"greenhouse planet Venus, a planet often referred to as ""Earth's twin"", and compares it to the vulcan geology of the Deccan Plateau. An example of Earth's interconnectivity with the solar system reveals that Jupiter's gravitational effect could potentially send an asteroid through the Asteroid Belt on a collision course with Earth, as evidenced by Meteor Crater. The same gravitational force is also shown to give the Jovian moon Io geological life (given the absence of meteor impact evidence there) as paralleled by the volcanism of Erta Ale in Ethiopia. All in all, with the universal laws of physics at play"
"Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times the mass of Earth and slightly larger than Neptune. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of . It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol ♆, a stylised version of the"
"observable from the Solar System. Like the other planets of the system, the planet has a high maximum eccentricity of 0.28, but the lowest in that system. Kepler-20e Kepler-20e is an exoplanet orbiting Kepler-20. The planet is notable as it is the first planet with a smaller radius than Earth found orbiting a Sun-like star. The planet is second-closest to the star after Kepler-20b, and at , it is far too hot to have liquid water on its surface. Along with the other four planets in the system, Kepler-20e was announced on 20 December 2011. With a semimajor axis of"
"that between Saturn and the Sun (11.2 AU). Alpha Centauri C, or Proxima Centauri, is a small and faint red dwarf (Class M). Though not visible to the naked eye, Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun at a distance of , being slightly closer than Alpha Centauri AB at a distance of . Currently, the distance between Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri AB is about , equivalent to about 430 times the radius of Neptune's orbit. Proxima Centauri b is an Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri; it was discovered in 2016. ""α Centauri"""
"to as ""volatiles"". The distance from Earth to the Sun is . For comparison, the radius of the Sun is . Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (10 %) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly one millionth (10) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is from the Sun and has a radius of , whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is from the Sun. With a few exceptions, the farther a planet or belt is from the Sun, the larger the distance between its orbit and"
"star. A study of atmospheric evolution in Earth-size planets in habitable zones of G-Stars (a class containing the Sun, but not Kepler-186) suggested that 0.8–1.15 R is the size range for planets small enough to lose their initial accreted hydrogen envelope but large enough to retain an outgassed secondary atmosphere such as Earth's. Kepler-186f Kepler-186f (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation ""KOI-571.05"") is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Kepler-186, about 582 light-years (178.5 parsecs, or nearly km) from the Earth. It is the first planet with a radius similar to Earth's to be discovered in the"
"10199 Chariklo 10199 Chariklo ( or ; ; provisional designation ) is the largest confirmed centaur (minor planet of the outer Solar System). It orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus, grazing the orbit of Uranus. On 26 March 2014, astronomers announced the discovery of two rings (nicknamed Oiapoque and Chuí) around Chariklo by observing a stellar occultation, making it the first minor planet known to have rings. Chariklo was discovered by James V. Scotti of the Spacewatch program on February 15, 1997. Chariklo is named after the nymph Chariclo (""""), the wife of Chiron and the daughter of Apollo."
