Solar System the early Solar System, but they either merged or were destroyed, leaving the planets, dwarf planets, and leftover minor bodies. Due to their higher boiling points, only metals and silicates could exist in solid form in the warm inner Solar System close to the Sun, and these would eventually form the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Because metallic elements only comprised a very small fraction of the solar nebula, the terrestrial planets could not grow very large. The giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed further out, beyond the frost line, the point between the orbits
Solar eclipses on Jupiter the variations were caused by the varying distance between Earth and Jupiter as the two planets moved in their orbits around the Sun. Spacecraft can be used to observe the solar eclipses on Jupiter; these include "Pioneer 10" and "Pioneer 11" (1973 and 1974), "Voyager 1" and "Voyager 2" (1979), "Galileo" orbiter (1995–2003), "Cassini–Huygens" (2000) and "New Horizons" (2007) observed the transits of their moons and its shadows. The mean angular diameter of the Sun as viewed from Jupiter is 372 arc-seconds, or 6' 12" (about that of the Sun as viewed from Earth), varying slightly from 381" at perihelion