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In Depth | Sun – NASA Solar System Exploration
In Depth The Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star – a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium – at the center of our solar system. It’s about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth and it’s our solar system’s only star. Without the Sun’s energy, life as we know it could not exist on our home planet.
The Sun By the Numbers - NASA Solar System Exploration
The Sun is the star at the heart of our solar system. Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything – from the biggest planets to the smallest bits of debris – in its orbit.
In Depth | Our Solar System – NASA Solar System Exploration
The planetary system we call home is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Beyond our own solar system, there ...
In Depth | Kuiper Belt – NASA Solar System Exploration
Size and Distance The Kuiper Belt is one of the largest structures in our solar system – others being the Oort Cloud, the heliosphere, and the magnetosphere of Jupiter. Its overall shape is like a puffed-up disk or donut. Its inner edge begins at the orbit of Neptune, at about 30 AU from the Sun. (1 AU, or astronomical unit, is the distance from Earth to the Sun.) The inner, main region of ...
In Depth | Earth's Moon – NASA Solar System Exploration
The brightest and largest object in our night sky, the Moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate. It also causes tides, creating a rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years. The Moon was likely formed after a Mars-sized body collided with Earth several billion years ago. Earth's Moon is the only ...
RPS 3D Viewer - NASA Solar System Exploration
NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system.
Mars By the Numbers - NASA Solar System Exploration
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited entirely by robots.
Jupiter - NASA Solar System Exploration
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun, and the largest in the solar system – more than twice as massive as the other planets combined.
In Depth | Europa – NASA Solar System Exploration
Formation Jupiter’s large Galilean moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – likely formed out of leftover material after Jupiter condensed from the initial cloud of gas and dust surrounding the sun, early in the history of the solar system.
In Depth | 1P/Halley – NASA Solar System Exploration
Halley was last seen in Earth's skies in 1986 and was met in space by an international fleet of spacecraft. It will return in 2061 on its regular 76-year journey around the Sun. The History of Halley's Comet Until the time of English astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), comets were believed to make only one pass through the solar system.
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