"Ceres (dwarf planet) Ceres (; minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, slightly closer to Mars' orbit. With a diameter of , Ceres is the largest of the minor planets, and the only dwarf planet, inside Neptune's orbit. It is the 33rd-largest known body in the Solar System. Ceres is composed of rock and ice and is estimated to comprise approximately one-third of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. Ceres is the only object in the asteroid belt known to be rounded by its own"
"moon Triton to be investigated around 2029. The proposed ""New Horizons 2"" mission (which was later scrapped) might also have done a close flyby of the Neptunian system. Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times the mass of Earth and slightly larger than Neptune. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8"
"potentially habitable exoplanet to Earth. The closest potentially habitable exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b at 4.2 light years. Second is Ross 128 b at 11 light years away, followed by the unconfirmed planets Tau Ceti e and f, just under 12 light years distant. Fourthly is Wolf 1061c at 13.8 light years from the sun. Gliese 832 c has a mass of approximately 5.2 times that of Earth. If it had the same density of Earth it would have a radius of around 1.75 or possibly the planet could have a higher density with a smaller radius. Its temperature is"
"the black hole. The latter is too small to see with present instruments. A study in 2008 which linked radio telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and California (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) measured the diameter of Sagittarius A* to be 44 million kilometers (0.3 AU). For comparison, the radius of Earth's orbit around the Sun is about 150 million kilometers (1.0 AU), whereas the distance of Mercury from the Sun at closest approach (perihelion) is 46 million kilometers (0.3 AU). Thus the diameter of the radio source is slightly less than the distance from Mercury to the Sun. Scientists at the Max"
"Proxima Centauri b Proxima Centauri b (also called Proxima b or Alpha Centauri Cb) is an exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to the Sun and part of a triple star system. It is located about 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs, 40 trillion km, or 25 trillion miles) from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, making it the closest known exoplanet to the Solar System. Proxima Centauri b orbits the star at a distance of roughly with an orbital period of approximately 11.2 Earth days, and has an estimated"
"may be orbiting Sun-like stars. The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away. Scientific findings since the 1990s have greatly influenced the scope of the fields of astrobiology, models of planetary habitability and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). NASA and the SETI Institute have proposed categorising the increasing number of planets found using a measure called the Earth Similarity Index (ESI) based on mass, radius and temperature. According to this measure, as of 23 July 2015, the confirmed planet currently thought to be most similar to Earth on mass, radius and temperature is Kepler-438b. Scientists estimate that there"
"Sun's mass and that is orbited by a white dwarf, Sirius B. The nearest brown dwarfs are the binary Luhman 16 system at 6.6 light-years. Other systems within ten light-years are the binary red-dwarf system Luyten 726-8 (8.7 ly) and the solitary red dwarf Ross 154 (9.7 ly). The closest solitary Sun-like star to the Solar System is Tau Ceti at 11.9 light-years. It has roughly 80% of the Sun's mass but only 60% of its luminosity. The closest known free-floating planetary-mass object to the Sun is WISE 0855−0714, an object with a mass less than 10 Jupiter masses roughly"
"into an elliptical orbit, then chemical rockets will fire to deposit the mapper probe into a circular orbit. Both probes will operate for one terrestrial year. The mapper probe carries an array of spectrometers similar to those on ""MESSENGER"", and will study the planet at many different wavelengths including infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma ray. Mercury (planet) Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of 87.97 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System. It is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger of the"
"130 K average temperature of Jupiter, the planet in the Solar System of closest size. Astromers also detected the presence of water in the planet's spectrum. It orbits the star 51 Eridani in the constellation Eridanus. Atmospheric modeling favors a low surface gravity partly cloudy atmosphere. Prior to the discovery of 51 Eridani b, each of the directly-imaged worlds previously discovered have been gas giants many times the mass of Jupiter. 51 Eridani b 51 Eridani b is a ""Jupiter-like"" planet that orbits the young star 51 Eridani, in the constellation Eridanus. It is 96 light years away from the"
"quadrangles. They are named after the first craters whose names the IAU approved in July 2015. The map image(s) were taken by the ""Dawn"" space probe. Ceres (dwarf planet) Ceres (; minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, slightly closer to Mars' orbit. With a diameter of , Ceres is the largest of the minor planets, and the only dwarf planet, inside Neptune's orbit. It is the 33rd-largest known body in the Solar System. Ceres is composed of rock and ice and is estimated to comprise"
