Discovery and exploration of the Solar System Domenico Cassini later discovered four more moons of Saturn and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. Edmond Halley realised in 1705 that repeated sightings of a comet were recording the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets orbited the Sun. Around this time (1704), the term "Solar System" first appeared in English. In 1781, William Herschel was looking for binary stars in the constellation of Taurus when he observed what he thought was a new comet. Its orbit revealed that it was a new planet, Uranus, the first
Eleventh planet term "planet" was redefined to exclude the new category of dwarf planets (just as some planets had earlier been recategorised as asteroids). In 2006 Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, and (in the inner Solar System) the asteroid Ceres were reclassified as dwarf planets. Eleventh planet Eleventh planet (of the Solar System) may refer to Vesta, the eleventh object to be named a planet, later to be reclassified as an asteroid; Uranus, the eleventh planet from the Sun upon Vesta's discovery, though this was quickly superseded by new discoveries; or Haumea, which would be the eleventh planet if the classification advocated by