... Taken from the NASA/JPL information summary "Our Solar System at a Glance". ... Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects planets, meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities -- Jupiter , king of the gods; Mars , the god of war; Mercury , messenger of the gods; Venus , the god of love and beauty, and Saturn , father of Jupiter and god of agriculture. ... Space History Rocket History . ...
The Sun is our nearest star and the source of energy for life on Earth. ... For centuries astronomers wondered whether they were clouds floating in the Sun's atmosphere, but we now know that they really are huge regions of magnetic field, about as intense as the field at the poles of an iron magnet. ... Such abrupt events were named solar flares , and what made them especially interesting was that occasionally, after a prominent flare, a magnetic storm would erupt on Earth. ...
... Spacecraft . 29b. Satellites looking down . ... 29e. Explorers of distant space . ... The Hubble orbiting telescope. ... The Hubble telescope , in low Earth orbit, overcomes such limitations, in the visible range and in part of the UV. ... So fruitful was this observation that a second "deep field" exposure of such length, near the southern pole of the heavens, was recently conducted. ... Some satellites specialize in observing the Sun, such as the Japanese Yohkoh and NASA's SOHO . ...