Fifth planet (hypothetical) Fifth planet (hypothetical) In the history of astronomy, a handful of Solar System bodies have been counted as the fifth planet from the Sun. Under the present definition of a planet, Jupiter is counted as the fifth. There are three main ideas regarding hypothetical planets between Mars and Jupiter. During the early 19th century, as asteroids were discovered, they were considered planets. Jupiter became the sixth planet with the discovery of Ceres in 1801. Soon, three more asteroids, Pallas (1802), Juno (1804), and Vesta (1807) were discovered. They were counted as separate planets, despite the fact that they shared an
Wonders of the Solar System 31 March 2011, the series won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary film-making. The first episode illustrates how the formation and behaviour of the Sun affects each planet in the Solar System. During this episode, Cox visits India to view and explain the workings of a total solar eclipse and the partial eclipses that occur on other planets. He travels to the Iguazu Falls to relate the causality between river levels, and sunspot fluctuations. An explanation of the Earth's exposure to the power of the Sun occurs in Death Valley, California, US, with an experiment inspired