Our Solar System. Home Page. ORRERY: The Solar System in Action. The Solar System. Solar System, Solar System Information. Our Cosmic Neighborhood From our small world we have gazed upon the cosmic ocean for thousands of years. Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects "planets," meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities—Jupiter, king of the gods; Mars, the god of war; Mercury, messenger of the gods; Venus, the goddes of love and beauty, and Saturn, father of Jupiter and god of agriculture.
The stargazers also observed comets with sparkling tails, and meteors or shooting stars apparently falling from the sky. Since the invention of the telescope, three more planets have been discovered in our solar system: Uranus (1781), Neptune (1846), and, now downgraded to a dwarf planet, Pluto (1930). In addition, there are thousands of small bodies such as asteroids and comets. The four planets closest to the sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are called the terrestrial planets because they have solid rocky surfaces. —Text courtesy NASA/JPL. The Solar System: Space Gallery on Sea and Sky. Our Solar System is a place of unimaginable beauty.
Home to the Sun, eight planets, and a variety of smaller celestial objects, we have only recently been able to appreciate it fully. Thanks to the marvels of technology, robotic spacecraft have extended our view across vast distances, enabling us to see what was once hidden from our view. Join us now and examine some of the most recent images of our Solar System.
The images in this gallery have been hand-selected by Sea and Sky for their visual beauty and represent some of the best views ever obtained of the Solar System. Click on an image above to begin a slide show. Views of the Solar System. Solar System. Discovery and exploration Andreas Cellarius's illustration of the Copernican system, from the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660) For many thousands of years, humanity, with a few notable exceptions, did not recognize the existence of the Solar System. People believed Earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos,[11] Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system.[12] His 17th-century successors, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, developed an understanding of physics that led to the gradual acceptance of the idea that Earth moves around the Sun and that the planets are governed by the same physical laws that governed Earth.
Additionally, the invention of the telescope led to the discovery of further planets and moons. Our Solar System. Current Missions. Astrology Calendars.
Objects in the Solar System. Location of the Solar System.