The Solar System
Eight planets, their moons, the dwarf worlds and the star that binds them. Explore each world in depth - its size, orbit, atmosphere, interior and the missions we’ve sent to reach it.
Explore every world
From the scorched rock of Mercury to the frozen heart of Pluto - tap any world for a full profile.
Compare the worlds
Sortable table of radius, gravity, temperature, day length, year and moons across all eleven bodies.
Exploration timeline
From Sputnik in 1957 to Europa Clipper’s launch - the milestones of how we explored the Solar System.
Missions
Selected flybys, orbiters, landers, rovers and planned journeys, grouped by destination.
Solar System quiz
Ten questions on the planets, their moons and the missions that visited them.
Start the quizA hand-built guide to our cosmic neighbourhood
The Solar System formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust. At its centre sits the Sun, a G-type main-sequence star that holds 99.86% of all the mass in the system. Around it orbit the four small, rocky inner planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars - then the two gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, the two ice giants Uranus and Neptune, and a belt of icy dwarf worlds including Pluto.
This atlas gives each of those worlds its own page, with real figures for size, orbit, surface gravity, temperature and atmospheric make-up, plus the notable moons, the spacecraft that have visited, a cutaway of the interior and a sense of how long it would take to travel there. Start with the Earth, the only world known to harbour life, or jump straight to the giant Jupiter and its ocean-bearing moon Europa.