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They Are Far
Far Away
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Planet
Name |
Diameter
in miles |
Sun Distance
in miles |
|
Mercury |
3,032 |
36
million |
|
Venus |
7,543 |
67
million |
|
Earth |
7,926 |
93
million |
|
Mars |
4,217 |
142 million |
|
Jupiter |
88,732 |
483 million |
|
Saturn |
74,975 |
870 million |
|
Uranus |
31,763 |
1.8 billion |
|
Neptune |
30,775 |
2.8 billion |
|
Pluto |
1,429 |
3.7 billion |
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Sedna
is one of the most distant object found orbiting our Sun so far. It is three
times farther from the Sun than Pluto.
By comparision, Earth is only 93 million miles from the Sun, while Pluto is
3.7 billion miles from the Sun. Sedna is 6.2 billion miles beyond Earth and
2.5 billion miles beyond Pluto.
Quaoar
is roughly four billion miles away from Earth. That is more than a billion
miles farther away than
Pluto.
Quaoar
is so far away, it takes light from the Sun five hours to reach it.
Unlike Pluto, Quaoar's orbit around the Sun is circular. In fact, even more
so than most of the planetary bodies in our Solar System.
The object Orcus is 4.4 billion miles from Earth.
Finding and measuring these distant Kuiper Belt objects gives us new insight
into the origin and dynamics of the planets, and that mysterious population
of bodies dwelling way out there at the Solar System frontier — the elusive,
icy, Kuiper Belt of objects beyond
Neptune
and Pluto.
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