title: Solar System

text: The planets and other large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic. Smaller icy objects such as comets frequently orbit at significantly greater angles to this plane. Most of the planets in the Solar System have secondary systems of their own, being orbited by natural satellites called moons. Many of the largest natural satellites are in synchronous rotation, with one face permanently turned toward their parent. The four giant planets have planetary rings, thin bands of tiny particles that orbit them in unison.


title: Solar System

text: As a result of the formation of the Solar System, planets and most other objects orbit the Sun in the same direction that the Sun is rotating. That is, counter-clockwise, as viewed from above Earth's north pole. There are exceptions, such as Halley's Comet. Most of the larger moons orbit their planets in prograde direction, matching the planetary rotation; Neptune's moon Triton is the largest to orbit in the opposite, retrograde manner. Most larger objects rotate around their own axes in the prograde direction relative to their orbit, though the rotation of Venus is retrograde.


title: Solar System

text: To a good first approximation, Kepler's laws of planetary motion describe the orbits of objects about the Sun. These laws stipulate that each object travels along an ellipse with the Sun at one focus, which causes the body's distance from the Sun to vary over the course of its year. A body's closest approach to the Sun is called its "perihelion", whereas its most distant point from the Sun is called its "aphelion". The orbits of the planets are nearly circular, but many comets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects follow highly elliptical orbits. Kepler's laws only account for the influence of the Sun's gravity upon an orbiting body, not the gravitational pulls of different bodies upon each other. On a human time scale, these additional perturbations can be accounted for using numerical models, but the planetary system can change chaotically over billions of years.


title: Solar System

text: The angular momentum of the Solar System is a measure of the total amount of orbital and rotational momentum possessed by all its moving components. Although the Sun dominates the system by mass, it accounts for only about 2% of the angular momentum. The planets, dominated by Jupiter, account for most of the rest of the angular momentum due to the combination of their mass, orbit, and distance from the Sun, with a possibly significant contribution from comets.


title: Solar System

text: The overall structure of the charted regions of the Solar System consists of the Sun, four smaller inner planets surrounded by a belt of mostly rocky asteroids, and four giant planets surrounded by the Kuiper belt of mostly icy objects. Astronomers sometimes informally divide this structure into separate regions. The inner Solar System includes the four terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. The outer Solar System is beyond the asteroids, including the four giant planets. Since the discovery of the Kuiper belt, the outermost parts of the Solar System are considered a distinct region consisting of the objects beyond Neptune.


title: Solar System

text: The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a low-mass star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%. The remaining objects of the Solar System (including the four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) together comprise less than 0.002% of the Solar System's total mass.


title: Solar System

text: The Sun is composed of roughly 98% hydrogen and helium, as are Jupiter and Saturn. A composition gradient exists in the Solar System, created by heat and light pressure from the early Sun; those objects closer to the Sun, which are more affected by heat and light pressure, are composed of elements with high melting points. Objects farther from the Sun are composed largely of materials with lower melting points. The boundary in the Solar System beyond which those volatile substances could coalesce is known as the frost line, and it lies at roughly five times the Earth's distance from the Sun.


title: Solar System

text: The objects of the inner Solar System are composed mostly of rocky materials, such as silicates, iron or nickel. Jupiter and Saturn are composed mainly of gases with extremely low melting points and high vapour pressure, such as hydrogen, helium, and neon. Ices, like water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide, have melting points up to a few hundred kelvins. They can be found as ices, liquids, or gases in various places in the Solar System. Icy substances comprise the majority of the satellites of the giant planets, as well as most of Uranus and Neptune (the so-called "ice giants") and the numerous small objects that lie beyond Neptune's orbit. Together, gases and ices are referred to as "volatiles".


title: Solar System

text: The astronomical unit [AU] () would be the distance from the Earth to the Sun if the planet's orbit were perfectly circular. For comparison, the radius of the Sun is . Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (10 %) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly one millionth (10) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is from the Sun and has a radius of , whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is from the Sun.


title: Solar System

text: With a few exceptions, the farther a planet or belt is from the Sun, the larger the distance between its orbit and the orbit of the next nearer object to the Sun. For example, Venus is approximately 0.33 AU farther out from the Sun than Mercury, whereas Saturn is 4.3 AU out from Jupiter, and Neptune lies 10.5 AU out from Uranus. Attempts have been made to determine a relationship between these orbital distances, like the Titius–Bode law and Johannes Kepler's model based on the Platonic solids, but ongoing discoveries have invalidated these hypotheses.


title: Solar System

text: Some Solar System models attempt to convey the relative scales involved in the Solar System on human terms. Some are small in scale (and may be mechanical—called orreries)—whereas others extend across cities or regional areas. The largest such scale model, the Sweden Solar System, uses the 110-metre (361 ft) Avicii Arena in Stockholm as its substitute Sun, and, following the scale, Jupiter is a 7.5-metre (25-foot) sphere at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, 40 km (25 mi) away, whereas the farthest current object, Sedna, is a 10 cm (4 in) sphere in Luleå, 912 km (567 mi) away.


title: Solar System

text: If the Sun–Neptune distance is scaled to , then the Sun would be about in diameter (roughly two-thirds the diameter of a golf ball), the giant planets would be all smaller than about , and Earth's diameter along with that of the other terrestrial planets would be smaller than a flea () at this scale.


title: Solar System

text: The Sun is the Solar System's star and by far its most massive component. Its large mass (332,900 Earth masses), which comprises 99.86% of all the mass in the Solar System, produces temperatures and densities in its core high enough to sustain nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. This releases an enormous amount of energy, mostly radiated into space as electromagnetic radiation peaking in visible light.


title: Solar System

text: Because the Sun fuses hydrogen into helium at its core, it is a main-sequence star. More specifically, it is a G2-type main-sequence star, where the type designation refers to its effective temperature. Hotter main-sequence stars are more luminous. The Sun's temperature is intermediate between that of the hottest stars and that of the coolest stars. Stars brighter and hotter than the Sun are rare, whereas substantially dimmer and cooler stars, known as red dwarfs, make up about 75% of the stars in the Milky Way.


title: Solar System

text: The Sun is a population I star; it has a higher abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium ("metals" in astronomical parlance) than the older population II stars. Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were formed in the cores of ancient and exploding stars, so the first generation of stars had to die before the universe could be enriched with these atoms. The oldest stars contain few metals, whereas stars born later have more. This higher metallicity is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's development of a planetary system because the planets form from the accretion of "metals".


title: Solar System

text: Outside of the main part of the Sun's atmosphere extends the heliosphere and dominates the Solar planetary system. The vast majority of the heliosphere is occupied by a near-vacuum known as the interplanetary medium. Along with light, the Sun radiates a continuous stream of charged particles (a plasma) called the solar wind. This stream of particles spreads outwards at speeds from to , creating a tenuous atmosphere that permeates the interplanetary medium out to at least . Activity on the Sun's surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, disturbs the heliosphere, creating space weather and causing geomagnetic storms. The largest structure within the heliosphere is the heliospheric current sheet, a spiral form created by the actions of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the interplanetary medium.


title: Solar System

text: Earth's magnetic field stops its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. Venus and Mars do not have magnetic fields, and as a result the solar wind is causing their atmospheres to gradually bleed away into space. Coronal mass ejections and similar events blow a magnetic field and huge quantities of material from the surface of the Sun. The interaction of this magnetic field and material with Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles into Earth's upper atmosphere, where its interactions create aurorae seen near the magnetic poles.


title: Solar System

text: The heliosphere and planetary magnetic fields (for those planets that have them) partially shield the Solar System from high-energy interstellar particles called cosmic rays. The density of cosmic rays in the interstellar medium and the strength of the Sun's magnetic field change on very long timescales, so the level of cosmic-ray penetration in the Solar System varies, though by how much is unknown.


title: Solar System

text: The interplanetary medium is home to at least two disc-like regions of cosmic dust. The first, the zodiacal dust cloud, lies in the inner Solar System and causes the zodiacal light. It may have been formed by collisions within the asteroid belt brought on by gravitational interactions with the planets; a more recent proposed origin is the planet Mars. The second dust cloud extends from about to about , and was probably created by collisions within the Kuiper belt.


title: Solar System

text: The zone of hability of the Solar System is located in the Inner Solar System. Beside the Solar conditions for hability on Solar System objects such as Earth, habitability might be possibly in subsurface oceans of various Outer Solar System moons.


title: Solar System

text: The inner Solar System is the region comprising the terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. Composed mainly of silicates and metals, the objects of the inner Solar System are relatively close to the Sun; the radius of this entire region is less than the distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. This region is also within the frost line, which is a little less than from the Sun.


title: Solar System

text: The four terrestrial or inner planets have dense, rocky compositions, few or no moons, and no ring systems. They are composed largely of refractory minerals such as the silicateswhich form their crusts and mantlesand metals such as iron and nickel which form their cores. Three of the four inner planets (Venus, Earth and Mars) have atmospheres substantial enough to generate weather; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features, such as rift valleys and volcanoes. The term "inner planet" should not be confused with "inferior planet", which designates those planets that are closer to the Sun than Earth is (i.e. Mercury and Venus).


title: Solar System

text: Mercury ( from the Sun) is the closest planet to the Sun. The smallest planet in the Solar System (), Mercury has no natural satellites. The dominant geological features are impact craters or basins with ejecta blankets, the remains of early volcanic activity including magma flows, and lobed ridges or rupes that were probably produced by a period of contraction early in the planet's history. Mercury's very tenuous atmosphere consists of solar-wind particles trapped by Mercury's magnetic field, as well as atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind. Its relatively large iron core and thin mantle have not yet been adequately explained. Hypotheses include that its outer layers were stripped off by a giant impact, or that it was prevented from fully accreting by the young Sun's energy.


