
Solar System Exploration
Join us as we explore our planetary neighborhood: The Sun, planets, moons, and millions of asteroids, and comets.
our solar system
Planets
Dwarf Planets
featured missions in OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Solar System Overview
Our solar system has one star, eight planets, five officially recognized dwarf planets, at least 290 moons, more than 1.3 million asteroids, and about 3,900 comets.
It is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur. Our solar system orbits the center of the galaxy at about 515,000 mph (828,000 kph). It takes about 230 million years to complete one orbit around the galactic center.
We call it the solar system because it is made up of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris – along with hundreds of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.
Our solar system is the only one we know of that has a planet that supports life. So far, we only know of life on Earth, but we’re looking for life on other worlds.
10 THINGS about our solar system
NASA's Europa Clipper
Send Your Name to Jupiter
You're invited to #SendYourName to Jupiter's moon Europa by signing a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón that will travel aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Watch the Skies
Get outside and look up!
Saying Farewell: Which Spacecraft are Leaving Our Solar System?
Only two spacecraft have reached interstellar space, the space between stars. Three other spacecraft have achieved enough velocity to eventually travel beyond the boundaries of our solar system.

- Voyager 1 went interstellar in 2012 and Voyager 2 joined it in 2018. Both spacecraft, launched in 1977, are still in communication with Earth.
- NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is currently exploring an icy region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. It eventually will leave our solar system.
- Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 also will ultimately travel silently among the stars toward the galactic core. The spacecraft used up their power supplies decades ago.