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This is an introduction to the Solar System, the star system where we live. It's our neighborhood of the Milky Way. What lies between the Sun and the edge of the Oort Cloud?

Solar System - Tour for Kids

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Get acquainted with our star. The Solar System belongs to the Sun. More than 99% of all the matter in the Solar System is in the Sun. Everything else - planets, moons, asteroids, icy bodies, comets - is made from stuff left over from making the Sun. It's the Sun's gravity that holds everything together. And, of course, it makes. life on Earth possible.

The Sun – Facts for Kids

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Mercury is close enough to the Sun for lead to melt during the day. Yet there is ice at the poles. Before we had space probes, Mercury was a mystery hidden in the Sun's glare, but that's changed now.

Mercury - 10 Facts for Kids

An international mission to Mercury is currently in progress. It's called Bepi-Colombo. Two spacecraft riding together will orbit and study the planet from unique vantage points. The European Space Agency (ESA) provided one orbiter, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) supplied the other. BepiColombo made its first flyby of Mercury on Oct. 1, 2021, and sent back several images. But several more planetary flybys will be used to steer the craft into orbit around Mercury in December 2025.

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We can see five planets with our unaided eyes. But people often ask how to find them and how to recognize them. Here is a beginner's guide to seeing Mercury and Venus.

Absolute Beginners - Seeing Mercury and Venus


It's the planet most likely to be mistaken for a UFO. It spins backwards on its axis. A year is two days long. It's Venus! Some call it Earth's twin, but it isn't much like home.

Venus - Facts for Kids


Would you like to visit another planet? How about Mars or Venus? Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin wants to see astronauts on Mars, but could Venus be a better choice?

Visiting Venus - Facts for Kids

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The Moon has no air, no sound, no weather and no liquid water. It even has places that are colder than Pluto. But since gravity is weaker there, you could throw a ball a long way, and the footprint you left might last a hundred thousand years or more.

The Moon - Facts for Kids

If you're looking for something more advanced, these might interest you:

The Moon has been the object of awe and fascination since our humanoid ancestors first looked up into the sky. Test your knowledge about Moon and maybe find out some interesting new facts about it.

The Moon - Quiz

Our nearest neighbor in space is on show for us most nights – and some days. There are several Google doodles celebrating our relationship with the Moon.

Moon Doodles

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Mars has no little green men, but it's a fascinating place. It has a mountain three times the height of Everest and a deep valley that dwarfs the Grand Canyon. Although Mars has no liquid water on the surface, if the southern polar icecap melted, it could cover the planet 36 feet deep in water.

Mars - Facts for Kids

Earth's moon is "the Moon” because it was the only one people had ever seen until 1610. That's when Galileo discovered moons orbiting Jupiter. Why did it take until 1877 for someone to find the moons of our neighbor Mars?

Moons of Mars - Facts for Kids

Beyond Mars, there is a belt of material, called the Asteroid Belt. It contains a dwarf planet and lots of small irregular bodies.

Observers used to call them 'vermin of the skies". Asteroids weren't interesting and their streaks ruined sky photos. But no more! They can tell us about the early Solar System. One of them may have finished off the dinosaurs, and more could be coming our way.

Asteroid Facts for Kids

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NASA's Dawn mission spent 14 months orbiting the asteroid Vesta. Vesta's an unusual object, too small to be a dwarf planet. Yet it has the Solar System's tallest mountain, and canyons as big as Earth's Grand Canyon. And it may help scientists to understand the early Solar System.

Vesta - Facts for Kids

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If you discover a comet, it automatically gets your name.

But how do asteroids get their names?

If you discover an asteroid, you can name it, though you can't name it after yourself or your cat. There are rules about the naming of asteroids.

You also can't buy the naming right, though someone might give their naming right to you.

Naming Asteroids

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When Ceres was discovered in 1801, astronomers assumed it was a planet. But when many more of these bodies were found, they were all finally listed as asteroids. In 2006 Ceres became the only asteroid also to be listed as a dwarf planet.

Ceres - Facts for Kids

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Three beautiful planets - Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - are all visible to the unaided eye. If you have binoculars or a telescope, you can also see some of the moons and other features. Here's a beginner's look at the planets which lie beyond Earth.

Absolute Beginners - See Mars and beyond

This is a new version of an old article, which has been edited and updated.

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King of the Roman gods. Comet-killer. Two and a half times the mass of all the other planets put together. Shortest day of any planet in the Solar System. It's Jupiter! Find out more.

Jupiter - Facts for Kids

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Jupiter has at least 79 moons. Some of them are only half a mile long, but one is bigger than the planet Mercury. Which moon has hundreds of volcanoes, and which one has a deep ocean under an icy surface? Find out here.

