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Planets
The planets in order of increasing semimajor axis are
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Although the IAU recently removed Pluto
form the list of planets, it is included with the planets on most
of our web-pages.
Orbit Diagrams
Plots showing the inner region
of the solar system (just beyond Jupiter)
and outer solar system region (just beyond Pluto) are available.
Physical Parameters
Selected physical parameters such as mass, bulk density, mean radius, and geometric albedo
are available for the planets.
These parameters are presented in a
table with references.
Ephemerides
Planetary ephemerides are available using JPL's HORIZONS system.
Although the HORIZONS system will be sufficient
for the vast majority of ephemeris requests, JPL
planetary and lunar ephemeris files
(e.g. DE406) are also available.
The use of these ephemeris files is recommended only for professionals
whose needs are not readily met by the HORIZONS system.
Alternatively, you may use the
NAIF SPICE toolkit
and planetary ephemerides in
SPK format from
JPL's NAIF web-site.
Orbital Elements
Approximate positions of the nine major planets may be found
by using Keplerian formulae with their associated elements and rates.
Such elements are not intended to represent any sort of mean;
they are simply the result of being adjusted for a best fit.
As such, it must be noted that the elements are not valid
outside the given time-interval over which they were fit.
Such orbital elements should not be used to compute high accuracy ephemerides.
See the Ephemerides section (above) for information
on what is available for planets.
Please consult our page detailing the
approximation of planetary positions using Keplerian elements
for more information.
Gravity Fields for the Outer Planets
Gravity field data
used in our planetary satellite orbit determination models
for the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) is given in a
table with references.
Radar Astrometry
Radar astrometry for some of the planets is available from
this site.
Scroll down the page until you find the heading "Radar Ranging".
Additional Data
Visit the
JPL Solar System page
for more information about the planets.
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