another important contribution in revising the size estimate of 2007 OR10. But what's really powerful is how combining K2 and Herschel data yields such a wealth of information about the object's physical properties," said Geert Barentsen, Kepler/K2 research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

The revised measurement of the planet's diameter, 955 miles (1,535 kilometers), is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) greater than the next largest dwarf planet, Makemake, or about one-third smaller than Pluto. Another dwarf planet, named Haumea, has an oblong shape that is wider on its long axis than 2007 OR10, but its overall volume is smaller. Like its predecessor mission, K2 searches for the change in brightness of distant objects. The tiny, telltale dip in the brightness of a star can be the signature of a planet passing, or transiting, in front. But, closer to home, K2 also looks out into our solar system to observe small bodies such as comets, asteroids, moons and dwarf planets. Because of its exquisite sensitivity to small changes in brightness, Kepler is an excellent instrument for observing the brightness of distant solar system objects and how that changes as they rotate. Figuring out the size of small, faint objects far from Earth is tricky business. Since they appear as mere points of light, it can be a challenge to determine whether the light they emit represents a smaller, brighter object, or a larger, darker one.

This is what makes it so difficult to observe 2007 OR10 -- although its elliptical orbit brings it nearly as close to the sun as Neptune, it is currently twice as far from the sun as Pluto. Enter the dynamic duo of Kepler and Herschel. Previous estimates based on Herschel data alone suggested a diameter of roughly 795 miles (1,280 kilometers) for 2007 OR10. However, without a handle on the object's rotation period, those studies were limited in their ability to estimate its overall brightness, and hence its size. The discovery of the very slow rotation by K2 was essential for the team to construct more detailed models that revealed the peculiarities of this dwarf planet. The rotation measurements even included hints of variations in brightness across its surface. Together, the two space telescopes allowed the team to measure the fraction of sunlight reflected by 2007 OR10 (using Kepler) and the fraction absorbed and later radiated back as heat (using Herschel). Putting these two data sets together provided an unambiguous estimation of the dwarf planet's size and how reflective it is.

According to the new measurements, the diameter of 2007 OR10 is some 155 miles (250 kilometers) larger than previously thought. The larger size also implies higher gravity and a very dark surface -- the latter because the same amount of light is being reflected by a larger body. This dark nature is different from most dwarf planets, which are much brighter. Previous ground-based observations found 2007 OR10 has a characteristic red color, and other researchers have suggested this might be due to methane ices on its surface. "Our revised larger size for 2007 OR10 makes it increasingly likely the planet is covered in volatile ices of methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen, which would be easily lost to space by a smaller object," said András Pál at Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary, who led the research. "It's thrilling to tease out details like this about a distant, new world -- especially since it has such an exceptionally dark and reddish surface for its size." As for when 2007 OR10 will finally get a name, that honor belongs to the object's discoverers.

Astronomers Meg Schwamb, Mike Brown and David Rabinowitz spotted it in 2007 as part of a survey to search for distant solar system bodies using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego. "The names of Pluto-sized bodies each tell a story about the characteristics of their respective objects. In the past, we haven't known enough about 2007 OR10 to give it a name that would do it justice," said Schwamb. "I think we're coming to a point where we can give 2007 OR10 its rightful name." Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. For more information about the Kepler and K2 missions, visit:

Question: In our solar system which is the largest planet?
Answer: JUPITER