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Mercury
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the solar system, orbiting the Sun once every 88 days. Mercury is bright when viewed from Earth, ranging from −2.0 to 5.5 in apparent magnitude, but is not easily seen as its greatest angular separation from the Sun (greatest elongation) is only 28.3°: It can only be seen in morning and evening twilight. Comparatively little is known about it; the first of two spacecraft to approach Mercury was Mariner 10 from 1974 to 1975, which mapped only about 45% of the planet’s surface. The second was the MESSENGER spacecraft, which mapped another 30% of the planet during its flyby of January 14, 2008. MESSENGER will make two more passes by Mercury, followed by orbital insertion in 2011, and will survey and map the entire planet. |
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Venus
Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It is the brightest natural object in the night sky, except for the Moon, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus is an inferior planet, from Earth it never appears to venture far from the Sun: its elongation reaches a maximum of 47.8°. Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, for which reason it is often called the Morning Star or the Evening Star. |
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Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in both diameter and mass. It is also referred to as the Earth, Planet Earth, the World, and Terra. |
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Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance as seen from Earth. |
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Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is two and a half times as massive as all of the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter, along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian planets, where Jovian is the adjectival form of Jupiter. |
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Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Along with the planets Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune it is classified as a gas giant (also known as a Jovian planet, after the planet Jupiter). It was named after the Roman god Saturnus, equated to the Greek Kronos (the Titan father of Zeus) and the Babylonian Ninurta. Saturn's symbol represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ♄). The day in the week Saturday gets its name from the planet. |
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Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third-largest and fourth-most massive planet in the solar system. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky the father of Kronos (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter). Uranus was the first planet discovered in modern times. Though it is visible to the naked eye like the five classical planets, it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers due to its dimness. Sir William Herschel announced its discovery on March 13, 1781, expanding the known boundaries of the solar system for the first time in modern history. This was also the first discovery of a planet made using a telescope. |
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Naptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the fourth largest planet by diameter, and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and less dense. The planet is named after the Roman god of the sea. Its astronomical symbol is just like Hindu Trishul, a stylized version of the god Neptune's trident. |
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Pluto
Pluto also designated 134340 Pluto, is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System (after Eris) and the tenth-largest body observed directly orbiting the Sun. Originally classified as a planet, Pluto is now considered the largest member of a distinct region called the Kuiper belt. Like other members of the belt, it is composed primarily of rock and ice and is relatively small: approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth's moon and a third its volume. It has an eccentric orbit that takes it from 30 to 49 AU (4.4–7.4 billion km) from the Sun, and is highly inclined with respect to the planets. As a result, Pluto occasionally comes closer to the Sun than the planet Neptune does. |
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