title: Solar System

text: There have been searches for "Vulcanoids", asteroids in stable orbits between Mercury and the Sun, but none have been discovered.


title: Solar System

text: Venus ( from the Sun) is close in size to Earth () and, like Earth, has a thick silicate mantle around an iron core, a substantial atmosphere, and evidence of internal geological activity. It is much drier than Earth, and its atmosphere is ninety times as dense. Venus has no natural satellites. It is the hottest planet, with surface temperatures over , mainly due to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The planet has no magnetic field that would prevent depletion of its substantial atmosphere, which suggests that its atmosphere is being replenished by volcanic eruptions. A relatively young planetary surface displays extensive evidence of volcanic activity, but is devoid of plate tectonics. It may undergo resurfacing episodes on a time scale of 700 million years.


title: Solar System

text: Earth ( from the Sun) is the largest and densest of the inner planets, the only one known to have current geological activity, and the only place where life is known to exist. Its liquid hydrosphere is unique among the terrestrial planets, and it is the only planet where plate tectonics has been observed. Earth's atmosphere is radically different from those of the other planets, having been altered by the presence of life to contain 21% free oxygen. The planetary magnetosphere shields the surface from solar and cosmic radiation, limiting atmospheric stripping and maintaining habitability. It has one natural satellite, the Moon, the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System.


title: Solar System

text: Mars ( from the Sun) is smaller than Earth and Venus (). It has an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with a surface pressure of ; roughly 0.6% of that of Earth but sufficient to support weather phenomena. Its surface, peppered with volcanoes, such as Olympus Mons, and rift valleys, such as Valles Marineris, shows geological activity that may have persisted until as recently as 2 million years ago. Its red colour comes from iron oxide (rust) in its soil. Mars has two tiny natural satellites (Deimos and Phobos) thought to be either captured asteroids, or ejected debris from a massive impact early in Mars's history.


title: Solar System

text: Asteroids except for the largest, Ceres, are classified as small Solar System bodies and are composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals, with some ice. They range from a few metres to hundreds of kilometres in size. Asteroids smaller than one meter are usually called meteoroids and micrometeoroids (grain-sized), with the exact division between the two categories being debated over the years. As of 2017, the IAU designates asteroids having diameter between about 30 micrometres and 1 metre as micrometeroids, and terms smaller particles "dust".


title: Solar System

text: The asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter. The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometre in diameter. Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of Earth. The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident.


title: Solar System

text: Ceres ( from the Sun) is the largest asteroid, a protoplanet, and a dwarf planet. It has a diameter of slightly under and a mass large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape. Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered in 1801, but as further observations revealed additional asteroids, it became common to consider it as one of the minor rather than major planets. It was then reclassified again as a dwarf planet in 2006 when the IAU definition of planet was established.


title: Solar System

text: Pallas (2.77 AU from the Sun) and Vesta (2.36 AU from the Sun) are the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt, after Ceres. They are the other two protoplanets that survive more or less intact. At about in diameter, they were large enough to have developed planetary geology in the past, but both have suffered large impacts and been battered out of being round. Fragments from impacts upon these two bodies survive elsewhere in the asteroid belt, as the Pallas family and Vesta family. Both were considered planets upon their discoveries in 1802 and 1807 respectively, and then like Ceres generally considered as minor planets with the discovery of more asteroids. Some authors today have begun to consider Pallas and Vesta as planets again, along with Ceres, under geophysical definitions of the term.


title: Solar System

text: Asteroids in the asteroid belt are divided into asteroid groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Kirkwood gaps are sharp dips in the distribution of asteroid orbits that correspond to orbital resonances with Jupiter. Asteroid moons are asteroids that orbit larger asteroids. They are not as clearly distinguished as planetary moons, sometimes being almost as large as their partners (e.g. that of 90 Antiope). The asteroid belt includes main-belt comets, which may have been the source of Earth's water.


title: Solar System

text: Jupiter trojans are located in either of Jupiter's L or L points (gravitationally stable regions leading and trailing a planet in its orbit); the term is also used for small bodies in any other planetary or satellite Lagrange point. Hilda asteroids are in a 2:3 resonance with Jupiter; that is, they go around the Sun three times for every two Jupiter orbits. The inner Solar System contains near-Earth asteroids, many of which cross the orbits of the inner planets. Some of them are potentially hazardous objects.


title: Solar System

text: The outer region of the Solar System is home to the giant planets and their large moons. The centaurs and many short-period comets also orbit in this region. Due to their greater distance from the Sun, the solid objects in the outer Solar System contain a higher proportion of volatiles, such as water, ammonia, and methane than those of the inner Solar System because the lower temperatures allow these compounds to remain solid.


title: Solar System

text: The four outer planets, also called giant planets or Jovian planets, collectively make up 99% of the mass known to orbit the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn are together more than 400 times the mass of Earth and consist overwhelmingly of the gases hydrogen and helium, hence their designation as gas giants. Uranus and Neptune are far less massiveless than 20 Earth masses () eachand are composed primarily of ices. For these reasons, some astronomers suggest they belong in their own category, ice giants. All four giant planets have rings, although only Saturn's ring system is easily observed from Earth. The term "superior planet" designates planets outside Earth's orbit and thus includes both the outer planets and Mars.


title: Solar System

text: The ring–moon systems of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus are like miniature versions of the Solar System; that of Neptune is significantly different, having been disrupted by the capture of its largest moon Triton.


title: Solar System

text: Jupiter ( from the Sun), at , is 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets put together. It is composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter's strong internal heat creates semi-permanent features in its atmosphere, such as cloud bands and the Great Red Spot. The planet possesses a 4.2– strength magnetosphere that spans 22–29 million km, making it, in certain respects, the largest object in the Solar System. Jupiter has 80 known satellites. The four largest, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, are called the Galilean moons: they show similarities to the terrestrial planets, such as volcanism and internal heating. Ganymede, the largest satellite in the Solar System, is larger than Mercury; Callisto is almost as large.


title: Solar System

text: Saturn ( from the Sun), distinguished by its extensive ring system, has several similarities to Jupiter, such as its atmospheric composition and magnetosphere. Although Saturn has 60% of Jupiter's volume, it is less than a third as massive, at . Saturn is the only planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water. The rings of Saturn are made up of small ice and rock particles. Saturn has 83 confirmed satellites composed largely of ice. Two of these, Titan and Enceladus, show signs of geological activity; they, as well as five other Saturnian moons (Iapetus, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, and Mimas), are large enough to be round. Titan, the second-largest moon in the Solar System, is bigger than Mercury and the only satellite in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere.


title: Solar System

text: Uranus ( from the Sun), at , has the lowest mass of the outer planets. Uniquely among the planets, it orbits the Sun on its side; its axial tilt is over ninety degrees to the ecliptic. This gives the planet extreme seasonal variation as each pole points toward and then away from the Sun. It has a much colder core than the other giant planets and radiates very little heat into space. As a consequence, it has the coldest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. Uranus has 27 known satellites, the largest ones being Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel, and Miranda. Like the other giant planets, it possesses a ring system and magnetosphere.


title: Solar System

text: Neptune ( from the Sun), though slightly smaller than Uranus, is more massive () and hence more dense. It radiates more internal heat than Uranus, but not as much as Jupiter or Saturn. Neptune has 14 known satellites. The largest, Triton, is geologically active, with geysers of liquid nitrogen. Triton is the only large satellite with a retrograde orbit, which indicates that it did not form with Neptune, but was probably captured from the Kuiper belt. Neptune is accompanied in its orbit by several minor planets, termed Neptune trojans, that either lead or trail the planet by about one-sixth of the way around the Sun, positions known as Lagrange points.


title: Solar System

text: The centaurs are icy comet-like bodies whose orbits have semi-major axes greater than Jupiter's () and less than Neptune's (). The largest known centaur, 10199 Chariklo, has a diameter of about . The first centaur discovered, 2060 Chiron, has also been classified as a comet (95P) because it develops a coma just as comets do when they approach the Sun.


title: Solar System

text: Comets are small Solar System bodies, typically only a few kilometres across, composed largely of volatile ices. They have highly eccentric orbits, generally a perihelion within the orbits of the inner planets and an aphelion far beyond Pluto. When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface to sublimate and ionise, creating a coma: a long tail of gas and dust often visible to the naked eye.


title: Solar System

text: Short-period comets have orbits lasting less than two hundred years. Long-period comets have orbits lasting thousands of years. Short-period comets are thought to originate in the Kuiper belt, whereas long-period comets, such as Hale–Bopp, are thought to originate in the Oort cloud. Many comet groups, such as the Kreutz sungrazers, formed from the breakup of a single parent. Some comets with hyperbolic orbits may originate outside the Solar System, but determining their precise orbits is difficult. Old comets whose volatiles have mostly been driven out by solar warming are often categorised as asteroids.


title: Solar System

text: Inside the orbit of Neptune is the planetary region of the Solar System. Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies the area of the "trans-Neptunian region", with the doughnut-shaped Kuiper belt, home of Pluto and several other dwarf planets, and an overlapping disc of scattered objects, which is tilted toward the plane of the Solar System and reaches much further out than the Kuiper belt. The entire region is still largely unexplored. It appears to consist overwhelmingly of many thousands of small worlds—the largest having a diameter only a fifth that of Earth and a mass far smaller than that of the Moon—composed mainly of rock and ice. This region is sometimes described as the "third zone of the Solar System", enclosing the inner and the outer Solar System.


