Our Solar System

Our solar system is filled with a wide assortment of celestial bodies - the Sun itself, our eight planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids - and on Earth, life itself! The inner solar system is occasionally visited by comets that loop in from the outer reaches of the solar system on highly elliptical orbits. In the outer reaches of the solar system, we find the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. Still farther out, we eventually reach the limits of the heliosphere, where the outer reaches of the solar system interact with interstellar space. Solar system formation began billions of years ago, when gases and dust began to come together to form the Sun, planets, and other bodies of the solar system.

A near-Earth <a href="/our_solar_system/asteroids.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">asteroid</a> - named 2012 DA14 by astronomers - passed within 17,200 miles from Earth on February 15, 2013. On closest approach at about 1:25 p.m. CST on February 15, although it was within the orbit of the <a href="/earth/moons_and_rings.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Moon</a> and even geosynchronous <a href="/space_missions/satellites.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">satellites</a>, it didn't strike Earth!  Find out more from <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130201315144.html">NASA</a>! Fragments of a meteorite hit Chelyabinsk, Russia on 2/15/2013 <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215">injuring over 500</a>. Learn about <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/meteors/meteors.html">meteors and meteorites</a>.<p><small><em>NASA/JPL-CalTech</em></small></p>Neptune's <a href="/neptune/lower_atmosphere.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">atmosphere</a> shows
a striped pattern of
<a href="/neptune/atmosphere/N_clouds_overview.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">clouds</a>.
This cloud pattern is very similar to that of
<a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Jupiter</a> and
<a href="/saturn/saturn.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Saturn</a>.
Neptune even has a <a href="/neptune/atmosphere/N_clouds_GDS.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Great Dark
Spot</a> similar
to Jupiter's <a href="/jupiter/atmosphere/J_clouds_GRS.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Great
Red Spot</a>.
The Great Dark Spot of Neptune is thought to be a hole, similar to the hole
in the <a href="/earth/Atmosphere/ozone_layer.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">ozone layer on
Earth</a>,
in the <a href="/physical_science/chemistry/methane.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">methane</a> cloud
deck of Neptune.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p><a href="/asteroids/asteroid_lutetia.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Lutetia</a> is a medium-sized <a href="/our_solar_system/asteroids.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">asteroid</a>. It orbits the <a href="/sun/sun.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Sun</a> in the main asteroid belt between the planets <a href="/mars/mars.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Mars</a> and <a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Jupiter</a>.  This lumpy object is about 96 km (60 miles) in diameter. It isn't a perfect sphere, though. Lutetia is 132 km (82 miles) across one way, but only about 76 km (47 miles) long in another direction. The European space probe <a href="/space_missions/robotic/rosetta_flyby_asteroid_lutetia_july_2010.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Rosetta flew past Lutetia</a> in July 2010, and gave us our first good look at the asteroid.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.</em></small></p>Lunar eclipses are special events that only occur when certain conditions are met. First of all, the Moon must be in <a href="/the_universe/uts/moon3.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">full phase</a>. Secondly, the <a href="/sun/sun.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Sun</a>, <a href="/earth/earth.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Earth</a> and <a href="/earth/moons_and_rings.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Moon</a> must be in a perfectly straight line. If both of these are met, then the Earth's shadow can block the Sun's light from hitting the Moon.  The reddish glow of the Moon is caused by light from the Earth's limb scattering toward the Moon, which is reflected back to us from the Moon's surface.<p><small><em>Image credit - Doug Murray, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida</em></small></p>New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide  support for the hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed (shown in red) polar craters. Areas where polar deposits of ice imaged by Earth-based radar are shown in yellow.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory</em></small></p>Comets are <a href="/comets/comet_nucleus.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">lumps</a> of ice
and dust that periodically come into the center of the solar system from
its <a href="/comets/Oort_cloud.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">outer
reaches</a>.
Some comets make <a href="/comets/perihelion_pass.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">repeated
trips</a> to the inner
solar system. When comets get close enough to the Sun, heat
makes them start to <a href="/comets/sublimation.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">evaporate</a>.
Jets of gas and dust form long
<a href="/comets/tail.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">tails</a> that we can see from
Earth. 
This photograph shows <a href="/comets/comets_table.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">Comet
Kohoutek</a>,
which visited the inner solar system in 1973.  It has an
<a href="/physical_science/physics/mechanics/orbit/orbit_shape_interactive.html&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/=/earth/climate/cli_greengas.html">orbit</a> of
about 75,000 years!<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>

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