In Depth | Our Solar System – NASA Solar System Exploration
Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; …
In Depth | Sun – NASA Solar System Exploration
The Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star – a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium – at the center of our solar system. It’s about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth and it’s our …
In Depth | Earth's Moon – NASA Solar System Exploration
As the Moon orbits Earth, different parts are in sunlight or darkness at different times. The changing illumination is why, from our perspective, the Moon goes through phases. During a "full moon," the …
In Depth | Ganymede – NASA Solar System Exploration
Not only is it the largest moon in our solar system, bigger than the planet Mercury and the dwarf planet Pluto, but NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for an underground …
Solar System Ambassadors - NASA Solar System Exploration
NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system.
Radio JOVE collects and analyzes the data to determine whether the presence of the Moon occulted the radio-emitting regions near the Sun, and whether Earth’s ionosphere was significantly affected by …
In Depth | Asteroids – NASA Solar System Exploration
Most of this ancient space rubble can be found orbiting our Sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt. Asteroids range in size from Vesta – the largest at about 329 miles (530 …
Jupiter - NASA Solar System Exploration
Sep 3, 2025 · Unlike Earth’s Moon and our planet’s northern lights, the massive, shimmering auroras above Jupiter’s poles carry signatures that the planet’s largest moons leave in the atmosphere.
In Depth | Kuiper Belt – NASA Solar System Exploration
The inner, main region of the Kuiper Belt ends around 50 AU from the Sun. Overlapping the outer edge of the main part of the Kuiper Belt is a second region called the scattered disk, which continues …
If you know how big you want the largest size (LS) in the model to be, then the scale is the ratio of the true largest size (TLS, e.g., the distance from the Sun to Pluto) to the size in the model (LS):