title: Solar System

text: The Kuiper belt is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but consisting mainly of objects composed primarily of ice. It extends between from the Sun. It is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies, although the largest few are probably large enough to be dwarf planets. There are estimated to be over 100,000 Kuiper belt objects with a diameter greater than , but the total mass of the Kuiper belt is thought to be only a tenth or even a hundredth the mass of Earth. Many Kuiper belt objects have multiple satellites, and most have orbits that take them outside the plane of the ecliptic.


title: Solar System

text: The Kuiper belt can be roughly divided into the "classical" belt and the resonant trans-Neptunian objects. The latter have orbits whose periods are in a simple ratio to that of Neptune: for example, going around the Sun twice for every three times that Neptune does, or once for every two. The classical belt consists of objects having no resonance with Neptune, and extends from roughly . Members of the classical Kuiper belt are sometimes called "cubewanos", after the first of their kind to be discovered, originally designated 1992 QB; they are still in near primordial, low-eccentricity orbits.


title: Solar System

text: The dwarf planet Pluto (with an average orbit of from the Sun) is the largest known object in the Kuiper belt. When discovered in 1930, it was considered to be the ninth planet; this changed in 2006 with the adoption of a formal definition of planet. Pluto has a relatively eccentric orbit inclined 17 degrees to the ecliptic plane and ranging from from the Sun at perihelion (within the orbit of Neptune) to at aphelion. Pluto has a 2:3 resonance with Neptune, meaning that Pluto orbits twice round the Sun for every three Neptunian orbits. Kuiper belt objects whose orbits share this resonance are called plutinos.


title: Solar System

text: Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons, is sometimes described as part of a binary system with Pluto, as the two bodies orbit a barycentre of gravity above their surfaces (i.e. they appear to "orbit each other"). Beyond Charon, four much smaller moons, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra, orbit Pluto.


title: Solar System

text: Besides Pluto, astronomers generally agree that at least four other Kuiper belt objects are dwarf planets, and additional bodies have also been proposed:


title: Solar System

text: The scattered disc, which overlaps the Kuiper belt but extends out to near 500 AU, is thought to be the source of short-period comets. Scattered-disc objects are believed to have been perturbed into erratic orbits by the gravitational influence of Neptune's early outward migration. Most scattered disc objects (SDOs) have perihelia within the Kuiper belt but aphelia far beyond it (some more than 150 AU from the Sun). SDOs' orbits can also be inclined up to 46.8° from the ecliptic plane. Some astronomers consider the scattered disc to be merely another region of the Kuiper belt and describe scattered-disc objects as "scattered Kuiper belt objects". Some astronomers also classify centaurs as inward-scattered Kuiper belt objects along with the outward-scattered residents of the scattered disc.


title: Solar System

text: (67.78 AU average from the Sun) is the largest known scattered disc object, and caused a debate about what constitutes a planet, because it is 25% more massive than Pluto and about the same diameter. It is the most massive of the known dwarf planets. It has one known moon, Dysnomia. Like Pluto, its orbit is highly eccentric, with a perihelion of 38.2 AU (roughly Pluto's distance from the Sun) and an aphelion of 97.6 AU, and steeply inclined to the ecliptic plane at an angle of 44°.


title: Solar System

text: The point at which the Solar System ends and interstellar space begins is not precisely defined because its outer boundaries are shaped by two forces, the solar wind and the Sun's gravity. The limit of the solar wind's influence is roughly four times Pluto's distance from the Sun; this "heliopause", the outer boundary of the heliosphere, is considered the beginning of the interstellar medium. The Sun's Hill sphere, the effective range of its gravitational dominance, is thought to extend up to a thousand times farther and encompasses the hypothetical Oort cloud.


title: Solar System

text: The Sun's stellar-wind bubble, the heliosphere, a region of space dominated by the Sun, has its boundary at the "termination shock", which is roughly 80–100 AU from the Sun upwind of the interstellar medium and roughly 200 AU from the Sun downwind. Here the solar wind collides with the interstellar medium and dramatically slows, condenses and becomes more turbulent, forming a great oval structure known as the "heliosheath". This structure has been theorized to look and behave very much like a comet's tail, extending outward for a further 40 AU on the upwind side but tailing many times that distance downwind. Evidence from the "Cassini" and Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft has suggested that it is forced into a bubble shape by the constraining action of the interstellar magnetic field, but the actual shape remains unknown.


title: Solar System

text: The outer boundary of the heliosphere, the "heliopause", is the point at which the solar wind finally terminates and is the beginning of interstellar space. "Voyager 1" and "Voyager 2" passed the termination shock and entered the heliosheath at 94 and 84 AU from the Sun, respectively. "Voyager 1" was reported to have crossed the heliopause in August 2012, and "Voyager 2" in December 2018.


title: Solar System

text: The shape and form of the outer edge of the heliosphere is likely affected by the fluid dynamics of interactions with the interstellar medium as well as solar magnetic fields prevailing to the south, e.g. it is bluntly shaped with the northern hemisphere extending 9 AU farther than the southern hemisphere. Beyond the heliopause, at around 230 AU, lies the bow shock, a plasma "wake" left by the Sun as it travels through the Milky Way.


title: Solar System

text: (with an average orbit of 520 AU from the Sun) is a large, reddish object with a gigantic, highly elliptical orbit that takes it from about 76 AU at perihelion to 940 AU at aphelion and takes 11,400 years to complete. Mike Brown, who discovered the object in 2003, asserts that it cannot be part of the scattered disc or the Kuiper belt because its perihelion is too distant to have been affected by Neptune's migration. He and other astronomers consider it to be the first in an entirely new population, sometimes termed "distant detached objects" (DDOs), which also may include the object , which has a perihelion of 45 AU, an aphelion of 415 AU, and an orbital period of 3,420 years. Brown terms this population the "inner Oort cloud" because it may have formed through a similar process, although it is far closer to the Sun. Sedna is very likely a dwarf planet, though its shape has yet to be determined. The second unequivocally detached object, with a perihelion farther than Sedna's at roughly 81 AU, is , discovered in 2012. Its aphelion is only about half that of Sedna's, at 458 AU.


title: Solar System

text: The Oort cloud is a hypothetical spherical cloud of up to a trillion icy objects that is thought to be the source for all long-period comets and to surround the Solar System at roughly 50,000 AU (around 1 light-year (ly)) from the Sun, and possibly to as far as 100,000 AU (1.87 ly). It is thought to be composed of comets that were ejected from the inner Solar System by gravitational interactions with the outer planets. Oort cloud objects move very slowly, and can be perturbed by infrequent events, such as collisions, the gravitational effects of a passing star, or the galactic tide, the tidal force exerted by the Milky Way.


title: Solar System

text: Much of the Solar System is still unknown. The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light-years (125,000 AU). Lower estimates for the radius of the Oort cloud, by contrast, do not place it farther than 50,000 AU. Most of the mass is orbiting in the region between 3,000 and 100,000 AU. Despite discoveries such as Sedna, the region between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, an area tens of thousands of AU in radius, is still virtually unmapped. Learning about this region of space is difficult, because it depends upon inferences from those few objects whose orbits happen to be perturbed such that they fall closer to the Sun, and even then, detecting these objects has often been possible only when they happened to become bright enough to register as comets. Objects may yet be discovered in the Solar System's uncharted regions. The furthest known objects, such as Comet West, have aphelia around 70,000 AU from the Sun.


title: Solar System

text: The Solar System is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing more than 100 billion stars. The Sun resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur. The Sun lies about 26,660 light-years from the Galactic Center, and its speed around the center of the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 240 million years. This revolution is known as the Solar System's galactic year. The solar apex, the direction of the Sun's path through interstellar space, is near the constellation Hercules in the direction of the current location of the bright star Vega. The plane of the ecliptic lies at an angle of about 60° to the galactic plane.


title: Solar System

text: The Solar System's location in the Milky Way is a factor in the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Its orbit is close to circular, and orbits near the Sun are at roughly the same speed as that of the spiral arms. Therefore, the Sun passes through arms only rarely. Because spiral arms are home to a far larger concentration of supernovae, gravitational instabilities, and radiation that could disrupt the Solar System, this has given Earth long periods of stability for life to evolve. However, the changing position of the Solar System relative to other parts of the Milky Way could explain periodic extinction events on Earth, according to the Shiva hypothesis or related theories, but this remains controversial.


title: Solar System

text: The Solar System lies well outside the star-crowded environs of the galactic centre. Near the centre, gravitational tugs from nearby stars could perturb bodies in the Oort cloud and send many comets into the inner Solar System, producing collisions with potentially catastrophic implications for life on Earth. The intense radiation of the galactic centre could also interfere with the development of complex life. Stellar flybys that pass within of the Sun occur roughly once every 100,000 years. The closest well-measured approach was Scholz's Star, which approached to of the Sun some , likely passing through the outer Oort cloud.


title: Solar System

text: The Solar System is surrounded by the Local Interstellar Cloud, although it is not clear if it is embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud or if it lies just outside the cloud's edge. Multiple other interstellar clouds also exist in the region within 300 light-years of the Sun, known as the Local Bubble. The latter feature is an hourglass-shaped cavity or superbubble in the interstellar medium roughly 300 light-years across. The bubble is suffused with high-temperature plasma, suggesting that it may be the product of several recent supernovae.


