Small Bodies
The Solar System's smaller worlds — comets blazing on ancient orbits, asteroids shaped by cosmic collisions, dwarf planets hiding in the frozen outer reaches, and meteors streaking through our sky.
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Beyond the Planets
The Solar System contains far more than eight planets. Billions of smaller objects — from mountain-sized asteroids to icy comets on million-year journeys — fill the space between and beyond the planets. These small bodies are time capsules from the Solar System's formation 4.6 billion years ago, preserving material that has barely changed since the Sun first ignited.
Some of these objects have shaped the history of life on Earth. Comets may have delivered water and organic molecules to the young planet. Asteroid impacts have triggered mass extinctions and created craters that are still visible today. And dwarf planets like Pluto have proven to be surprisingly complex worlds with mountains, plains, and even possible subsurface oceans.