solar_system

photo by Royalty-free image collection on Flickr

Actions

License

Attribution

Download

Embed Photo

Size and Profile

Uploaded:: Oct 17, 2008
Original:: 823 × 1024

Original date:: May 12, 2006

(From sse.jpl.nasa.gov)
This is a montage of planetary images taken by spacecraft managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Included are (from top to bottom) images of Mercury, Venus, Earth (and Moon), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft responsible for these images are as follows: the Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10, the Venus image by Magellan, the Earth and Moon images by Galileo, the Mars image by Mars Global Surveyor, the Jupiter image by Cassini, and the Saturn, Uranus and Neptune images by Voyager. Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it.
The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars) are roughly to scale to each other; the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are roughly to scale to each other.
Actual diameters are given below: Sun 1,390,000 km Mercury 4,879 km Venus 12,104 km Earth 12,756 km Moon 3,475 km Mars 6,794 km Jupiter 142.984 km Saturn 120,536 km Uranus 51,118 km Neptune 49,528 km Pluto 2,390 km

For more information on the Planets, a good place to start is the Planets section of the NASA Solar System Exploration Home Page at sse.jpl.nasa.gov

Wikipedia Article

Solar System — See encyclopedia photos

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass (well over 99%) is in the Sun. Of the many objects that orbit the Sun, most of the mass is contained within eight relatively solitary planets whose orbits are almost circular and lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, the gas giants, are substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are composed largely of ices, such as water, ammonia and methane, and are often referred to separately as "ice giants".

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-SA License. It uses material from Wikipedia content.

Albums

Album	Page
Solar System