In the solar system, apart from the Sun, the most important celestial bodies are the planets, which are sometimes referred to as "major planets". There are currently eight known planets in the solar system. In order of their distance from the Sun, they are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. All of them orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits.
Dwarf planets are smaller than planets, but their mass is still large enough to maintain their spherical shape. They also orbit the Sun directly. Because dwarf planets failed to clear the area near their orbits through gravity during their formation process, they are "shorter" than planets. As of July 2012, there were only five confirmed dwarf planets, among which Pluto, Ceres, and Eris are well-known.
Asteroids, the main members of the solar system family, also orbit the Sun along their respective orbits like planets and dwarf planets. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of officially numbered and named asteroids, most of which are distributed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. However, asteroids are too small, so their shapes are often irregular and far from spherical.
Satellites are celestial bodies that orbit planets, dwarf planets, or asteroids. Among the eight planets, only Mercury and Venus do not have satellites. Earth has one satellite, which is the Moon. Mars has two satellites, Jupiter has 50, Saturn has 53, Uranus has 27, and Neptune has 14 satellites. The dwarf planet with the most satellites is Pluto, which has five satellites. Although asteroids are small, some of them also have satellites. For example, the asteroid 243, which is about 56 kilometers long and 22.5 kilometers wide, has a small satellite with a diameter of about 1.6 kilometers.
There are also countless comets orbiting the Sun under the influence of the Sun's gravity. In the "Oort cloud" at the outer edge of the solar system, there are countless long-period comets. Beyond Neptune's orbit, the "Kuiper belt" is home to short-period comets.
Meteoroids are tiny objects orbiting the Sun in the solar system. When they enter the Earth's atmosphere, they frictionally heat up and burn, causing the phenomenon of "shooting stars". A large number of meteoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere together are called "meteor showers" - many meteoroids fall at the same time, as if it were raining.
The vast interplanetary space in the solar system is also filled with rare gases and dust matter, which are collectively called interplanetary matter. There is also a weak magnetic field in interplanetary space, known as the interplanetary magnetic field.
It can be seen that the members of the solar system family are extremely diverse and colorful.