The solar system
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Our solar system contains planets, comets and asteroids all of which travel around our star, the Sun. -
Between 1801 and 1807 small starlike objects were discovered in the solar system. These small bodies became known as Minor Planets or asteroids. -
Different theories account for the formation of the solar system. -
The diameter of the Sun is 1,400,000 km (840,000 miles) which is more than 100 times the diameter of the Earth. -
Sunspots are a phenomenon that has been known about for at least several thousands of years. -
An eclipse occurs when a body cuts off the light from a light source so that we can no longer see it shining. -
The Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis are seen in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively. -
The Moon is the closest astronomical object to the Earth. -
Four times smaller in diameter than the Earth, our Moon was probably formed shortly after the rest of our solar system, about 4500 million years ago. -
The phrase 'once in a blue Moon' is a familiar one meaning once in a very long interval of time. The phrase goes back to at least 1824 when an explanation of its meaning appears as a footnote attached to its use.
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The main difference between planets and stars is that stars shine with their own light, and planets shine by reflected light. -
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. With a diameter of 4880 km, it is the second smallest. -
Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun. It has no moon. With a diameter of 12,104 kilometres it is the closest in size to the Earth. -
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and there has been much speculation over the years about the possibility of other life forms existing there. -
Saturn is probably the best known and most beautiful planet in the solar system. -
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Its diameter is 11 times that of the Earth, its mass twice the sum of all the other planets. -
Uranus is the seventh planet of the Solar System, with a diameter of about 52,400 km. It orbits the Sun every 84 years. -
Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun, orbiting the Sun every 165 years at a mean distance of 30.1 times that of the Earth (Astronomical Units). -
Pluto has been recategorised as a 'dwarf planet' and is no longer recognised as a full planet. -
The furthest object was probably a comet which passed the Sun many years ago, returning to the furthest limits of the solar system. -
The solar system information gives tables of data relating to the orbits of planets, the globes of planets, and the satellite distances from planets. -
An icy planetary body has been discovered orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune.
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Until Isaac Newton formulated his Laws of Motion it was generally thought that to keep a body in motion it was necessary to use a force to push or pull it
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In 2006 Pluto was relegated to the new category of ‘dwarf planet’. -
Tides are created by the gravitational attraction of one massive body on another. -
The surface temperatures of the planets vary from more than 400 degrees on Mercury and Venus to below -200 degrees on the distant planets. -
One of the four units of ESO’s Very Large Telescope was used to take ground-based images of the lunar surface. -
In 1999 'Galileo' gave clear views of Callisto, revealing a landscape of ice and dust on one of the oldest surfaces in the Solar system.
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In 2001 the Hubble Space Telescope was able to take a detailed image of Mars. -
In May 2003, a transit of Mercury was observed from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. -
During May 2003 both a lunar and solar eclipse were visible across the UK. -
In October 2004 British astronomers watched the year's second total eclipse of the moon. -
In 2003 Astronomers in Europe and the Americas observed the annual Leonid meteor shower. -
In 2003 astronomers found a companion in collision with our galaxy, the Milky Way.
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The British-made probe Beagle 2 was declared lost in January 2004. The probe was due to land on Mars on Christmas morning 2003. -
The last total lunar eclipse visible until 2007 took place in October 2004. -
On 8 June 2004 the transit of Venus was visible across the UK. -
A year after its discovery, the newly designated ‘dwarf planet’ 2003 UB313 was named Eris. -
In 2006 the space probe Mars Odyssey found geysers of carbon dioxide gas erupting from the Martian south pole. -
The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn found lakes near the north pole of the largest moon, Titan. -
The European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft Mars Express has discovered a layer of water ice deep beneath the surface of Mars. -
On 3 January 2006 the annual Quadrantid meteor shower took place in the northern hemisphere. -
Amateur astronomers in the United States watched in July 2006 as a mountain-sized asteroid raced past the Earth.
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In 2006 Jupiter's 350-year-old Great Red Spot was overtaken by its younger sibling which formed in the late 1990s. -
After a 2-year mission to the Moon, the SMART-1 probe crashed into the lunar surface at 0642 BST on 3 September 2006. -
In 2006 the Mars Express probe imaged the Cydonia region of Mars solving the mystery of the legendary ‘face’. -
Images from the Cassini probe show a previously unknown ring of icy material around Saturn. -
In 2006 the NASA probe Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the robotic rover Opportunity on the edge of the Victoria Crater on Mars.
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