Major Planets of the Solar System

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Major Planets of the Solar System

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Major Planets of the Solar System

Major Planets of the Solar System
Planet Distance from the sun (AU) Period of revolution Period of rotation Mass (earth=1) Diameter (earth=1) Number of confirmed satellites
Mercury 0.39 88 days 59 days 0.06 0.38 0
Venus 0.72 225 days 243 days 0.82 0.95 0
Earth 1 365 days 24 hours 1 1 1
Mars 1.52 687 days 25 hours 0.11 0.53 2
Jupiter 5.20 12 years 10 hours 317.89 11.19 63
Saturn 9.54 29 years 10 hours 95.15 9.44 48
Uranus 19.2 84 years 18 hours 14.54 4.10 27
Neptune 30.06 165 years 18 hours 17.23 3.88 13

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Solar System

A Dictionary of Astronomy | 1997 | © A Dictionary of Astronomy 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Solar System The collective name for the Sun and all the material that orbits it. It includes the eight major planets, at least three dwarf planets, and well over 160 known satellites, plus countless asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. There is no single measure that defines the boundary of the Solar System. Many Kuiper Belt objects lie beyond the orbits of the outer planets, the Sun's heliopause is even more distant (around 100 AU out), and the gravitational influence of the Sun extends halfway to the nearest star. The Solar System has an age of 4.57 × 109 years.

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