The Sun and Inner
Planets
Planets
This yellow dwarf star contains 99.8% of the mass in the entire solar system.
What is the Sun?
This is the largest planet in the solar system and is famous for a giant storm called the Great Red Spot
What is Jupiter?
This is the most famous dwarf planet, located out in the Kuiper Belt.
What is Pluto?
This is the curved, elliptical path a celestial object takes around a star, planet, or moon
What is an orbit?
This is the only world known to harbor life and has a surface that is 71% liquid water.
What is Earth?
This gas giant is instantly recognizable by its complex and beautiful ring system made of ice and rock.
What is Saturn?
This region filled with irregularly shaped bodies, or minor planets, is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
What is the Asteroid Belt?
This invisible force pulls objects toward each other and keeps the planets in orbit around the Sun.
What is gravity?
Often called Earth's "sister planet," this world spins backward and is the hottest planet in the solar system due to a runaway greenhouse effect.
What is Venus?
This ice giant is unique because it rotates on its side, likely due to a massive collision in its past.
What is Uranus?
This doughnut-shaped ring of icy objects beyond Neptune is home to many short-period comets.
What is the Kuiper Belt?
This term describes the four planets closest to the Sun because they have solid, rocky surfaces.
What are terrestrial planets?
Known as the "Red Planet," it features the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons.
What is Mars
This dark, cold ice giant is the farthest major planet from the Sun and is known for supersonic winds.
What is Neptune?
This theoretical, massive spherical shell surrounding the solar system is believed to be the source of long-period comets.
What is the Oort Cloud?
This measurement is about 93 million miles, representing the average distance from the Earth to the Sun.
What is an Astronomical Unit or AU?
This is the smallest planet; it has an extremely thin exosphere, leading to extreme temperature swings between day and night.
What is Mercury?
Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are the four large moons orbiting Jupiter, known collectively by this name.
What are the Galilean moons?
Along with Haumea, Makemake, and Eris, this object located in the asteroid belt is classified as a dwarf planet.
What is Ceres?
These are objects that orbit the Sun and are roughly spherical but have not "cleared their neighborhood" of other debris.
What are the dwarf planets?