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The Solar System: A Panorama

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Handbook of Exoplanets

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Abstract

The closest and most extensively studied planetary system, our solar system provides the foundation for understanding the characteristics of planetary and sub-planetary bodies and the processes that shape them. This chapter surveys the diversity of objects orbiting our Sun and what they tell us about the origins and evolution of the solar system. The numerous small bodies populating specific orbits, from the asteroid belt to the far reaches of the Oort cloud, encode information on the solar system’s age and the initial conditions in the solar nebula. The surfaces and atmospheres of the planets and their satellites reveal how the same fundamental physical processes produced bodies with vastly different characteristics, from the dry, metal-dominated composition of Mercury through the storm-wracked hydrogen atmosphere of Jupiter. Finally, the search for liquid water and temperate climates elsewhere in the solar system, past or present, provides context for understanding the origin of life on Earth and the potential for life’s existence elsewhere in the Universe.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Katherine de Kleer

  2. Department of Astronomy, The University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Imke de Pater

  3. Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Imke de Pater

  4. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Imke de Pater

Authors
  1. Katherine de Kleer
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  2. Imke de Pater
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katherine de Kleer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

    Hans J. Deeg

  2. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

    Juan Antonio Belmonte

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de Kleer, K., de Pater, I. (2018). The Solar System: A Panorama. In: Deeg, H., Belmonte, J. (eds) Handbook of Exoplanets . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_42

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