THE 8 PLANETS

Last updated: 

USA Date: 02/17/2020

NZL Date: 17/02/2020

The Solar System is made up of 8 planets[order from Sun]: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They all orbit the Sun in different paths and have different sizes and mass[smallest to largest]: Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter. There are 8 planets, but there are also 5 dwarf planets[Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris]. The Solar System is also made up of two major asteroid belts.

The planets are separated into two types of planets, gas giants and terrestrial planets. The "inner four" planets are all terrestrial and the "outer four" are gas giants. Terrestrial planets are characterised by their dense, rocky composition and gas giants are characterised by their massiveness and gaseous composition. 

Pluto used to be considered a planet until in 2006 when the International Astronomical Union[IAU] classified it as a dwarf planet because it didn't meet the "laws of the definition of a planet."