Category: Solar System

The Solar System is a gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, including eight major planets and their moons, dwarf planets like Pluto, asteroids, comets, and a variety of smaller celestial bodies. The Sun, a star located at the center of the Solar System, contains about 99.86% of the total mass, and its gravitational influence governs the motions of the other objects. The major planets, in order of their distance from the Sun, are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Solar System also includes the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune that houses many small icy bodies, and the Oort Cloud, which is theorized to be a distant spherical shell of icy objects. The formation of the Solar System began around 4.6 billion years ago from a cloud of gas and dust in space, leading to the current arrangement of planets and other celestial bodies. Understanding the Solar System is crucial for studying the formation of planetary systems and the potential for life elsewhere in the universe.