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Favourite planet poll

What is your favourite planet in our solar system?
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The seven planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system orbit a dim red dwarf star. MUST CREDIT: Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Our solar system is made up of a star—the Sun—eight planets, 146 moons, a bunch of comets, asteroids and space rocks, ice, and several dwarf planets, such as Pluto.

The eight planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Mercury is closest to the Sun. Neptune is the farthest. Pluto got booted out of the “planet” designation years ago, instead classified as a dwarf planet, although there are those who refuse to acknowledge the change.

According to Wikipedia, “the Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it.”

Of the bodies that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the four gas and ice giants and the four terrestrial planets, followed by an unknown number of dwarf planets and innumerable small Solar System bodies.

Of the bodies that orbit the Sun indirectly—the natural satellites—two are larger than Mercury, the smallest terrestrial planet, and one is nearly as large.

READ MORE: Mini Mercury skips across sun’s vast glare in rare transit