Template:/box-header
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the other celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their moons, five currently identified dwarf planets and their seven known moons, and billions of small bodies. This last category includes asteroids, Kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids and interplanetary dust. In broad terms, the charted regions of the Solar System consist of the Sun, four terrestrial inner planets, an asteroid belt composed of small rocky bodies, four gas giant outer planets, and a second belt, called the Kuiper belt, composed of icy objects. Beyond the Kuiper belt lies the scattered disc, the heliopause, and ultimately the hypothetical Oort cloud. In order of their distances from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Six of the eight planets are in turn orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon, and each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles. All the planets except Earth are named after gods and goddesses from Greco-Roman mythology. The five dwarf planets are Pluto, Makemake, and Haumea, the three largest known Kuiper belt objects; Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt; and Eris, the largest known object in the scattered disc. Template:/box-footer
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.
The rings of Jupiter are a system of planetary rings around the planet Jupiter. The Jovian ring system was the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System after those of Saturn and Uranus. It was first observed in 1979 by the Voyager 1 spaceprobe and thoroughly investigated in the 1990s by the Galileo orbiter. It has also been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and from the ground for the past 25 years. Ground-based observations of the rings require the largest available telescopes. The Jovian ring system is faint and consists mainly of dust. It comprises four main components: a thick inner torus of particles known as the 'halo ring'; a relatively bright, razor-thin 'main ring'; and two wide, thick and faint outer 'gossamer rings', named for the moons of whose material they are composed: Amalthea and Thebe. The main and halo rings consist of dust ejected by high-velocity impacts from the moons Metis, Adrastea and other unobserved parent bodies. High-resolution images obtained in February and March 2007 by the New Horizons spacecraft revealed a rich fine structure in the main ring. The age of the ring system is not known but it may have existed since the formation of Jupiter.
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.
Saturn eclipsing the Sun, as seen by the Cassini orbiter. Individual rings seen in this image include (in order, starting from most distant): E ring, Pallene ring (visible very faintly in an arc just below Saturn), G ring, Janus/Epimetheus ring (faint), F ring (narrow brightest feature), Main rings (A,B,C), and D ring (bluish, nearest Saturn). Interior to the G ring and above the brighter main rings is the pale dot of Earth.
Template:/box-header 
- ...that the passing of the Great Comet of 1577 (pictured) caused almost century-long debate, during which Galileo argued that comets were merely optical illusions?
Template:/box-footer
|
