Meet the Solar System

Our solar system is our home in space. In the middle sits the Sun — an enormous ball of burning gas that holds everything together with its mighty gravity. Around it travel eight planets, along with dwarf planets, moons, asteroids and comets.

The four planets closest to the Sun are small and rocky. Mercury zooms around fastest but has no air to breathe. Venus is the hottest planet, wrapped in thick poisonous clouds. That pale dot near sunset or sunrise? Often it’s Venus shining like a beacon.

Earth is the third planet — the only place we know of with liquid water oceans and living things. Next comes Mars, the rusty red planet that robots are exploring right now.

Beyond Mars lies a ring of rocky leftovers called the asteroid belt. Then we reach the giants. Jupiter is the biggest planet of all, with a storm wider than Earth that has raged for centuries. Saturn wears dazzling rings made of ice chunks, some as small as pebbles and others as big as houses.

Finally come Uranus and Neptune, two icy blue worlds so far away that sunlight takes hours to reach them. Far beyond Neptune, icy comets drift at the very edge of the solar system.

Astronomers have found thousands of planets orbiting other stars too. Our solar system is just one neighbourhood among billions in our galaxy, the Milky Way.