Who discovered the Solar System?

The discovery of the solar system belongs to the period called the "Renaissance", when philosophers decided to admit nothing but observation and logic in building the science enterprise, and to reject tradition. read more

The Sun and planets of the Solar System. Pluto and the other dwarf planets are not shown. The relative sizes of objects are drawn to scale; the distances between them are not. A photo of Earth (circled) taken by Voyager 1, 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away. read more

I suspect that you’re thinking the Solar System was discovered as a whole. This is not so. Rather, over the centuries we have discovered and identified more parts of it. read more

Despite discoveries such as Sedna, the region between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, an area tens of thousands of AU in radius, is still virtually unmapped. There are also ongoing studies of the region between Mercury and the Sun. Objects may yet be discovered in the Solar System's uncharted regions. read more

Although it is debatable when the Solar System was truly "discovered", three 19th century observations determined its nature and place in the Universe beyond reasonable doubt. First, in 1838, Friedrich Bessel successfully measured a stellar parallax, an apparent shift in the position of a star created by Earth's motion around the Sun. read more

It’s hard to give a well-defined answer, because the Solar System was discovered gradually. The Earth, the Sun, and the Moon were “discovered” first, and they were likely known for as long as our species has existed, if not more. read more

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. read more