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The Solar System comprises the Sun and the retinue of celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their 162 known moons, three currently identified dwarf planets and their four known moons, and thousands of small bodies. This last category includes asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and interplanetary dust. In broad terms, the charted regions of the Solar System consist of the Sun, four rocky bodies close to it called the inner planets, an inner belt of rocky asteroids, four giant outer planets and a second belt of small icy bodies known as the Kuiper belt. In order of their distances from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Six of the eight planets are in turn orbited by natural satellites (usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon) and every planet past the asteroid belt is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles. All the planets, other than the Earth, are named after gods and goddesses from Greco-Roman mythology. The three dwarf planets are Pluto, the largest known Kuiper belt object, Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, and Eris which lies beyond the Kuiper belt in a region called the scattered disc. (more...)

In the news

• Two passengers remain unaccounted for after the Greek cruise ship M/S Sea Diamond (pictured) runs aground off Santorini in the Aegean Sea and sinks.
• The Royal Navy personnel accused of trespassing into Iranian waters return to the United Kingdom after a two-week detention.
• TGV POS trainset number 4402 sets a new world speed record for railed vehicles at 574.8 km/h (357 mph) during test runs conducted in Champagne, France.
• Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dissolves the parliament and calls for an early parliamentary election, a move denounced by the parliament as unconstitutional.
• A tsunami triggered by an earthquake strikes the Solomon Islands, killing at least 20, destroying around 900 homes and leaving thousands homeless.
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• ...that a view from the Plaza Mayor (pictured) in Trinidad, Cuba, is featured on the 25 centavo convertible peso coin?
• ...that the Century apartments is one of the first residential buildings to be built in the Art Deco style, causing it to stand out from its Beaux-Arts neighbors on Central Park West?
• ...that despite plagiarizing a Chinese-French-Latin dictionary ordered by Napoleon, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes went on to become a member of the French Academy of Sciences?
• ...that convicted American felon Matthew Cox was so bold in committing over $15 million of mortgage fraud that he allegedly even took out a mortgage under the name of The Simpsons character "C. Montgomery Burns"?
• ...that The Wordless Book was invented by the London Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon and employs religious symbolism and color psychology in evangelism?
• ...that the Bangladeshi filmmaker Alamgir Kabir was imprisoned by Ayub Khan for being a leftist?
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