Astronomy: General

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. A Dictionary of Astronomy Further reading

Major Planets of the Solar System

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | 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	61
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 | 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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Free newspaper and magazine articles

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