title: Solar System

text: The Local Bubble is a small superbubble compared to the neighbouring wider Radcliffe Wave and "Split" linear structures (formerly Gould Belt), each of which are some thousands of light-years in length. All these structures are part of the Orion Arm, which contains most of the stars in the Milky Way that are visible to the unaided eye. The density of all matter in the local neighborhood is ·pc.


title: Solar System

text: Within ten light-years of the Sun there are relatively few stars, the closest being the triple star system Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4 light-years away and may be in the Local Bubble's G-Cloud. Alpha Centauri A and B are a closely tied pair of Sun-like stars, whereas the closest star to Earth, the small red dwarf Proxima Centauri, orbits the pair at a distance of 0.2 light-year. In 2016, a potentially habitable exoplanet was found to be orbiting Proxima Centauri, called Proxima Centauri b, the closest confirmed exoplanet to the Sun.


title: Solar System

text: The next closest known fusors to the Sun are the red dwarfs Barnard's Star (at 5.9 ly), Wolf 359 (7.8 ly), and Lalande 21185 (8.3 ly). The nearest brown dwarfs belong to the binary Luhman 16 system (6.6 ly), and the closest known rogue or free-floating planetary-mass object at less than 10 Jupiter masses is the sub-brown dwarf WISE 0855−0714 (7.4 ly).


title: Solar System

text: Just beyond at 8.6 ly lies Sirius, the brightest star in Earth's night sky, with roughly twice the Sun's mass, orbited by the closest white dwarf to Earth, Sirius B. Other stars within ten light-years are the binary red-dwarf system Luyten 726-8 (8.7 ly) and the solitary red dwarf Ross 154 (9.7 ly). The closest solitary Sun-like star to the Solar System is Tau Ceti at 11.9 light-years. It has roughly 80% of the Sun's mass but only about half of its luminosity.


title: Solar System

text: The nearest and unaided-visible group of stars beyond the immediate celestial neighbourhood is the Ursa Major Moving Group at roughly 80 light-years, which is within the Local Bubble, like the nearest as well as unaided-visible star cluster the Hyades, which lie at its edge. The closest star-forming regions are the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud, the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex and the Taurus Molecular Cloud; the latter lies just beyond the Local Bubble and is part of the Radcliffe wave.


title: Solar System

text: Compared to many extrasolar systems, the Solar System stands out in lacking planets interior to the orbit of Mercury. The known Solar System also lacks super-Earths, planets between one and ten times as massive as the Earth, although the hypothetical Planet Nine, if it does exist, could be a super-Earth beyond the Solar System as we understand it today. Uncommonly, it has only small rocky planets and large gas giants; elsewhere planets of intermediate size are typical—both rocky and gas—so there is no "gap" as seen between the size of Earth and of Neptune (with a radius 3.8 times as large). As many of these super-Earths are closer to their respective stars than Mercury is to the sun, a hypothesis has arisen that all planetary systems start with many close-in planets, and that typically a sequence of their collisions causes consolidation of mass into few larger planets, but in case of the Solar System the collisions caused their destruction and ejection.


title: Solar System

text: The orbits of Solar System planets are nearly circular. Compared to other systems, they have smaller orbital eccentricity. Although there are attempts to explain it partly with a bias in the radial-velocity detection method and partly with long interactions of a quite high number of planets, the exact causes remain undetermined.


title: Solar System

text: Humanity's knowledge of the Solar System has grown incrementally over the centuries. Up to the Late Middle Ages–Renaissance, astronomers from Europe to India believed Earth to be stationary at the centre of the Universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos, Nicolaus Copernicus was the first person known to have developed a mathematically predictive heliocentric system. Heliocentrism did not triumph immediately over geocentrism, but the work of Copernicus had its champions, notably Johannes Kepler. Using a heliocentric model that improved upon Copernicus by allowing orbits to be elliptical as well as circular, and the precise observational data of Tycho Brahe, Kepler produced the "Rudolphine Tables", which enabled accurate computations of the positions of the then-known planets. Pierre Gassendi used them to predict a transit of Mercury in 1631, and Jeremiah Horrocks did the same for a transit of Venus in 1639. This provided a strong vindication of heliocentrism and Kepler's elliptical orbits.


title: Solar System

text: In the 17th century, Galileo publicized the use of the telescope in astronomy; he and Simon Marius independently discovered that Jupiter had four satellites in orbit around it. Christiaan Huygens followed on from these observations by discovering Saturn's moon Titan and the shape of the rings of Saturn. In 1677, Edmond Halley observed a transit of Mercury across the Sun, leading him to realise that observations of the solar parallax of a planet (more ideally using the transit of Venus) could be used to trigonometrically determine the distances between Earth, Venus, and the Sun. Halley's friend Isaac Newton, in his magisterial "Principia Mathematica" of 1687, demonstrated that celestial bodies are not quintessentially different from Earthly ones: the same laws of motion and of gravity apply on Earth and in the skies.


title: Solar System

text: The term "Solar System" entered the English language by 1704, when John Locke used it to refer to the Sun, planets, and comets. In 1705, Halley realised that repeated sightings of a comet were of the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets repeatedly orbited the Sun, though Seneca had theorized this about comets in the 1st century. Careful observations of the 1769 transit of Venus allowed astronomers to calculate the average Earth–Sun distance as , only 0.8% greater than the modern value. Uranus, having occasionally been observed since antiquity, was recognized to be a planet orbiting beyond Saturn by 1783. In 1838, Friedrich Bessel successfully measured a stellar parallax, an apparent shift in the position of a star created by Earth's motion around the Sun, providing the first direct, experimental proof of heliocentrism. Neptune was identified as a planet some years later, in 1846, thanks to its gravitational pull causing a slight but detectable variation in the orbit of Uranus.


title: Solar System

text: In the 20th century, humans began their space exploration around the Solar System, starting with placing telescopes in space. Since then, humans have landed on the Moon during the Apollo program; the Apollo 13 mission marked the furthest any human has been away from Earth at . All eight planets have been visited by space probes; the outer planets were first visited by the "Voyager" spacecraft, one of which ("Voyager 1") is the furthest object made by humankind and the first in interstellar space. In addition, probes have also returned samples from comets and asteroids, as well as flown through the Sun's corona and made fly-bys of Kuiper belt objects. Six of the planets (all but Uranus and Neptune) have or had a dedicated orbiter.


title: Lily James

text: Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson (born 5 April 1989), better known by her stage name Lily James, is an English actress. She studied acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and began her career in the British television series "Just William" (2010). Following her role in the period drama series "Downton Abbey" (2012–2015), her film breakthrough was the title role in "Cinderella" (2015).


title: Lily James

text: James went on to portray Countess Natasha Rostova in the television adaptation of "War & Peace" (2016) and Pamela Anderson in the biographical series "Pam & Tommy" (2022). The latter earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie in 2022. She has had starring roles in several films, including " Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (2016), "Baby Driver" (2017), "Darkest Hour" (2017), "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" (2018), the musical "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" (2018), "Yesterday" (2019), "Rebecca" (2020) and "The Dig" (2021).


title: Lily James

text: Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson was born on 5 April 1989 in Esher, Surrey, the daughter of Ninette Mantle, an actress, and James "Jamie" Thomson, a musician. She has two brothers, one older and one younger. Her paternal grandmother, Helen Horton, was an American actress. Her maternal grandmother was French, and fled her village near Paris because of the Nazis, later marrying James's grandfather, a minister in the RAF. After finishing her studies at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire, James went on to graduate from London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010. Shortly thereafter, she signed with Tavistock Wood management in London.


title: Lily James

text: Her television credits include Ethel Brown in the 2010 BBC production of Richmal Crompton's "Just William", Poppy in the fourth series of ITV's "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" (2011), and Lady Rose Aldrige in "Downton Abbey". Lady Rose became a main character in the fourth and fifth series of the programme. James also appeared as Lady Rose in the series finale.


title: Lily James

text: In 2011, James played Taylor at the Young Vic Theatre in Tanya Ronder's stage adaptation of the novel "Vernon God Little" directed by Rufus Norris, Nina in Russell Bolam's modern adaptation of "The Seagull" at Southwark Playhouse, and Desdemona in Daniel Evans' production of "Othello" at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, with Dominic West and Clarke Peters.


title: Lily James

text: In 2012, James played the role of Katrina in "Play House" and Marijka in "Definitely the Bahamas" in a double-bill written and directed by Martin Crimp at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London as part of the theatre's 40th anniversary. Charles Spencer of "The Telegraph" wrote that "it is performed with a persuasive mixture of mischief and deeper feeling by Obi Abili and Lily James, the latter combining a mixture of neuroticism and glowing sexual allure that proves extraordinarily potent." James played the role of Korrina in the Warner Brothers film "Wrath of the Titans" and starred in "Fast Girls", written by Noel Clarke, centred around a group of young female athletes competing in the World Championships.


title: Lily James

text: James played Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh's 2015 live-action Disney film "Cinderella". James was photographed by Annie Leibovitz as Cinderella, in the blue gown her character wears to the ball, for the December 2014 issue of "Vogue". James also made her singing debut in the film singing "Sing Sweet Nightingale," "Lavender's Blue" and "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from the 1950 animated film in the end credits.


title: Lily James

text: In 2016, she returned to television in the 2016 BBC historical drama series "War & Peace", playing Natasha Rostova. She also starred in her second major film, as Elizabeth Bennet in the action-horror film "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", a parody of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". It received mixed reviews and failed to break even at the box office. James played Juliet in the Garrick Theatre's production of "Romeo and Juliet" directed by Rob Ashford and actor-director Kenneth Branagh in 2016.


