All seven of the other planets in our solar system are about to become visible at once in a great planetary alignment – here’s how to spot the celestial show. Close. Advertisement.

The Solar System. The Solar System consists of the eight planets that orbit our Sun and other celestial bodies such as moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, and dust and gas. Sun is considered ...

All eight of the solar system’s “major” planets appear in this illustration, but the actual number of planetary bodies orbiting our star is far greater. Digital Vision/Getty Images.

This process, called accretion, is how everything in the solar system – planets, moons, comets and asteroids – came into being. Telescopes can see young solar systems being born.

The planets in our solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane, known as the ecliptic, which is tilted relative to Earth's equator by about 23.5 degrees.

The Sun and planets of our solar system all formed from the same cloud of gas and dust, but the planets’ compositions vary with mass and distance from our star.

NASA artist’s conception of a brown dwarf (main) and stock image of the planets in the solar system (inset). An object between 2 and 50 times the mass of Jupiter may have flown through our ...

Our Solar System is full of mysteries, but if the inner planets are a puzzle, the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space is a secondhand puzzle with half the pieces missing.