Planets were assembled out of small "building bodies" called planetesimals, which themselves aggregated from the dust in the solar nebula. Planets are found much more commonly around stars like our sun that are rich in iron and other metals, hinting that such elements played an important role in planet formation. Planets work best when created using panoramas, but for this second example we’ll use the following landscape photo of San Girgio Maggiore Island in Venice. Planets, as we noted, move relative to the stars, and they do so, generally, moving from west to east in the sky. Planets with the perfect blend of molecular constituents orbiting at just the right distance from the sun enjoy what astronomers call a "Goldilocks" orbit. All eight planets can be seen with a small telescope; or binoculars. Mars has some of the most highly varied and interesting terrain of any of the terrestrial planets, some of it quite spectacular: Olympus Mons: the largest mountain in the Solar System rising 24 km (78,000 ft.

Neptune

Neptune's largest satellite, Triton, is in a highly inclined retrograde orbit and is believed to have been captured by Neptune early in its history. Neptune was to be recorded several more times, without being recognized as a planet, over the following years. Neptune has a mass more than8000 times greater than that of Pluto, and, in fact, totally dominates Pluto's region of the Kuiper belt. Neptune did not follow the orbit computed, even after taking the gravitational attraction of all the other known planets into account. Neptune appears in the constellation Capricornus, and stages its best appearance in August.

Venus

Venus is an example of runaway greenhouse effect on a planetary scale. Venus is clearly not a black body and the greenhouse effect is important for raising its temperature. Venus, our planet's evil sister, has already been identified as unusable for life because of. Venus stretches us the most of the planets, simply because it is the closest on average. Venus' distance from the Sun is about 70% of the distance Sun-Earth. Venus, Mars, and Saturn will form the closest trio, drawing within a 5 degree circle (about the apparent size of your fist with arm extended) above Aldebaran by May 3rd.

Planets and satellites are "built-in", and the program comes with some 7500 asteroids and comets. Planets are much smaller with core temperatures and pressures too low for nuclear fusion to occur. Planets are found much more commonly around stars like our sun that are rich in iron and other metals, hinting that such elements played an important role in planet formation. The sun is the center of our solar system; the planets, their moons, the asteroids, comets, and other rocks and gas all orbit the sun. Temperatures on the Planets Generally, the farther from the Sun, the cooler the planet.