title: Lily James

text: In 2017, she appeared in several major films. She played Debora, the love interest of the main character, Baby, in Edgar Wright's action film "Baby Driver". She played Elizabeth Layton, a secretary to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (played by Gary Oldman), in Joe Wright's war drama film "Darkest Hour". She also headlined the World War II drama film "The Exception", playing a British agent posing as a servant to the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II.


title: Lily James

text: James starred as the younger version of Meryl Streep's character, Donna Sheridan, in the sequel to "Mamma Mia!", titled "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again". The film was released in July 2018. The same year, James played author Juliet Ashton in the 1940s period drama "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" who exchanges letters with the residents of Guernsey, an island off the coast of Normandy that was German-occupied during World War II.


title: Lily James

text: In 2019, James starred as Eve Harrington in Ivo van Hove's stage adaptation of "All About Eve" alongside Gillian Anderson. The play opened on 15 February to positive reviews, running at the Noël Coward Theatre in the West End until 11 May.


title: Lily James

text: In 2020, James played the second Mrs de Winter in an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance "Rebecca" directed by Ben Wheatley and co-starring Armie Hammer. In 2021, she played Peggy Piggott in "The Dig", a British film directed by Simon Stone, based on the 2007 novel of the same name by John Preston. In late 2020, she was cast to play Pamela Anderson in the miniseries "Pam & Tommy" for Hulu.


title: Lily James

text: In September 2022 it was announced that Lily James was contracted to be a brand ambassador for the Natural Diamond Council. The Natural Diamond Council is a diamond council which promotes naturally sourced diamonds.


title: Lily James

text: Lily's father, James Thomson, died from cancer in 2008. She took her father's first name as her stage name when she learned there was already an actress named Lily Thomson.


title: Lily James

text: She was in a relationship with actor Matt Smith, whom she met while working on "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", from 2014 to 2019.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received various accolades, including a British Academy Television Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also been nominated for two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, "Time" magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015, he was appointed a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to the performing arts and to charity.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch studied drama at the Victoria University of Manchester and obtained a Master of Arts in classical acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He began acting in Shakespearean theatre productions before making his West End debut in Richard Eyre's revival of "Hedda Gabler" in 2005. Since then, he has starred in Royal National Theatre productions of "After the Dance" (2010) and "Frankenstein" (2011), winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for the latter. In 2015, he played the title role in "Hamlet" at the Barbican Theatre.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch's television work includes his performance as Stephen Hawking in the television film "Hawking" (2004). He gained greater recognition for playing Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series "Sherlock" from 2010 to 2017, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. For playing the title role in the miniseries "Patrick Melrose" (2018), he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In films, Cumberbatch has played Khan in "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013), and has appeared in the historical dramas "Amazing Grace" (2006), "12 Years a Slave" (2013), "1917" (2019) and "The Courier" (2020). He received critical acclaim and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performances as Alan Turing in "The Imitation Game" (2014) and as a volatile rancher in "The Power of the Dog" (2021). From 2012 to 2014, through voice and motion capture, Cumberbatch played Smaug and Sauron in "The Hobbit" film series. Since 2016, he has played Dr. Stephen Strange in six films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, starting with "Doctor Strange" (2016) and most recently appeared in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (2022).


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in the London district of Hammersmith, to actors Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch) and Wanda Ventham. He grew up in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He has a half-sister, Tracy Peacock, from his mother's first marriage.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: His grandfather, Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, was a submarine officer of both World Wars, and a prominent figure of London high society. His great-grandfather, Henry Alfred Cumberbatch, was a diplomat who served as consul in Turkey and Lebanon, and his great-great-grandfather, Robert William Cumberbatch, also was a British consul in Turkey and the Russian Empire. His great-great-great-grandfather, Abraham Parry Cumberbatch, was a wealthy slave owner in Barbados, West Indies. Cumberbatch is third cousin 16 times removed of King Richard III, whom he portrayed in "The Hollow Crown". He attended Richard III's 2015 reburial and read a poem.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch attended boarding schools from the age of eight; he was educated at Brambletye School in West Sussex and was an arts scholar at Harrow School. He was a member of the Rattigan Society, Harrow's principal club for the dramatic arts, which was named after Old Harrovian and playwright Sir Terence Rattigan. He was involved in numerous Shakespearean works at school and made his acting debut as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when he was 12. His first leading role was as Eliza Doolittle in Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion", in a production by the Head of Classics, James Morwood, who observed that Cumberbatch "acted everyone else off the stage". Cumberbatch's drama teacher, Martin Tyrell, called him "the best schoolboy actor" he had ever worked with. Despite his abilities, Cumberbatch's drama teacher at Harrow warned him against a career in acting, calling it a "tough business".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: After leaving Harrow, Cumberbatch took a gap year to volunteer as an English teacher at a Tibetan monastery in Darjeeling, India. He then attended the Victoria University of Manchester, where he studied drama. He continued his training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), graduating with an MA in classical acting. In January 2018, Cumberbatch succeeded Timothy West as president of LAMDA.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Since 2001, Cumberbatch has had major roles in a dozen classic plays at the Regent's Park Open Air, Almeida, Royal Court and Royal National Theatres. He was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for his role as George Tesman in "Hedda Gabler", which he performed at the Almeida Theatre on 16 March 2005 and at the Duke of York's Theatre when it transferred to the West End on 19 May 2005. This transfer marked his first West End appearance.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In June 2010, Cumberbatch led the revival of Sir Terence Rattigan's "After the Dance" directed by Thea Sharrock at the Royal National Theatre. He played 1920s aristocrat David Scott-Fowler to commercial and critical success. The play won four Olivier Awards including Best Revival. He acted in Danny Boyle's "The Children's Monologues", a theatrical charity event at London's Old Vic Theatre on 14 November 2010 which was produced by Dramatic Need.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In February 2011, Cumberbatch began playing, on alternate nights, both Victor Frankenstein and his creature, opposite Jonny Lee Miller, in Boyle's stage production of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" at the Royal National Theatre. "Frankenstein" was broadcast to cinemas as a part of National Theatre Live in March 2011.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch achieved the "Triple Crown of London Theatre" in 2011 when he received the Olivier Award, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for his performance in "Frankenstein".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch was a part of a cast featuring members of the Royal National Theatre Company in "50 Years on Stage", the Royal National Theatre's landmark event for its 50th anniversary on 2 November 2013. He played Rosencrantz in a selected scene from Sir Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". The show was directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner and was broadcast on BBC Two and in cinemas worldwide as a part of National Theatre Live.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch returned to theatre to play Shakespeare's Hamlet at London's Barbican Theatre. The production was directed by Lyndsey Turner and produced by Sonia Friedman, which started its 12-week run in August 2015. The performance, co-starring Sian Brooke, was broadcast by the National Theatre Company by satellite internationally as "Hamlet in Rehearsal". He earned his third Laurence Olivier Awards nomination for the role.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch's early television roles include two separate guest roles in "Heartbeat" (2000, 2004), Freddy in "Tipping the Velvet" (2002), Edward Hand in "Cambridge Spies" (2003) and Rory in the ITV comedy drama series "Fortysomething" (2003). He also featured in "Spooks" and "Silent Witness". In 2004, he landed his first main part in television as Stephen Hawking in "Hawking". He was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor and won the Golden Nymph for Television Films – Best Performance by an Actor. He later provided Hawking's voice in the first episode of the television series "Curiosity". He also appeared in the BBC miniseries "Dunkirk" as Lieutenant Jimmy Langley.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2005, Cumberbatch portrayed protagonist Edmund Talbot in the miniseries "To the Ends of the Earth", based on Sir William Golding's trilogy; during filming he experienced a terrifying carjacking in South Africa, managing to escape. He made brief appearances in the comedy sketch show "Broken News" and the Channel 4 sitcom "Nathan Barley" in 2005 and featured alongside Tom Hardy in the television adaptation of "", which aired on the BBC in September 2007.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2008, Cumberbatch played the lead character in the BBC miniseries drama "The Last Enemy", earning a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Film. In 2009, he appeared in "Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: Murder Is Easy" as Luke Fitzwilliam. He played Bernard in the TV adaptation of "Small Island", earning him a nomination for BAFTA Television Award for Best Supporting Actor. Cumberbatch featured in Michael Dobbs' play, "The Turning Point", which aired as one of a series of TV plays broadcast live on Sky Arts. The play depicted an October 1938 meeting between Soviet spy Guy Burgess, then a young man working for the BBC, and Winston Churchill. Cumberbatch portrayed Burgess; Churchill was played by Matthew Marsh, who had played a supporting role in "Hawking". He narrated the 6-part series "South Pacific" (US title: "Wild Pacific"), which aired from May to June 2009 on BBC 2.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2010, Cumberbatch portrayed Vincent van Gogh in "Van Gogh: Painted with Words". "The Daily Telegraph" called his performance "[a] treat ... vividly bringing Van Gogh to impassioned, blue-eyed life." In the same year, Cumberbatch began playing Sherlock Holmes in the joint BBC/PBS television series "Sherlock", to critical acclaim. The second series began on New Year's Day 2012 in the United Kingdom and was broadcast on PBS in the United States in May 2012. The third series aired on PBS over a period of three weeks in January to February 2014. Cumberbatch won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for the third episode of the third series of the show entitled "His Last Vow". Cumberbatch has one of the most aggressive fanbases to date, part of the 'Big Three' fandoms on the social media site Tumblr, called SuperWhoLock. In April 2015, Cumberbatch was nominated for his sixth British Academy Television Award for Best Leading Actor for the third series of the "Sherlock". In 2016, he was once again nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, this time for "Sherlock: The Abominable Bride".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2012, he led the BBC and HBO co-produced miniseries "Parade's End" with Rebecca Hall. An adaptation of the tetralogy of novels of the same name by Ford Madox Ford, it was filmed as five episodes, directed by Susanna White and adapted by Sir Tom Stoppard. His performance earned Cumberbatch his second Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor in Miniseries or TV Movie. In February 2014, Cumberbatch appeared with "Sesame Street" characters Murray and Count von Count for PBS. In 2016, Cumberbatch portrayed Richard III in Shakespeare's play of the same name, as part of the second series of films for "The Hollow Crown", which aired in both Britain and the United States. Cumberbatch has also been a brand ambassador for Dunlop and Jaguar luxury cars since 2014.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch starred in "Patrick Melrose", a miniseries adaptation of the Edward St Aubyn novels, which began airing on Showtime on 12 May 2018. In 2019 Cumberbatch appeared as British political strategist Dominic Cummings (who served as the campaign director of Vote Leave, the official campaign in favour of the UK leaving the European Union) in HBO and Channel 4's television film "".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2006, Cumberbatch played late 18th/early 19th century British parliamentarian William Pitt the Younger in "Amazing Grace", a role that garnered him a nomination for the London Film Critics Circle "British Breakthrough Acting Award". In "Atonement" (2007), Cumberbatch played what "The Guardian" called one of his "small parts in big films", and came to the attention of Sue Vertue and Stephen Moffat, who would later cast him in "Sherlock". In 2008 he had a supporting role in "The Other Boleyn Girl", and the next year he appeared in the Charles Darwin biographical film "Creation" as Darwin's friend Joseph Hooker. In 2010, he appeared in "The Whistleblower" as well as "Four Lions". He portrayed Peter Guillam, George Smiley's right-hand man, in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". The film was directed by Tomas Alfredson and featured Gary Oldman and Colin Firth. Cumberbatch played Major Jamie Stewart in Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" in 2011.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2012, Cumberbatch provided the voice and motion-capture for both Smaug the Dragon and the Necromancer in "", the first instalment of "The Hobbit" series based on the novel of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien. He reprised his roles as Smaug and the Necromancer for "" (2013) and "" (2014). For the motion-capture aspect of the films, he used a suit and facial markers to highlight the dragon's expressions and movements. Cumberbatch told "Total Film" "You just have to lose your shit on a carpeted floor, in a place that looks a little bit like a mundane government building. It was just me as well, with four static cameras and all the sensors."


