how many planets do we have

We currently recognize 8 planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Quick Scoop: So why 8 and not 9?

For a long time, people were taught there were 9 planets, with Pluto as the ninth.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) refined the definition of a “planet,” and Pluto no longer fit that definition, so it was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

Under the IAU definition, a planet must:

• Orbit the Sun.

• Be massive enough that its gravity makes it roughly spherical.

• Have “cleared its neighborhood,” meaning it dominates its orbit instead of sharing it with lots of similar-sized objects.

Pluto fails the third condition because it shares its orbital region with many other icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt.

Mini breakdown

• Inner (rocky) planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.

• Outer giants: Jupiter, Saturn (gas giants), Uranus, Neptune (ice giants).

• Dwarf planets (not counted in the “8”): Pluto, Eris, Ceres and others, which are round but haven’t cleared their orbits.

So, when people ask “how many planets do we have?” the standard, official answer today is: 8 planets in our solar system , plus several dwarf planets and thousands of known planets around other stars (exoplanets).

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.