"resemble Saturn's rings. It appears blue-green in a telescope and has a central star of magnitude 11.3. Compared to the Helix Nebula, another planetary nebula in Aquarius, it is quite small. NGC 7293, also known as the Helix Nebula, is the closest planetary nebula to Earth at a distance of 650 light-years. It covers 0.25 square degrees, making it also the largest planetary nebula as seen from Earth. However, because it is so large, it is only viewable as a very faint object, though it has a fairly high integrated magnitude of 6.0. One of the visible galaxies in Aquarius"
"Kepler-20e Kepler-20e is an exoplanet orbiting Kepler-20. The planet is notable as it is the first planet with a smaller radius than Earth found orbiting a Sun-like star. The planet is second-closest to the star after Kepler-20b, and at , it is far too hot to have liquid water on its surface. Along with the other four planets in the system, Kepler-20e was announced on 20 December 2011. With a semimajor axis of 0.0507 AUs, Kepler-20e's orbit has a period of 6.098 days (with an extremely small margin of error). The orbit has an inclination of 87.50°, making its transits"
"the Sun, which it orbits every 87.97 days. Kepler-9d Kepler-9d, formerly known as KOI-377.03, is a planet in orbit around the sunlike star Kepler-9. Initially discovered by Kepler spacecraft, a terrestrial planet-searching satellite built and operated by NASA, Kepler-9d is most likely a Super-Earth, with an estimated radius approximately 60% larger than that of Earth's, although its exact mass cannot be determined. Kepler-9d orbits Kepler-9 every 1.56 days at a distance of .0273 AU from its star, an extremely close distance. Although Kepler-9d is the closest planet to its star in its system, it is named Kepler-9d instead of Kepler-9b"
"coastal borders of Brazil. A request for formal names will be submitted to the IAU at a later date. It has been speculated that 2060 Chiron may have a similar pair of rings. 10199 Chariklo 10199 Chariklo ( or ; ; provisional designation ) is the largest confirmed centaur (minor planet of the outer Solar System). It orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus, grazing the orbit of Uranus. On 26 March 2014, astronomers announced the discovery of two rings (nicknamed Oiapoque and Chuí) around Chariklo by observing a stellar occultation, making it the first minor planet known to have"
"the Solar System, meaning that it is a rocky body like Earth. It is similar to Earth in size and mass, and is often described as Earth's ""sister"" or ""twin"". The diameter of Venus is —only less than Earth's—and its mass is 81.5% of Earth's. Conditions on the Venusian surface differ radically from those on Earth because its dense atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide, with most of the remaining 3.5% being nitrogen. The Venusian surface was a subject of speculation until some of its secrets were revealed by planetary science in the 20th century. Venera landers in 1975 and 1982"
"by Jupiter. Neptune's equatorial radius of 24,764 km is nearly four times that of Earth. Neptune, like Uranus, is an ice giant, a subclass of giant planet, because they are smaller and have higher concentrations of volatiles than Jupiter and Saturn. In the search for extrasolar planets, Neptune has been used as a metonym: discovered bodies of similar mass are often referred to as ""Neptunes"", just as scientists refer to various extrasolar bodies as ""Jupiters"". Neptune's internal structure resembles that of Uranus. Its atmosphere forms about 5% to 10% of its mass and extends perhaps 10% to 20% of the"
"Venus for the seventh and last time, decreasing its period to 88 or 89 days and allowing it to approach closer to the Sun. The perihelion distances above are from the center of the Sun. For altitude above the surface, subtract one solar radius ≈ 0.7 Gm.<br> By way of comparison, the planet Mercury orbits the Sun at a distance varying from about 46.0 Gm (46,001,200 km) at its closest to about 69.8 Gm (69,816,900 km) at its farthest. Parker Solar Probe Parker Solar Probe (previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus, or Solar Probe+, abbreviated PSP) is a NASA robotic"
"Venus's orbit is the closest to circular, with an eccentricity of less than 0.01. When Venus lies between Earth and the Sun in inferior conjunction, it makes the closest approach to Earth of any planet at an average distance of . The planet reaches inferior conjunction every 584 days, on average. Because of the decreasing eccentricity of Earth's orbit, the minimum distances will become greater over tens of thousands of years. From the year 1 to 5383, there are 526 approaches less than 40 million km; then there are none for about 60,158 years. All the planets in the Solar"
"two days. Gliese 832 is a red dwarf of spectral type M1.5V and apparent magnitude 8.66 located only 16.1 light-years distant; hence it is one of the nearest stars to the Solar System. A Jupiter-like planet—Gliese 832 b—orbiting the red dwarf over a period of 9.4±0.4 years was discovered in 2008. WISE 2220−3628 is a brown dwarf of spectral type Y, and hence one of the coolest star-like objects known. It has been calculated as being around 26 light-years distant from Earth. Nicknamed the spare-tyre nebula, IC 5148 is a planetary nebula located around 1 degree west of Lambda Gruis."