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2013, Cumberbatch appeared in J. J. Abrams' sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness", as Khan, the film's antagonist. Three of the four films he featured in during the second half of 2013 premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival: "The Fifth Estate", in which he played WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, "12 Years a Slave", in which he played William Prince Ford, a slave owner, and "", in which he played Charles Aiken. For the official soundtrack of the latter film, he recorded a song titled "Can't Keep it Inside".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch had a voice role in DreamWorks Animation's feature film "Penguins of Madagascar", which was released in November 2014. He then starred in the historical drama "The Imitation Game" as British cryptographer Alan Turing, also released in November 2014. The role earned him nominations for the Golden Globe, BAFTA, SAG, and Academy Award for Best Actor. In May 2014, he joined the cast of the film "Black Mass" opposite Johnny Depp which was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch starred as Doctor Strange in both the eponymous film released in November 2016, in "" in April 2018, and in "" in April 2019. His depiction of Strange also appeared in "" (2021) and in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (2022). He starred as electricity titan Thomas Edison in the film "The Current War" in September 2017. In 2018, Cumberbatch voiced the title character in the film "The Grinch", and provided the voice and did performance capture for the tiger Shere Khan in "", Netflix film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book", starring alongside Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett. In 2019, he appeared briefly as British Colonel Mackenzie in Sam Mendes' World War I film "1917".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2021, Cumberbatch starred in the drama "The Power of the Dog", written and directed by Jane Campion. His performance in the film was acclaimed, and he received nominations for the Academy Award, British Academy Film Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. The same year Cumberbatch played Louis Wain, an eccentric English artist known for drawing anthropomorphized large-eyed cats, in "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch will star as the titular character in Wes Anderson's "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" (2023), a film adaptation of a short story by Roald Dahl. He will appear opposite Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch has repeatedly expressed his affection for radio and has done numerous productions for the BBC. Among his best-known radio work is the adaptation of John Mortimer's novel "Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders" in 2009. He played Young Rumpole, and went on to play the part in nine more adaptations of Mortimer's works. Between 2008 and 2014, he played Captain Martin Crieff in the BBC Radio 4's sitcom "Cabin Pressure", alongside Stephanie Cole, John Finnemore, and Roger Allam. He then went on to play the Angel Islington in the 2013 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere". In the same year, he led the BBC Radio 3 adaptation of Michael Frayn's play "Copenhagen" wherein he played theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: For the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, on 6 June 2014 Cumberbatch read the original BBC radio bulletins from June 1944 for BBC Radio 4.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch has narrated numerous documentaries for the National Geographic and Discovery channels. He has also read for several audiobooks, including "Casanova", "The Tempest", "The Making of Music", "Death in a White Tie", "Artists in Crime", "Tom and Viv", and "Sherlock Holmes: The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries and Other Stories". He has done voice-overs for several commercials, including for major names Jaguar, Sony, Pimms, and Google+, performing the "Seven Ages of Man" monologue. For the 2012 London Olympics, he featured in a short film on the history of London, which began the BBC coverage of the opening ceremony. He made appearances for two Cheltenham Festivals, in July 2012 for Music when he read World War I poetry and prose accompanied by piano pieces and in October 2012 for Literature when he discussed "Sherlock" and "Parade's End" at The Centaur. In 2012, he lent his voice to a four-part, spoken-word track titled "Flat of Angles" for "Late Night Tales" based on a story written by author and poet Simon Cleary, the final instalment of which was released on 9 May 2014.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2012, he provided the voice of Dante Alighieri in the documentary "Girlfriend in a Coma". In 2013, Cumberbatch narrated the documentary film "Jerusalem" about the ancient city. It was distributed by National Geographic Cinema Ventures in IMAX 3D theatres worldwide. The same year, he appeared as a special guest in a recording of Gordon Getty's opera "Usher House", where he voiced the role of "the visitor", recorded and released by PENTATONE.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: He narrated the documentary "" about the Portuguese footballer for Vimeo and Vision Films in 2014. In August 2014, he recorded the first ever unabridged audiobook of William Golding's 1964 novel, "The Spire", for Canongate Books.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: On 28 September 2016, Cumberbatch appeared on stage with Pink Floyd member David Gilmour during one of the musician's shows in London held at the Royal Albert Hall. He sang lead vocals on the song "Comfortably Numb", singing the verse sections originally sung by Roger Waters.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Adept at impersonating others, Cumberbatch was referred to as the "New King of Celebrity Impressionists" by "Vulture" magazine. He has imitated celebrities on a number of chat shows, such as "The Graham Norton Show" on the BBC, "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on NBC, and in general interviews on channels such as MTV. His impersonations include Alan Rickman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Tom Hiddleston, Michael Caine, Christopher Walken, Tom Holland, Bane, John Malkovich, Matthew McConaughey, Taylor Swift and Chewbacca.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch, Adam Ackland, writer-director Patrick Monroe, action coordinator Ben Dillon, and production manager Adam Selves launched a production company, SunnyMarch Ltd., in late 2013.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Their first project under the company's banner was the £87,000 crowd-funded short film "Little Favour", written and directed by Monroe with Cumberbatch in the lead role. The 30-minute action-thriller became internationally available on iTunes on 5 November 2013. In 2022 filming began on "The End We Start From", an adaptation of the Megan Hunter novel of the same name, the rights to which the company had acquired in 2017.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch achieved international recognition with the first series of "Sherlock" in 2010. He has since been called "The Thinking Woman's Crumpet" and has been a mainstay in numerous "Sexiest Man Alive" lists including those of "Empire" and "People".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: "Tatler" listed Cumberbatch in the "Most Eligible Bachelors in the United Kingdom" in 2012. In the same year, Cumberbatch described a cyberstalking incident in which he discovered that someone had been live-tweeting his movements in his London home. Coming to terms with it, he said, it is "an ongoing process. To think that somebody knew everything I'd done in a day and told the rest of the world in real time!" His photograph taken at the Garrick Club by Derry Moore, 12th Earl of Drogheda was the cover of Moore's 2012 book "An English Room".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2013, Cumberbatch was ranked fifth in the "Tatler"s "Most Fascinating People in Britain" list, higher than the Duchess of Cambridge and just below Queen Elizabeth II. "Entertainment Weekly" identified Cumberbatch as one of the "50 Coolest and Most Creative Entertainers" in Hollywood. He has also appeared on the covers of "GQ", "Time" and "The Hollywood Reporter"s "New A-list" issue.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2014, Cumberbatch was included in "The Sunday Times" "100 Makers of the 21st Century", cited as this generation's Laurence Olivier." Film critic Roger Friedman stated that "Cumberbatch may be the closest thing to a real descendant of Sir Laurence Olivier." GQ identified him as one of the "100 Most Connected Men" in the UK in 2014. In the same year, "Country Life" magazine labelled him as one of its "Gentlemen of the Year".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In April 2014, Cumberbatch was regarded as a British cultural icon, with young adults from abroad naming him among a group of people whom they most associated with UK culture, which included William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth II, David Beckham, J. K. Rowling, The Beatles, Charlie Chaplin, Elton John and Adele. The same month, "Time" magazine included him in its annual "Time" 100 as one of the Most Influential People in the World. Cumberbatch was the inspiration and focus of the play "Benedict Cumberbatch Must Die" which, despite its title, was a "love letter" and portrait of the fan obsession surrounding the actor. It premiered in June 2014 at BATS Theatre in New Zealand. The Tennessee Aquarium named one of its otters "Benny" in reference to Cumberbatch's first name after a naming contest on the zoo's website.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: A wax figure of Cumberbatch has been on display at Madame Tussauds London since October 2014. In 2015, he was named one of "GQ"s 50 best dressed British men. In 2018, PETA declared Cumberbatch and director Ava DuVernay to be the Most Beautiful Vegan Celebs of 2018.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch is an ambassador for The Prince's Trust. He is a supporter and patron of organisations focused on using the arts to help disadvantaged young people including Odd Arts, Anno's Africa and Dramatic Need. Since portraying Stephen Hawking in 2004, he has been an ambassador, and in 2015 patron, for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and in 2014 did the Ice Bucket Challenge for the organisation. He also set up a recovery fund for the benefit of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association. Cumberbatch has donated artworks for charities and fundraisers including the Willow Foundation, and Thomas Coram Foundation for Children.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Together with Prince Philip, Cumberbatch presented 85 young people with the Duke of Edinburgh's Award at St James's Palace on 19 March 2014. "Our ambition is to extend this opportunity to hundreds of thousands across the UK", Cumberbatch said on behalf of the youth awards programme.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In May 2014, he joined Prince William and Ralph Lauren at Windsor Castle for a cancer awareness and fundraising gala for the benefit of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. Cumberbatch stated, "Cancer isn't a disease that needs much awareness, but it does need continued funding for research." In September 2014, he participated in a video campaign for Stand Up To Cancer. Cumberbatch posed for photographer Jason Bell for an exhibition at Pall Mall, London from 16 to 20 September 2014 to mark 10 years of the "Give Up Clothes For Good" charity campaign, which has raised £17 million for Cancer Research UK. In 2014, Cumberbatch publicly backed "Hacked Off" and its campaign for UK press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable." In late 2014, Cumberbatch designed a Sherlock Holmes-themed Paddington Bear statue, one of fifty located around London prior to the release of the film "Paddington", which was auctioned to raise funds for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In a November 2014 cover story for "Out" promoting "The Imitation Game", Cumberbatch opened up about sexual experimentation during his time in boarding schools stating, "While there was experimentation, it had never occurred to me as, 'Oh, this is that!' It was just boys and their penises, the same way with girls and vaginas and boobs. It wasn't out of desire." LGBT group Stonewall released a statement praising Cumberbatch's comments, saying, "Seeing someone in the public eye – especially somebody as influential as Benedict – talking positively around gay issues, is powerful for young lesbian, gay and bisexual people. It is often difficult for those growing up to find role models who demonstrate that it is equally okay to be gay or straight."


