Outer Solar System

NASA’s Planetary Science missions to the outer solar system help help scientists understand more about Earth and the formation and evolution of the solar system.

outer solar system

Jupiter

The fifth planet from our Sun, Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter's stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years. Europa, one of Jupiter's dozens of moons, is thought to have a liquid ocean beneath its icy surface.

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Jupiter dominates the black background of space. The image is a composite, and shows Jupiter in enhanced color, featuring the planet’s famous Great Red Spot, which appears white with light pink around the edges. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of green, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. Horizontally across the equator is a wide cream-colored band, whose height extends about 1/7 of the planet. This is the planet’s equatorial zone. The stripes across the planet interact and mix at their edges. Along both of the northern and southern poles, the planet glows in green. Bright red auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles.

This image of Jupiter from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows stunning details of the majestic planet in infrared light. In this image, brightness indicates high altitude. The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms. Auroras, appearing in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet. By contrast, dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover.

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hueso (University of the Basque Country), I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley), T. Fouchet (Observatory of Paris), L. Fletcher (University of Leicester), M. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI)

outer solar system

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in our solar system. Adorned with a dazzling system of icy rings, Saturn is not the only planet to have rings, but none are as spectacular or as complex. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Geysers on one of its dozens of moons, Enceladus, lead scientists to believe there is water below the surface, an essential component of life.

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A swing high above Saturn by NASA Cassini spacecraft revealed this stately view of the golden-hued planet and its main rings. Saturn sports differently colored bands of weather in this image.

outer solar system

Uranus

Cold and windy Uranus is surrounded by faint rings and more than two dozen small moons as it rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit, making it appear to spin on its side. Its blue-green color is due to large amounts of methane, which absorbs red light but allows blues to be reflected back into space. The atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, but also includes large amounts of water, ammonia and methane.

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Uranus appears as a bright, turquoise planet.

Uranus as seen by the spacecraft Voyager II from a distance of about 7.8 milllion miles (12.7 million km).

NASA/JPL

Outer Solar system

Neptune

Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant major planet orbiting our Sun. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is not visible to the naked eye and was the first planet located by mathematical calculations. Its blue color comes from methane in its atmosphere, which absorbs red wavelengths of light but allows blue ones to be reflected back into space.

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This picture of Neptune was taken by Voyager 2 less than five days before the spacecraft’s closest approach of the planet on Aug. 25, 1989. The picture shows the "Great Dark Spot" – a storm in Neptune's atmosphere – and the bright, light-blue smudge of clouds that accompanies the storm.

NASA/JPL

outer solar system

Dwarf Planets

The best-known dwarf planets beyond Neptune are Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris. All but Cerex are in the Kuiper Belt. They’re considered dwarfs because they are massive, round, and orbit the Sun, but haven't cleared their orbital path.

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