superior planet

[ suh-peer-ee-er plan-it ]

noun

, Astronomy.

1. (relative to Earth) any of the five planets whose orbits are farther from the sun, namely, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune: before its reclassification as a dwarf planet in 2006, Pluto was included among the superior planets.
2. (relative to a given planet) any planet whose orbit is farther from the sun:

   If you lived on Mercury, you would consider Venus a superior planet.

superior planet

noun

1. any of the planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and (formerly) Pluto) whose orbit lies outside that of the earth

superior planet

1. Any of the planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, whose orbits lie beyond that of Earth. Because these planets never come between the Earth and Sun, they do not exhibit crescent phases, only full and gibbous. Unlike the inferior planets Mercury and Venus, superior planets rise in the east and set in the west in the normal pattern of celestial objects.
2. Compare inferior planetSee also inner planet

Word History and Origins

Origin of superior planet¹

First recorded in 1575–85

Example Sentences

Good Vibrations and California Girls similarly remain infusions of pure joy, seemingly beamed in not from a beach or recording studio but from some distant, superior planet.

From The Guardian

And if it does, the earth surrounding it must, as our earth does to the superior planets, give it the reflection of our advancing and retrograding.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus, when the three superior planets met in Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius, they formed a fiery trigon; when in Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, a watery one.

From Project Gutenberg

As the earth's orbit is the boundary which separates the inferior from the superior planets, so does the asteroidal belt divide the terrestrial from the major planets.

From Project Gutenberg

The varied aspects of the superior planets, when observed in different parts of their orbits, also led him to conclude that the Earth was not the central body round which they accomplished their revolutions.

From Project Gutenberg