Solar System Overview

A region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where most asteroids in our solar system reside.

A collection of icy bodies and dwarf planets located beyond the orbit of Neptune.

A large natural celestial body that orbits a planet.

A huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars held together by gravity, containing numerous solar systems.

A model that accurately represents the size and distance relationships between components of an object or system.

A collection of asteroids that orbit the Sun close to Earth's orbit.

The force of attraction that holds objects together.

A large collection of stars, gas, and dust that is not organized into a specific shape.

The force that pulls objects towards each other, with stronger pull from larger objects.

The Sun and all the objects that orbit it, including planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets.

The eight planets in our solar system, in order from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

Planets closer to the Sun, made mostly of rock and metal, like Earth.

Planets further from the Sun, made mostly of gas with a small rocky core, like Jupiter.

A celestial object that orbits a star, big enough to be round but not big enough to clear its orbit of other objects.

Small rocky bodies in space, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids.

A belt of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, where dwarf planet Pluto can be found.

A gravitationally bound system consisting of a star and the objects that orbit it.

An astronomical body that orbits a star, is large enough to have enough gravity to force a spherical shape, and is big enough that its gravity has cleared away any objects of a similar size near its orbit.

A regular, repeating path that one object in space takes around another one.

The orbital region around a star in which an Earth-like planet can possess liquid water on its surface and possibly support life.

The region around the Sun where life can exist because the temperatures are moderate enough to sustain life. The distance is not too close to the Sun that everything would burn, but not too far so that everything would freeze.

The Sun's gravitational force keeps all the planets orbiting around it. Gravity is an attractive force between two masses; the larger the mass, the stronger the force.