Are there 13 planets

Regardless of its classification, Charon is even bigger than Ceres. Ceres is an attractive dwarf planet since it is also classified as an asteroid, the biggest yet discovered. Some believe that life may have come from Ceres through the process of panspermia. Some of them have been classified as asteroids, comets, but many are possible dwarf plantes. If this is true, then our Solar System really seems like a crowded place. Who knows what we will discover in the future and if the hypothetical Planet X will also be debunked one day.

How Many Planets are in our Solar System? Conclusion For Pluto This happened after astronomers settled upon what would define a planet, and Pluto seemed to lack criteria. A New Planet? Did you know? It is also the ninth-largest object in our Solar System, having a radius of 2. The stars, which look lonely when seen from Earth, actually exist in groups or clusters that are better called Galaxies or Nebulae. The planet Venus has no satellite of its own, but it shines in the sky like a star, which makes most people refer to it as a star.

Mercury, the smallest and fastest planet, is the closest planet to the Sun and revolves around it every 88 Earth days. Jupiter is a massive planet, twice as big as all the other planets put together and has a centennial storm bigger than Earth.

The key difference between a planet and a dwarf planet is the type of objects that share its orbit around the Sun. The outer planets are gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and ice giants Uranus and Neptune.

Beyond Neptune, a newer class of smaller worlds called dwarf planets reign, including longtime favorite Pluto. Thousands more planets have been discovered beyond our solar system. Scientists call them exoplanets exo means "from outside". The key difference between a planet and a dwarf planet is the kinds of objects that share its orbit around the Sun.

Pluto, for example, has not cleared its orbit of similar objects while Earth or Jupiter have no similarly-sized worlds on the same path around the Sun. Like planets, dwarf planets are generally round Haumea looks like an overinflated football and orbit the Sun. There are likely thousands of dwarf planets waiting to be discovered beyond Neptune. Except for Ceres, which lies in the main asteroid belt , these small worlds are located in the Kuiper Belt.

This simulated view of our solar system at the top of this page and below runs on real data. November 9, October 19, By: Monica Young September 28, Solar System. By: Jure Japelj September 21, Imaging Foundations with Richard Wright.