300 articles
List of minor planets: 31001–32000
The list of minor planets 31001–32000 covers a block of one thousand numbered small Solar System bodies, nearly all main-belt asteroids discovered by surveys in late 1995 and early 1996.
List of minor planets: 33001–34000
The list of minor planets 33001–34000 covers 1,000 consecutively numbered small solar system bodies, mostly small main-belt asteroids discovered between 1997 and 2000 during the era of automated CCD surveys.
List of minor planets: 4001–5000
The list of minor planets 4001–5000 is a partial catalog of numbered minor planets, ending with 5000 IAU and including the dual asteroid-comet object 4015 Wilson-Harrington.
List of minor planets: 5001–6000
The list of minor planets 5001–6000 covers one block of the Minor Planet Center's sequential catalog of small solar-system bodies, objects numbered as their orbits became well determined.
List of minor planets: 6001–7000
The list of minor planets 6001–7000 is a segment of the numbered minor-planet catalog covering 1,000 asteroids, with each entry's number, provisional designation, discovery circumstances, and name.
List of minor planets: 7001–8000
The list of minor planets 7001–8000 catalogs the 1,000 minor planets with permanent numbers from 7001 through 8000, assigned sequentially by the Minor Planet Center once orbits are well determined.
List of minor planets: 9001–10000
The list of minor planets 9001–10000 is a segment of the numbered catalog of small Solar System bodies, ending with 10000 Myriostos, numbered in 1999.
List of natural satellites
The list of natural satellites, also known as the list of Solar System moons, covers the 970 known moons of planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids as of March 2026.
List of people who have flown to the Moon
The list of people who have flown to the Moon covers 24 Apollo astronauts, 1968 to 1972, and the four Artemis II crew of 2026.
List of possible dwarf planets
The list of possible dwarf planets covers bodies likely to meet the IAU's definition, beyond the five officially recognized: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.
List of Solar System objects by greatest aphelion
The list of Solar System objects by greatest aphelion ranks bodies by the farthest distance each reaches from the Sun, led by comets and extreme trans-Neptunian objects like Sedna.
List of tallest mountains in the Solar System
The tallest known mountain in the Solar System is Olympus Mons, a shield volcano on Mars rising roughly 21 to 26 kilometers, nearly three times the height of Mount Everest.
Love number
A Love number is a dimensionless parameter measuring how much a self-gravitating body deforms in response to tidal forces, formulated by A. E. H. Love in 1909.
Lunar resources
Lunar resources, also called Moon mining targets, are materials on the Moon usable for space activity, including polar water ice, regolith oxygen and metals, and helium-3; none are yet extracted.
Lunar water
Lunar water, also called water on the Moon, is water on or beneath the Moon's surface, including ice in permanently shadowed polar craters, confirmed by spacecraft since the 1990s.
M-type asteroid
M-type asteroids, also called M-class asteroids, are a class of asteroid with moderate albedo and featureless spectra, interpreted as metallic nickel-iron bodies; the largest member is 16 Psyche.
Magma ocean
A magma ocean is a global layer of molten silicate rock on a young planet, formed by accretion, core formation, and giant impacts early in the Solar System.
Magnetic field of Jupiter
The magnetic field of Jupiter, discovered in 1955, is about 20 times stronger than Earth's, driving a magnetosphere 20 million kilometers wide with intense radiation belts.
Magnetosphere of Uranus
The magnetosphere of Uranus, discovered by Voyager 2 in January 1986, is unusually tilted and offset, so its geometry changes dramatically over the planet's 17-hour day.
Magura Fossae
Magura Fossae is a 600-km-wide fossa (tectonic trough) system on Venus at 12°S, 332.5°E, in quadrangle v43; IAU-approved in 1997 and named for an East Slavic winged warrior maiden.
Main-belt comet
A main-belt comet (MBC) is a small Solar System body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter showing comet-like activity from sublimating ice, first recognized as a class in 2006.
Makemake
Makemake is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, discovered in 2005 and named in 2008; it is that belt's second-brightest object after Pluto.
Manto Fossae
Manto Fossae: a 536 km system of fossae, long narrow linear depressions, on Venus at 63.6°N, 64.9°E, IAU-named in 1991 for a Greek war goddess, part of the Sigrun-Manto deformation belt near Fortuna Tessera.
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, a cold desert world about half Earth's size whose thin atmosphere once allowed rivers and lakes billions of years ago.
Meanings of minor planet names: 8001–9000
Meanings of minor planet names: 8001–9000 is the portion of the IAU's minor-planet naming record covering numbered objects 8001 through 9000, named mostly in the late 1990s and 2000s.
Meanings of minor-planet names
Meanings of minor-planet names are recorded by the IAU's Working Group Small Body Nomenclature, which approves each asteroid name, at most 16 characters, with a citation explaining its origin.
Meanings of minor-planet names: 1–1000
The list of meanings of minor-planet names 1–1000 covers the first thousand numbered minor planets, from 1 Ceres, discovered in 1801, to 1000 Piazzia, named in 1923.
Meanings of minor-planet names: 1001–2000
Meanings of minor-planet names: 1001–2000 is the naming record for the second thousand numbered minor planets, objects discovered chiefly photographically in the 1920s and 1930s and named afterward.
Mercury (planet)
Mercury, the planet, is the smallest planet and the closest to the Sun, a rocky world with a giant iron core and no moons or rings.
Mercury's magnetic field
Mercury's magnetic field is a global dynamo field generated in Mercury's liquid iron core, about 1% as strong as Earth's, making Mercury the only other inner planet with one.