Planetary Bodies Quotes

Benjamin Franklin maintained that every star is a sun, and every sun nourishes a 'chorus of worlds' just like ours.

Is a mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain?

Venus and Mars are our next of kin: they are the two most Earth-like planets that we know about. They're the only two other very Earth-like planets in our solar system, meaning they orbit close to the sun; they have rocky surfaces and thin atmospheres.

The Kuiper Belt is the largest mapped structure in our planetary system, three times as big as all the territory from the sun out to Neptune's orbit.

We really just didn't realize the diversity of planetary types in our solar system. Pluto looked like a misfit because it was the only one we saw. And just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs are still planetary bodies. They're large enough to make themselves round by self gravity, and they surely pass the test of planethood.

Back before the Kuiper Belt was discovered, Pluto did look like a misfit that didn't belong with either the terrestrials or the giant planets.

Saturn is the most photogenic planet in the solar system.

What planet are you on?

We were very surprised to find out that Pluto is still geologically alive. It has upended our ideas of how planetary geophysics works.

The diameter of the earth is greater than the diameter of the moon and the diameter of the sun is greater than the diameter of the earth.

To say that what a planet is doesn't matter would be to imply that a planetary scientist couldn't explain to someone what the field is about.

Going to the Kuiper Belt is like an archaeological dig into the history of the solar system.

Talk about celestial bodies.

We're going to understand that there is life on other bodies in the solar system.

In the mind of the public, the word 'planet' carries a significance lacking in other words used to describe planetary bodies... many members of the public assume that alleged 'non-planets' cease to be interesting enough to warrant scientific exploration.

We are not going to stop here on planet Earth. We're going to move out to other planetary bodies.

Just as our solar system has a certain idiosyncratic assortment of planets and moons, different from any neighboring system yet categorically equivalent, so each distinct period of human history might have special qualities and individuals, characteristics and events, yet still be essentially akin beneath the surface to all the others.