"about 5.5 times the mass of Earth, orbits a star about 21,000 light years away in the constellation Scorpius. From 2007 to 2010, three (possibly four) potential terrestrial planets were found orbiting within the Gliese 581 planetary system. The smallest, Gliese 581e, is only about 1.9 Earth mass, but orbits very close to the star. An ideal terrestrial planet would be 2 Earth masses with a 25-day orbital period around a red dwarf. Two others, Gliese 581c and Gliese 581d, as well as a disputed planet, Gliese 581g, are more-massive super-Earths orbiting in or close to the habitable zone of"
"is one third of the Sun. Kepler-42 has an appreciable proper motion of up to 431±8 mas/yr. Due to its small size and low temperature, the star's habitable zone is much closer to the star than Earth is to the Sun. On 10 January 2012, using the Kepler Space Telescope three transiting planets were discovered in orbit around Kepler-42. These planets' radii range from approximately those of Mars to Venus. The Kepler-42 system is only the second known system containing planets of Earth's radius or smaller (the first was the Kepler-20 system pictured at left). These planets' orbits are also"
"HR 8799 e </math></ref> HR 8799 e is a large exoplanet, orbiting the star HR 8799, which lies 129 lightyears from Earth. This gas giant is between 5 and 10 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. Due to their young age and high temperature all four discovered planets in the HR 8799 system are large, compared to all gas giants in the Solar System. HR 8799 e is the fourth planet orbiting HR 8799 in order of discovery. It is a young, hot and massive gas giant, and is fairly close to its star,"
"of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Comparatively, Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, has a semi-major axis distance of 0.39 AU. Proxima Centauri b receives about 65% of the amount of radiative flux from its host star that the Earth receives from the Sun - for comparison Mars receives about 43%. Most of the radiative flux from Proxima Centauri is in the infrared spectrum. In the visible spectrum the exoplanet receives only ~3% of the PAR (400-700 nm) of Earth irradiance - for comparison Jupiter receives 3.7% and Saturn 1.1%. So it would usually not get"
"Gliese 832 was announced to be hosting the closest potentially habitable Earth-mass-range exoplanet to the Solar System. This star achieved perihelion some 52,920 years ago when it came within an estimated of the Sun. Gliese 832 hosts two known planets. In September 2008, it was announced that a Jupiter-like planet, now designated as Gliese 832 b, had been detected in a long-period, near-circular orbit around this star (false alarm probability thus far: a negligible 0.05%). It would induce an astrometric perturbation on its star of at least 0.95 milliarcseconds and is thus a good candidate for being detected by astrometric"
"Rings of Chariklo The minor planet and centaur 10199 Chariklo, with a diameter of about , is the smallest celestial object with confirmed rings and the fifth ringed celestial object ever discovered in the Solar System, after the gas giants and ice giants. Orbiting Chariklo is a bright ring system consisting of two narrow and dense bands, 6–7 km (4 mi) and 2–4 km (2 mi) wide, separated by a gap of . The rings orbit at distances of about from the centre of Chariklo, a thousandth the distance between Earth and the Moon. The discovery was made by a"
"solar radii. It is the smallest discovered planet in the Kepler-124 system, and has the closest orbit of the three known planets. Kepler-124b orbits 96% closer to its star than Earth (approximately 3 Earth days), which in the Kepler-124 system is inside the inner limit of the star's habitable zone. Like many Exoplanets discovered by the Kepler telescope, Kepler-124b was found using the transit method. The transit method utilizes the high magnification and numerous instruments on the Kepler telescope to detect slight fluctuations in brightness of a star being observed. These dips can indicate the presence planet and determine certain"