Jupiter's Moons – Facts for Kids

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Saturday is Saturn's day. Saturn, a god of ancient mythology, is the planet with the beautiful rings. For 13 years, the Cassini space mission studied Saturn, its rings and moons.

Saturn Facts for Kids

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Everybody recognizes Saturn's rings, but that isn't all that circles the planet. There are shepherd moons, a moon with cold volcanoes erupting, a planet-sized moon, and more. And it took nearly two hundred years for the first seven known moons to get named.

Saturn's Moons – Facts for Kids

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Even being the Saturn's second biggest moon doesn't make Rhea very big. We could set three Rheas down on the USA and have room to spare. It whizzes around Saturn so quickly that a month is only four and a half Earth days long. It's so cold there that ice is as hard as rock.

Saturn's Moon Rhea - Facts for Kids

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Saturn's moon Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury. It's also the only moon with a thick atmosphere. In fact the atmosphere is so smoggy, we can't see the surface. How is Titan like Earth?

Titan - Facts for Kids

Other articles about Saturn's moons:

Mimas is named for a giant in Greek mythology, but Saturn's moon is no giant. It's less than 400 km (245 mi) across and the smallest body we know of that's rounded by gravity. The moon also has a bizarre resemblance to the Death Star in George Lukas's Star Wars films.

Mimas – Death Moon of Saturn


Saturn has lots of moons - 92 known ones. They are remarkable in many ways, but perhaps the strangest one is the misshapen and unpredictable Hyperion.

Hyperion – Saturn's Weird Wobbly Moon


Titan was a mystery for three and a half centuries. It's a giant moon shrouded in impenetrable clouds, and has only recently begun to share its secrets. Why do scientists say it's like Earth? Is it time to book a vacation to visit the lakes and mountains of Titan?

Titan - Planet-sized Moon of Saturn


Rhea was Saturn's wife in classical mythology. Rhea the moon zips around Saturn in four and a half days. Although it has an oxygen atmosphere, we won't be moving there anytime soon. Even in direct sunlight, it's -281 degrees Fahrenheit and the "atmosphere" is similar to a vacuum on Earth.

Rhea - Moon of Saturn

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This ice giant is twenty times farther from the Sun than we are. It circles the Sun lying on its side, so each half the planet is dark for over twenty years at a time. It's the planet Uranus, discovered in 1781 by William Herschel who named it George.

Uranus - Facts for Kids

William Herschel discovered the planet which was named Uranus after the ancient Greek sky god. Although Uranus has at least 27 moons, most of them weren't discovered until at least the twentieth century.

Moons of Uranus - Facts for Kids

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You can see planets without a telescope. People have been seeing Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn for thousands of years. Even though Uranus was the first planet discovered by telescope, sometimes it can be seen without one.

Discovering Uranus - for Kids

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Far beyond Uranus is another blue planet, one named for the Roman sea god. It could well have been named for a god of winds as it's the windiest place in the Solar System. And it has a captured moon that was a Kuiper Belt object like Pluto.

Neptune - Facts for Kids

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Neptune is the last planet out from the Sun. It has fourteen known moons and they're a mixed bag. One of them – Triton – has over 99% of the total mass of Neptune's moons. Thirteen little moons share what's left. Only two of the moons were discovered before 1981.

Neptune's Moons - Facts for Kids
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Neptune, named for the Roman sea god, was discovered in 1846. And 17 days later, William Lassell found a moon. Its moon is probably a captured Kuiper Belt object, similar to Pluto, but colder than Pluto. It's a strange object. Nasa is considering a mission to Neptune and Triton to have a look.

Neptune's Triton - Facts for Kids

Between the Sun and the Oort Cloud, there's a whole lotta cool stuff going on. You've got the eight planets (yep, Pluto still counts!), a bunch of dwarf planets, and tons of other space rocks like asteroids and comets. It's like a cosmic playground out there!
But don't worry, you don't have to be an astrophysicist to understand it all. There are plenty of [url=http://teacherwebshelf.com/boekhout/links/edutopics/space/space.htm]Learning Resources[/url] that can help you get a handle on things. From fun videos to interactive simulations, there's something for everyone. And if you're feeling stuck, don't hesitate to reach out for help. We're all in this together, exploring the vastness of space and learning about the amazing things that make up our Solar System.

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Pluto is smaller than our Moon, but it's the biggest known dwarf planet. On the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt, the Sun is so far away it would look like a bright star from there. And Pluto can get so cold that its atmosphere freezes and falls to the ground.

Pluto - Facts for Kids
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