A trip of solar system

Many scientists, astronomers, and cosmologists have been studying our solar system for centuries, and their findings are very interesting. 

There are so many facts about our solar system like each planet have their own unique geological features, which is different from another planet in several ways. 

The solar system consists of the sun, eight planets, sixty-seven satellites of the planets, and a large number of comets and asteroids (Figure 1). 

Earlier, Pluto was considered the smallest planet but now Pluto is not counted as a planet, anymore. Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are inner planets in solar systems. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune form the outer solar system, these four planets are massive in size, that is why they are known as “Giant Planets”.

 Each planet revolves around the sun in its own orbit at its own speed. The inner planets are smaller in size and very close to the sun, they are also known as the Terrestrial planets.

According to our science homework help study system the solar system is very large, approximately 100 Astronomical Units in size (15 trillion km). so, the sun is the center of the solar system, whose strong gravitational pull holds different planets, comets, and asteroids in their respective orbits. 

The sun is the biggest star in the whole solar system which provides energy to the earth via nuclear reactions that occur in its center, which we use to learn while studying big bang theory, in the evolution chapter. The surface temperature of the sun is 6000 ⁰C, and it is mainly made up of hydrogen gas along with a small amount of Helium gas.

Figure 1: The Solar system

There are so many satellites that are revolving around planets and they are counted as part of the solar system. Moon is the satellite of The Earth. Some satellites like Ganymede (orbiting Jupiter) are bigger than Mercury and there are several artificial satellites revolving around the earth, that are closer to the Earth’s natural satellites. 

While Earth has one moon, Mars has two moons, Neptune has 14 moons, Uranus has 27 moons, Saturn has 62 moons and Jupiter has as many as 79 moons. Even Pluto, the dwarf planet has 5 moons. Mercury and Venus (the Giant planets) have no satellite. Just as the planets revolve around the Sun, in a fixed path, the moon also follows the same fixed path.

There is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System known as, the asteroid belt, which is located roughly between the orbits of the two planets, Jupiter and Mars (Figure 2). It contains giant solid particles, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called asteroids or minor planets. 

Figure 2: Asteroid belt

Our solar system is a part of the Milky Way Galaxy, it is so huge that it comprises more than 100 billion stars. Scientists and cosmologists have discovered more than, 2500 stars with planets orbiting in the Milky Way. Scientists, astronomers, and cosmologists are still studying this field. 

The Universe is very vast and there exist so many things to study and discover in, the in-universe. Scientists have studied our solar system deeply for centuries and, lots of interesting facts about the universe have been revealed and many more to be revealed.

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