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One, three, four, two; seven, eight, six, five.

Size, we're told, doesn't matter.

But if it did, there's the answer!

Four solid, yet light. Four airy, yet heavy.

One stands crooked, one has a twin.

One's got an eye, like one in a picture.

But there is another! A big one!

This one's not like the others:

That which holds it all together.

A few more attributes, our mystery has:

Two belts! One of them holds a member

That was once thought to be another.

It isn't!

What is the name of the collection of members that this poem describes?

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  • $\begingroup$ The title is vaguely associated with the subject at hand, but not very closely. Don't spend too much time on it. $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Feb 14, 2019 at 21:13

1 Answer 1

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The planets.

One, three, four, two; seven, eight, six, five.
Size, we're told, doesn't matter.
But if it did, there's the answer!

There are eight planets, hence the first clue, which are labeled in order of increasing size.

Four solid, yet light. Four airy, yet heavy.
One stands crooked, one has a twin.
One's got an eye, like one in a picture.

Jupiter has an eye. Uranus and Neptune are alike, essentially twin planets. Neptune, I believe, has an extreme tilt on its axis relative to its orbital plane.

But there is another! A big one!
This one's not like the others:
That which holds it all together.

The sun is not quite like the rest of the planets, but its gravity is what forms the solar system.

A few more attributes, our mystery has:
Two belts! One of them holds a member . That was once thought to be another.
It isn't!

The asteroid belt, and the other belt (Kuiper Belt) of debris and exoplanets that extends far out past Neptune, which includes Pluto (once considered to be a planet, now no longer).

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  • $\begingroup$ First word of line two. $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Feb 14, 2019 at 23:38
  • $\begingroup$ I considered sorting them by size, but...assuming they line up with their distance, that's not their relative sizes; for instance, Three is the largest of One, Two, Three, and Four. And five, six, seven, eight, by size, are sorted Eight, Seven, Six, Five. $\endgroup$
    – SirDerpy
    Feb 14, 2019 at 23:52
  • $\begingroup$ I misspoke on the second array - Seven, Eight, Six, Five is the proper ordering. Still, Three is absolutely larger than Four, Two, and One. $\endgroup$
    – SirDerpy
    Feb 15, 2019 at 0:27
  • $\begingroup$ Mercury is the first smallest, Venus the third, Earth the fourth... $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Feb 15, 2019 at 0:37
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, I misunderstood then. I took them to mean that, for example, Earth is Three, and then we organized them by size; so I read "Mercury, Earth, Mars, Venus" as the sequence. Thank you for clearing that up. $\endgroup$
    – SirDerpy
    Feb 15, 2019 at 1:34

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