The Largest Rock in our Solar System

Explanation: There, that dot on the right, that's the largest rock known in our Solar System. It is larger than every known asteroid, moon, and comet nucleus. It is larger than any other local rocky planet. This rock is so large its gravity makes it into a large ball that holds heavy gases near its surface. (It used to be the largest known rock of any type until the recent discoveries of large dense planets orbiting other stars.) The Voyager 1 spacecraft took the featured picture -- famously called Pale Blue Dot -- of this giant space rock in 1990 from the outer Solar System. Today, this rock starts another orbit around its parent star, for roughly the 5 billionth time, spinning over 350 times during each trip. Happy Gregorian Calendar New Year to all inhabitants of this rock we call Earth.

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You can see a lot of planets tonight. Jupiter, Mars, and Venus will all be visible at the same time. This planetary lineup will have Venus closest to the horizon but setting shortly after the Sun. It doesn't matter where you live, the parade of planets will be visible all over the world. The moon and Mercury were visible at the same time in the featured image. This panorama was made up of the planets Neptune and Uranus. The village of Gkeren is located near the Mediterranean coast. There are a number of bright stars in the star cluster. As January progresses, Venus will rise higher in the sky.