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch is a founding member of the "Save Soho" campaign which aims "to protect and nurture iconic music and performing arts venues in Soho." In an open letter published in "The Guardian" on 31 January 2015, Cumberbatch, amongst others, asked for pardons of all gay and bisexual men who were convicted under the same now-defunct "indecency" laws as Alan Turing was (whom Cumberbatch portrayed in "The Imitation Game").


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In September 2015, Cumberbatch condemned the UK government's response to the migrant crisis in a speech to theatregoers during a curtain call at a performance of Hamlet, for which he stars. He also fronted a video campaign to help the charity Save The Children in its mission to aid young Syrian refugees. He was one of the signatories of an open letter, published in "The Guardian", criticising the government for its actions regarding the refugee problem. He also gave nightly speeches after his curtain call as "Hamlet" at the Barbican in London, asking for donations to help Syrian refugees. At the end of the run, the audience contributed more than £150,000 for Save the Children. He faced criticism for not taking in refugees himself, responding "I do have a house, but it's empty, it's gutted, there's no electricity or water, so that wouldn't work, and I have a baby in my flat, there are no spare rooms". In 2017 he told "The Big Issue" "I understand why some might think I should be housing people instead of complaining about a government not doing it. But I was trying to raise awareness that we can do more as a society [...] But we raised money for children in need. So I don't regret doing it for a second, and I will do it again, even if it does put me in the firing line".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In May 2020, Cumberbatch was among the ten celebrities who read an instalment of Roald Dahl's children's fantasy novel "James and the Giant Peach". The audio-visual readings were published by Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi in aid of the global-non profit charity Partners In Health, co-founded by Dahl's daughter Ophelia, which had been fighting COVID-19 in vulnerable areas.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch was appointed a CBE in the 2015 Birthday Honours for services to the performing arts and to charity. He received the honour from the Queen at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 10 November 2015. In February 2016, Cumberbatch was appointed visiting fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2003, Cumberbatch joined the Stop the War Coalition protest in London against the Iraq War. He addressed activists in a 2010 protest sponsored by the Trade Union Congress in Westminster on the suggested risks to the arts due to spending cuts expected in the "Spending Review". In 2013, he protested against what he perceived were civil liberties violations by the UK government.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch is a supporter of LGBT+ rights and in July 2013 officiated at the same-sex marriage of friends. Through this ordination he officiated the wedding of Robert Rinder, best known as Judge Rinder and his partner Seth Cummings. For International Women's Day 2014, he was a signatory of Amnesty International's letter to the Prime Minister David Cameron for women's rights in Afghanistan. Cumberbatch identifies as a feminist.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: In 2016, Cumberbatch was one of over 280 figures from the arts world who backed a vote for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union with regard to the June 2016 referendum on that issue.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: While in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in 2005, Cumberbatch and two friends (Theo and Denise Black) were abducted, after bursting a tyre, and held at gunpoint by a group of locals. Eventually their abductors drove them into unsettled territory and set them free without explanation. Cumberbatch said of the incident: "It taught me that you come into this world as you leave it, on your own. It's made me want to live a life less ordinary." Before the burst tyre, they had been listening to "How to Disappear Completely" by Radiohead. Following this experience, whenever Cumberbatch hears the song it "reminds [him] of a sense of reality ... [and] a reason for hope".


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: He subscribes to Buddhist philosophy and has expressed affinity for meditation and mindfulness. Cumberbatch also follows a vegan diet.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch was in a twelve-year-long relationship with actress Olivia Poulet, from his time at Manchester University until 2010.


title: Benedict Cumberbatch

text: Cumberbatch is married to English theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter. Their engagement was announced in the "Forthcoming Marriages" section of "The Times" on 5 November 2014, after a seventeen-year friendship. On 14 February 2015, the couple married at the 12th-century Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Mottistone on the Isle of Wight followed by a reception at Mottistone Manor. They have three sons.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Avril Ramona Lavigne ( ; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. At age 16, she signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, "Let Go" (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. It yielded the singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop Punk Queen" from music publications. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop punk music, since she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. Her second studio album, "Under My Skin" (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the "Billboard" 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne's third studio album, "The Best Damn Thing" (2007), reached number one in seven countries worldwide and saw the international success of its lead single "Girlfriend", which became her first single to reach the top of the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the United States. Her next two studio albums, "Goodbye Lullaby" (2011) and "Avril Lavigne" (2013), saw continued commercial success and were both certified gold in Canada, the United States, and other territories. After releasing her sixth studio album, "Head Above Water" (2019), she returned to her punk roots with her seventh studio album, "Love Sux" (2022).


