Solar System Information - Interesting Facts about the Solar System

Our solar system is made up of the Sun and everything that orbits around the Sun due to its gravity, including planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), dwarf planets (Pluto, Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris), dozens of moons, and numerous smaller objects such as asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Our Solar System gives us light, heat, and energy. 
In this article, we will tell you what the solar system is, what the parts of our solar system are and how our solar system works.

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A solar system is a vast space, with mostly empty space between the planets. There are comets, asteroids and rocky, frozen objects.

Solar System Information - Interesting Facts about the Solar System

What is the Solar System?

The solar system is made up of the Sun and everything that revolves around it, including planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. 
It is worth noting that there are billions of other solar systems in the Milky Way, some of these systems contain more than one star, and they are called binary star systems if they contain two stars, and multiple star systems if they contain three stars or more. 
The age of the solar system, derived from the study of meteorites is approximately 5 billion years; that of the Earth is taken as 4.571 billion years.

20 Interesting Facts about the Solar System

1. According to astronomers more than 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system was formed, from a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust that led to a convergence of a gaseous and concentrated mass in its center that formed the sun later.
2. For thousands of years, humans believed that the Earth is at the center of the universe because they were unaware of the solar system.
3. Our solar system consists of planets, dwarf planets, the Sun, moons, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.
4. There are eight known planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
5. As of 2008, there are also 5 dwarf planets: Pluto, Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris
6. The mass of the sun represents 99.86% of the mass of the solar system, while the rest of the bodies in the system represents 0.14%. 
7.The closer to the Sun, the hotter the planet.
8. In the solar system, the combined mass of all moons is less than 0.1% of the Earth's mass.
9. 3,583 comets, 796,289 asteroids, and 194 moons have been found in the solar system.
10. Most asteroids found between Mars and Jupiter.
11. The four outer planets (gas giants) are more massive and much larger than the inner planets.
12. Jupiter and Saturn are the largest of the four outer planets and mainly consist of hydrogen and helium.
13. Uranus and Neptune are largely made up of ices (water, ammonia, and methane). Uranus and Neptune together are called "ice giants".
14. The four smaller inner planets (terrestrial planets) are mainly composed of metal and rocks.
15. We are nowhere near the center of the galaxy.
16. There are billions of solar systems in milky way galaxy.
17. Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system and is the second-largest terrestrial planet.
18. If a star passes too close to a black hole, it can explode and pull it apart.
19. Enceladus, one of smaller moons of the Saturn, reflects 90% of the Sun's light.
2. Venus and Mercury are the only 2 planets in our solar system that have no moons. 

How Our Solar System Works?

The solar system in which we live is walking according to a very simple and clear mechanism, which is the rotation around the sun that represents the center of this system.

The origin of the solar system makes the closest star, the sun, one of the most effective forces in it due to gravity. 
Although the natural motion of the celestial bodies in our solar system is moving in a straight line, the gravitational force generated by the sun affects all of those bodies and causes their paths to curve, and thus rotate around the sun in oval paths. 
This effect extends to the bodies revolving around the sun, which have their own gravitational force on the smaller bodies around them, and we find that moons revolve around the planets in similar paths.

What are the Major Parts of the Solar System?

The following are the major parts of the solar system:

The Sun

The sun is the largest object in the solar system, and it constitutes 99.8% of the mass of the system. It provides the Earth with heat and light that makes life possible on it and planets revolve around the sun in elliptical paths called ellipses. 

It is worth noting that the sun has enough nuclear fuel to stay the same for five billion years and after that, it will swell to become a red giant, then the outer layers of the sun will collapse and its core collapse into a white dwarf, then it will turn into a dark, cold object called the Black Dwarf.

Planets

The number of planets in the solar system is eight: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto was discovered in the year 1930 AD as a planet, except that in the late nineties it was classified as a (dwarf planet). 
Scientists are still searching for a real ninth planet until they found on the twentieth of January 2016 AD what is called (Planet Nine), which is equal to ten times the mass of Earth and 5000 times the mass of Pluto.

Moons

The solar system contains 181 moons that have been discovered so far, and more are awaiting discovery. Notably, the planets of Venus and Mercury are devoid of any moons, and giant planets capture most of the moons in the Solar System.

Comets

Comets are small, weak bodies of irregular shapes, often formed from a mixture of water ice, dust, and carbon and silicon compounds. Comets have elliptical orbits that are very close to the sun. 

It is worth noting that comets have three main parts: a nucleus, a coma, and a tail. The nucleus forms the solid part located in the core of the comet. 
The coma is the fuzzy, dusty cloud around the nucleus of a comet. 
The tail extends from the comet and goes away from the sun. The coma and the tail of the comet appear only when a comet sweeps close to the Sun.

Meteorites

Meteorites are pieces of rock and minerals from asteroids and a host of other planets, which survived while in the atmosphere and fell to Earth. 
The majority of meteorites on the ground range in size from the size of a pebble to the size of a fist, but some are more than some buildings. 
The Earth has, at very early times, been extensively destroyed by the fall of large meteorites. 

It is believed that the large asteroid that fell 65 million years ago, which made a 300-km-wide crater on the Yucatan Peninsula, contributed to the extinction of 75% of marine and terrestrial animals on Earth, including dinosaurs.

Asteroids

Asteroids or small planets are rocky bodies orbiting the sun, and they are very small in size, as their combined mass is less than the mass of the planet; however, they can be dangerous. They hit many parts of the earth in the past time, and there are indications that they will collide with the Earth in the future.