Curated category
Astronomical objects known since antiquity
- Mercury (planet)The MUL.APIN tablets from the 14th century BC contain the earliest known records of Mercury. An Assyrian astronomer wrote about this planet using cuneiform…
- VENUSVenus is the second planet from the Sun, yet it shares a striking physical resemblance to Earth. It has a diameter of 12,104 kilometers, which is only about…
- JupiterJupiter formed just one million years after the Sun, roughly 50 million years before Earth came into existence. Current models suggest this massive planet…
- SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System. It has an average radius about 9 times that of Earth, yet it possesses…
- MarsMars formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago alongside the other planets in our solar system. Scientists theorize that this creation resulted from a…
- SunThe Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of part of a giant molecular cloud that consisted mostly of hydrogen and helium.
- EarthThe Modern English word Earth developed from an Old English noun most often spelled ertha. This term has cognates in every Germanic language, tracing back to…
- MoonFour point five one billion years ago, a Mars-sized body named Theia collided with the proto-Earth. This oblique impact blasted material into orbit about our…
- Milky WayIn the Babylonian epic poem Enūma Eliš, a primeval salt water dragon named Tiamat has her severed tail set in the sky by Marduk to create the Milky Way.
- Alpha CentauriThe Alpha Centauri system holds three stars in a single gravitational family. Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman form a binary pair that appears as one bright point…
- Halley's CometIn 240 BC, Chinese astronomers recorded a comet in the Records of the Grand Historian. They described it moving from east to north.