OUR SOLAR SYSTEM: IN DEPTH

Overview
A solar system is a star and all of the objects that travel around it — planets, moons,
asteroids, comets and meteoroids. Most stars
host their own planets, so there are likely tens of
billions of other solar systems in the Milky Way
galaxy alone. Solar systems can also have more
than one star. These are called binary star
systems if there are two stars, or multi-star
systems if there are three or more stars.

The solar system we call home is located in an outer spiral arm of the vast Milky Way
galaxy. It consists of the sun (our star) and everything that orbits around it.

1 Our solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago.

2 The four planets closest to the sun -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
3 The sun is the center of our solar system. It contains almost all of the mass in our solar system.
Size and Distance

The solar system extends much farther than the eight planets that orbit the sun. The
solar system also includes the Kuiper Belt that lies past Neptune's orbit. This is a
sparsely occupied ring of icy bodies, almost all smaller than the most popular Kuiper Belt
Object, dwarf planet Pluto.

Exploration

In the early 17th century, Galileo Galilei's discoveries using the recently invented
telescope strongly supported the concept of a solar system in which all the planets,
including Earth, revolve around a central star — the sun. At the time this was called
Copernican heliocentric theory, and it was a revolutionary idea, as most people thought
Earth was the center of the universe.

Since then, we have learned much about our solar system and what lies beyond it using
ground-based telescopes, spacecraft and mathematical models. The Voyager mission
made an impact in a lot of areas of planetary science.

Significant Dates

The following table lists statistical information for the Sun and planets:

Table 1 - Sun and Planet summary

Distanc Radiu Mass Rotatio Moon Inclinatio Obliquit Density

e s n s n y
Sun 0 109 332,80 25-36* 9 --- --- 1.410
0
Mercury 0.39 0.38 0.05 58.8 0 7 0.1° 5.43
Venus 0.72 0.95 0.89 244 0 3.394 177.4° 5.25
Earth 1.0 1.00 1.00 1.00 1 0.000 23.45° 5.52
Mars 1.5 0.53 0.11 1.029 2 1.850 25.19° 3.95
Jupiter 5.2 11 318 0.411 16 1.308 3.12° 1.33
Saturn 9.5 9 95 0.428 18 2.488 26.73° 0.69
Neptune 30.1 4 17 0.802 8 1.774 29.56° 1.64
Pluto 39.5 0.18 0.002 0.267 1 17.15 119.6° 2.03

Mercur
Sun Venus Earth
y