Helps you to understand the Universe

New discoveries
Quite frequently new discoveries are made public, like the discovery of a new satellite of one of the planets or completely new objects (for example all the “ice dwarfs”, or more officially "Trans-NeptunianObjects" - TNO's - that were discovered in the last few years). During the development of the Solar System scale model, in the first halve of 2003, the number of Jupiter-moons, for instance, was adjusted three or four times. And immediately after it was printed a new one was discovered! In 2003 Quaoar, a reasonably large ice dwarf, was so special that we added it as a sort of tenth planet (what it isn't!) to the scale model. Then, in 2005, a "real" tenth planet was discovered: Eris, an ice dwarf thought then to be larger than Pluto! The International Astronomical Union (IAU) introduced a new class of "dwarf planets" in 2006, which for the moment includes Pluto, the asteroid Ceres and the TNO's Eris, Makemake and Haumea. So now there are only eight planets - like it should be!

In this part of our website you will find some new and additional information. Also we added a few new cards, for the new objects that were found after the publication if the first edition, that can be downloaded and added to the scale model at no cost. There is also a new one for Pluto, featuring it as the first dwarf planet!

New information

Small Solar System Bodies
The number of Small Solar System Bodies, zoals asteroids and ice dwarfs (TNO's), in Februari 2011: 543,780, of which 279,522 unnumbered (their known orbital characteristics are not good enough, yet, to provide them with a number); 264,258 with just a number; and of those over 16,000 also have a name (like 3091 van den Heuvel, after Prof. Ed van den Heuvel, 4648 Tirion after my colleague Wil Tirion, and 10986 Govert, after my colleague Govert Schilling). Currently about 5000 SSSB's are discovered a month!

Next information: updated July 2021

Total number of satellites ('moons') in October 2023: 297

Jupiter
Number of moons: 95 (October 2023)

Saturnus
Rotation period ('day') May 2006: 10 hours, 47 m, 6 s
Number of moons: 146 (October 2023)

Uranus
Number of moons: 27

Neptune
Number of moons: 14 (July 2013)
A new moon was discovered on 1 July 2013, by Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute (14) – S-2004 N 1. Its distance is 105.283 km, its size 18- 20 km. It completes one revolution around Neptune every 23 hours. It's the smallest of Neptune's known moons.

Pluto
Number of moons: 5 - Charon (1978), Nix and Hydra (both discovered in 2005), Kerberos (2011) and Styx (2012).
Class: since 24 August 2006 Pluto is no longer classified as a planet, but is one of the new class of dwarf planets, together with Eris, Makemake, Haumea (both since 2008) and the asteroid Ceres. Probably many dwarf planets will follow, there are dozens of candidates already. Pluto is also the most famous member of a new class of TNO's (Trans Neptunian Objects - objects in orbits farther from the Sun than Neptune): the plutino's.
In July 2015 a space probe will visit Pluto and Charon: the New Horizons. We have added a card for this probe below.

Makemake
This dwarf planet has at least one moon (discovered in 2016).

Komeet 1P/Halley
Distance to the Sun on 2 August 2021: 5 236 089 000 km (in the scale model 52.36 m).
The komeet is now in the constellation of Hydra (Watersnake), at a Right Ascension of 08h 21m and a declination of +02° 57’.

1992 QB1 is called Albion
The object 1992 QB1, the first object in the Kuiper Belt that was discovered after Pluto, received it official name on 31 January 2018: Albion (15760). See card 31 of the set MDL-SS1.

Quaoar
The average distance to Quaoar is 6,493,000,000 km, the diameter probably 890 km. Quaoar is a member of the class of classical KBO's, or cubewano's. It has one moon, Weymot, at a distance tof 14,500 km from Quaoar and with a diameter of 75 km.

2007 OR10 is officially named Gonggong!
The ice dwarf and 'scattered disc object' 2007 OR10 was the largest unnamed object of the Solar System, until it received its official name from the International Astronomical Union in January 2020: Gonggong (225088). The name was selected by the public, from a list of three names that were proposed in 2019. See card 22 of the set MDL-SS1.

Pioneers, Voyagers and New Horizons

Additional cards for the original Solar System scale model (may be downloaded for free):
These cards can be downloaded, printed and added to your 2003 version of the Solar System scale model, to make it more complete. The colours on screen may appear strangely turquoise but don't let that deter you: the colours are as the original set of cards.
See below. As of 2020, when our new English sets came out, these files will not be updated any more.

English metric versions: