Planets, General information

The objects that revolve around sun and do not produce light on their own are called planets.

The very basis of Indian astrology is the nine planets.

Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu.

Apart from the aforesaid nine planets there is a planet called Gulika (Maandi) as well. Gulika is an astrologically significant planet.

General information about planets:

1) Saturn
Saturn is situated the farthest and highest from Sun. The distance from Saturn to Sun is said to be 88,72,00,000 miles.

2) Jupiter
Jupiter is the next farthest planet from Sun after Saturn. Jupiter is located 49,39,00,000 miles away from Sun. Its diameter is 88700 miles.

3) Mars
The son of Earth, Mars is situated 14,10,00,000 miles away from the Sun. This 4250 miles- diameter planet is similar to and smaller than Earth.

4) Sun
The 865000-mile-diameter Sun stands 9,30,00,000 miles away from the Earth.

5) Mercury
Mercury stands closest to Sun. It’s distance is 3,60,00,000 miles from Sun.

6) Venus
Venus is located 6,72,40,000 miles away from Sun. Venus moves between Earth and Mercury.

7) Moon
Moon moves around Earth. Therefore, the distance between moon and sun cannot be estimated correctly. The distance from moon to earth is 238850 miles. The moon with a diameter of 2158 miles is smaller than mercury.

8) Earth
In terms of size, earth comes third only after Sun and Jupiter. Its diameter is 7930 miles and its distance from Sun is 9,30,00,000 miles.

9) Rahu and Ketu
These are not real planets but are shadow planets. These are points where the earth’s transit cuts the moon’s transit. They move between the paths of Saturn and Jupiter. When all the planets move forward they move backward. These are imaginary. They take 18 years to complete one revolution around Sun and they remain in one Rasi for 1 ½ years.