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Alongside her music career, Lavigne voiced an animated character in the film "Over the Hedge" (2006), and made her screen acting debut in "Fast Food Nation" (2006). Her accolades include eight Grammy Awards nominations.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne was born on September 27, 1984 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. She was named "Avril" (the French word for April) by her father. He and Lavigne's mother recognized their child's vocal abilities when she was two years old and sang "Jesus Loves Me" on the way home from church. Lavigne has an older brother named Matthew and a younger sister named Michelle, both of whom teased her when she sang. "My brother used to knock on the wall because I used to sing myself to sleep and he thought it was really annoying." She is the sister-in-law of Japanese band One OK Rock bassist Ryota Kohama. Lavigne's paternal grandfather Maurice Yves Lavigne was born in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec. A member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, he married Lucie Dzierzbicki, a French native of Morhange in France in 1953. Their son, Jean-Claude Lavigne, was born in 1954 at RCAF Station Grostenquin near Grostenquin, Lorraine, France. When Jean-Claude was a child, the family moved to Ontario, Canada, and in 1975, he married Judith-Rosanne "Judy" Loshaw.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: When Lavigne was five years old, the family moved to Napanee (now incorporated as Greater Napanee), Ontario, a town with a population of approximately 5,000 at the time.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Her parents supported her singing; her father bought her a microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, and several guitars, and he converted their basement into a studio. Following his own love for music, Jean-Claude led the family to church at Third Day Worship Centre in Kingston, Ontario, where he often played bass. When Lavigne was 14 years old, her parents took her to karaoke sessions.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne performed at country fairs, singing songs by Garth Brooks, The Chicks, and Shania Twain. She began writing her own songs. Her first song was called "Can't Stop Thinking About You", about a teenage crush, which she described as "cheesy cute". Lavigne also played hockey during high school and won MVP twice as a right winger in a boys league.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: In 1999, Lavigne won a radio contest to perform with the Canadian singer Shania Twain at the Corel Centre in Ottawa, before an audience of 20,000 people. Twain and Lavigne sang Twain's song, "What Made You Say That", and Lavigne told Twain that she aspired to be "a famous singer". During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folksinger Stephen Medd. He invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his 1999 album, "Quinte Spirit". She later sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow-up album, "My Window to You", in 2000.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: In December 1999, Lavigne was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. Fabri sent out VHS tapes of Lavigne's home performances to several industry prospects, and Lavigne was visited by several executives. Mark Jowett, co-founder of a Canadian management firm, Nettwerk, received a copy of Lavigne's karaoke performances recorded in her parents' basement. Jowett arranged for Lavigne to work with producer Peter Zizzo during the summer of 2000 in New York, where she wrote the song "Why". Lavigne was noticed by Arista Records during a trip to New York.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: In November 2000, Ken Krongard, an A&R representative, invited Antonio "L.A." Reid, then head of Arista Records, to Zizzo's Manhattan studio to hear Lavigne sing. Her 15-minute audition "so impressed" Reid that he immediately signed her to Arista with a deal worth $1.25 million for two albums and an extra $900,000 for a publishing advance. By this time, Lavigne had found that she fit in naturally with her hometown high school's skater clique, an image that carried through to her first album, but although she enjoyed skateboarding, school left her feeling insecure. Having signed a record deal, and with support from her parents, she left school to focus on her music career. Lavigne's band, which were mostly the members of Closet Monster, was chosen by Nettwerk, as they wanted young performers who were up and coming from the Canadian punk rock scene who would fit with Lavigne's personality.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Reid gave A&R Joshua Sarubin the responsibility of overseeing Lavigne's development and the recording of her debut album. They spent several months in New York working with different co-writers, trying to forge an individual sound for her. Sarubin told HitQuarters that they initially struggled; although early collaborations with songwriter-producers including Sabelle Breer, Curt Frasca and Peter Zizzo resulted in some good songs, they did not match her or her voice. It was only when Lavigne then went to Los Angeles in May 2001 and created two songs with The Matrix production team—including "Complicated", later released as her debut single—that the record company felt she had made a major breakthrough. Lavigne worked further with The Matrix and also with singer-songwriter Clif Magness. Recording of Lavigne's debut album, "Let Go", finished in January 2002.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne released "Let Go" in June 2002 in the US, where it reached number two on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart. It peaked at number one in Australia, Canada, and the UK—this made Lavigne, at 17 years old, the youngest female soloist to have a number-one album on the UK Albums Chart at that time. By the end of 2002, the album was certified four-times Platinum by the RIAA, making her the bestselling female artist of 2002 and "Let Go" the top-selling debut of the year. By May 2003, "Let Go" had accumulated over 1 million sales in Canada, receiving a diamond certification from the Canadian Recording Industry Association. By 2009, the album had sold over 16 million units worldwide. By March 2018, the RIAA certified the album seven-times Platinum, denoting shipments of over seven million units in the US.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne's debut single, "Complicated", peaked at number one in Australia and number two in the US. "Complicated" was one of the bestselling Canadian singles of 2002, and one of the decade's biggest hits in the US, where subsequent singles "Sk8er Boi" and "I'm with You" reached the top ten. With these three singles, Lavigne became the second artist in history to have three top-ten songs from a debut album on "Billboard"s Mainstream Top 40 chart. Lavigne was named Best New Artist (for "Complicated") at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, won four Juno Awards in 2003 out of six nominations, received a World Music Award for "World's Bestselling Canadian Singer", and was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Complicated".


title: Avril Lavigne

text: In 2002, Lavigne made a cameo appearance in the music video for "Hundred Million" by the pop punk band Treble Charger. In March 2003, Lavigne posed for the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine, and in May she performed "Fuel" during MTV's Icon tribute to Metallica. During her first headlining tour, the Try to Shut Me Up Tour, Lavigne covered Green Day's "Basket Case".


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne's second studio album, "Under My Skin", was released in May 2004 and debuted at number one in Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, and the US. The album was certified five-times Platinum in Canada and has sold 10 million copies, including 3.2 million in the US. Lavigne wrote most of the album's tracks with Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, and Kreviazuk's husband, Our Lady Peace front man Raine Maida, co-produced the album with Butch Walker and Don Gilmore. Lavigne said that "Under My Skin" proved her credentials as a songwriter, saying that "each song comes from a personal experience of mine, and there are so much emotions in those songs". "Don't Tell Me", the lead single off the album, reached the top five in the UK and Canada and the top ten in Australia. "My Happy Ending", the album's second single, was a top five hit in the UK and Australia. In the US, it was a top ten entry on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and became a number-one pop radio hit. The third single, "Nobody's Home", did not manage to make the top 40 in the US and performed moderately elsewhere.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: During early 2004 Lavigne went on the 'Live and By Surprise' acoustic mall tour in the US and Canada to promote "Under My Skin", accompanied by her guitarist Evan Taubenfeld. In September 2004, Lavigne embarked on her first world tour, the year-long Bonez Tour. Lavigne won two World Music Awards in 2004, for 'World's Best Pop/Rock Artist' and 'World's Bestselling Canadian Artist', and won three Juno Awards from five nominations in 2005, including 'Artist of the Year'. She also won in the category of 'Favorite Female Singer' at the eighteenth annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne co-wrote the song "Breakaway", which was recorded by Kelly Clarkson for the soundtrack to the 2004 film "". "Breakaway" was released as a single in mid 2004 and subsequently included as the title track on Clarkson's second album, "Breakaway". Lavigne performed the Goo Goo Dolls song "Iris" with the band's lead singer John Rzeznik at Fashion Rocks in September 2004, and she posed for the cover of "Maxim" in October 2004. She recorded the theme song for "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" (released in November 2004) with producer Butch Walker.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: In February 2006, Lavigne represented Canada at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics. Fox Entertainment Group approached Lavigne to write a song for the soundtrack to the 2006 fantasy-adventure film "Eragon"; her contribution, "Keep Holding On", was released as a single to promote the film and its soundtrack.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne's third album, "The Best Damn Thing", was released in April 2007 and debuted at number one on the U.S. "Billboard" 200, and subsequently achieved Platinum status in Canada. The album sold more than 2 million copies in the US. Its lead single, "Girlfriend", became Lavigne's first number-one single on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 and one of the decade's biggest singles. The single also peaked at number one in Australia, Canada, and Japan, and reached number two in the UK and France. As well as English, "Girlfriend" was recorded in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and Mandarin. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked "Girlfriend" as the most-downloaded track worldwide in 2007, selling 7.3 million copies, including the versions recorded in eight different languages. "When You're Gone", the album's second single, reached the top five in Australia and the United Kingdom, the top ten in Canada, and the top forty in the US. "Hot" was the third single and charted only at number 95 in the US, although it reached the top 10 in Canada and the top 20 in Australia.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne won two World Music Awards in 2007, for 'World's Bestselling Canadian Artist' and 'World's Best Pop/Rock Female Artist'. She won her first two MTV Europe Music Awards, received a Teen Choice Award for 'Best Summer Single', and was nominated for five Juno Awards. In December 2007, Lavigne was ranked number eight in "Forbes" magazine's list of 'Top 20 Earners Under 25', with annual earnings of $12 million. In March 2008, Lavigne undertook a world tour, The Best Damn World Tour, and appeared on the cover of "Maxim" for the second time. In mid-August, Malaysia's Islamic opposition party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, attempted to ban Lavigne's tour show in Kuala Lumpur, judging her stage moves "too sexy". It was thought that her concert on August 29 would promote wrong values ahead of Malaysia's independence day on August 31. On August 21, 2008, MTV reported that the concert had been approved by the Malaysian government.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: In January 2010, Lavigne worked with Disney to create clothing designs inspired by Tim Burton's feature film "Alice in Wonderland". She recorded a song for its soundtrack, "Alice", which was played over the end credits and included on the soundtrack album "Almost Alice". In February, Lavigne performed at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony. Lavigne's song "I'm with You" was sampled by Rihanna on the track "Cheers (Drink to That)", which is featured on Rihanna's fifth studio album, "Loud" (2010). "Cheers (Drink to That)" was released as a single the following year, and Lavigne appeared in its music video. In December 2010, American singer Miranda Cosgrove released "Dancing Crazy", a song written by Lavigne, Max Martin and Shellback. It was also produced by Martin.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Lavigne began recording for her fourth studio album, "Goodbye Lullaby", in her home studio in November 2008. Its opening track, "Black Star", was written to help promote her first fragrance of the same name. Lavigne described the album as being about her life experiences rather than focusing on relationships, and its style as less pop rock than her previous material, reflecting her age. The release date for "Goodbye Lullaby" was delayed several times, which Lavigne said was because of her label. "Goodbye Lullaby" was released in March 2011, and its lead single, "What the Hell", premiered in December 2010, ahead of the album's release. "Goodbye Lullaby" received Juno Award nominations for Album of the Year and Pop Album of the Year. By March 2018, "Goodbye Lullaby" sold more than 500,000 copies in the US, and it was certified Gold by the RIAA.


title: Avril Lavigne

text: Three months after the release of "Goodbye Lullaby", Lavigne announced that work on her fifth studio album had already begun, describing it as the musical opposite of "Goodbye Lullaby" and "pop and more fun again". In late 2011, she confirmed that she had moved to Epic Records, headed by L. A. Reid. Lavigne contributed two cover songs to the 2012 Japanese animated film "": "How You Remind Me" (originally by Nickelback) and "Bad Reputation" (originally by Joan Jett).