SCIENCE

5 big surprises when comparing the worlds in our Solar System | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Aug, 2024


Here in our own Solar System, a single star anchors the system, where inner, rocky planets, an intermediate-distance asteroid belt, and then more distant gas giant planets eventually give way to the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. The sizes, masses, and distances between the various objects is not generally appreciated, as these scales are far outside our everyday experience. (Credit: NASA/Dana Berry)

From size to mass to density and more, each world in our Solar System is unique. When we compare them, the results are truly shocking.

Within our Solar System, it’s hard to appreciate just how big, massive, and well-separated our planets, moons, asteroids, and more are.

A logarithmic chart of distances, showing Voyager, our Solar System, the Oort Cloud, and our nearest star: Proxima Centauri. In jumps of factors of 10, we go from Earth’s orbit to Saturn’s orbit to Voyager 1’s distance to the inner Oort cloud to the middle of the Oort cloud to more than a light-year away. Stars and other masses move through the galaxy over time, and routinely pass within the Oort cloud. The distances between these objects, compared to their physical sizes, are tremendous. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

These 5 counterintuitive facts can help put things in perspective.

This comparison image shows the four inner planets of our Solar System to scale by their actual size, as acquired by MESSENGER (for Mercury and Venus), Apollo 17 (for Earth), and the OSIRIS instrument aboard Rosetta (for Mars). (Credits: NASA/JHUAPL; Apollo 17; ESA/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

1.) Earth is more massive than all the other rocky planets, combined.

This cutaway view of the four terrestrial planets (plus Earth’s moon) shows the relative sizes of the cores, mantles, and crusts of these five worlds. Despite the fact that the Earth is only 5% larger in diameter than Venus, it has more mass than Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon combined. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

Adding together:

  • Mercury,
  • Venus,
  • Mars,
  • the Moon,
  • plus the asteroid and Kuiper belts,



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