Solar System
hideThe Solar System[a] consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The Sun's retinue of objects circle it in a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane, most of the mass of which is contained within eight relatively solitary planets whose orbits are almost circular. The four smaller inner planets; Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, also called the gas giants, are composed largely of hydrogen and helium and are far more massive than the terrestrials.
The Solar System is also home to two main belts of small bodies. The asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter, is similar to the terrestrial planets as it is composed mainly of rock and metal. The Kuiper belt (and its subpopulation, the scattered disc), which lies beyond Neptune's orbit, is composed mostly of ices such as water, ammonia and methane. Within these belts, five individual objects, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris, are recognised to be large enough to have been rounded by their own gravity, and are thus termed dwarf planets. The hypothetical Oort cloud, which acts as the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times beyond these regions.
Within the Solar System, various populations of small bodies, such as comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust, freely travel between these regions, while the solar wind, a flow of plasma from the Sun, creates a bubble in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere, which extends out to the edge of the scattered disc.
Six of the planets and three of the dwarf planets are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles.
For more information about Solar System, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with solar
Monster Waves on the Sun are Real (w/ Video)
Nov 25, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (20) |
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Sometimes you really can believe your eyes. That's what NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are telling researchers about a controversial phenomenon on the sun known as the "solar ...
First black holes may have incubated in giant, starlike cocoons
Nov 24, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The first large black holes in the universe likely formed and grew deep inside gigantic, starlike cocoons that smothered their powerful x-ray radiation and prevented surrounding gases from ...
Kepler Mission Manager Update
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 24, 2009 |
5 / 5 (1) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Kepler experienced a safe mode event on Nov. 18, 2009.
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Past regional cold and warm periods linked to natural climate drivers
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 26, 2009 |
3.8 / 5 (19) |
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Intervals of regional warmth and cold in the past are linked to the El Niño phenomenon and the so-called "North Atlantic Oscillation" in the Northern hemisphere's jet stream, according to a team of climate scientists. These ...
First Pump-Probe Experiment at Linac Coherent Light Source Completed
15 hours ago |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The first experiment using the Linac Coherent Light Source to illuminate molecules via a "pump-probe" technique has been completed by an international team of more than 30 scientists from ...
ORNL 'deep retrofits' can cut home energy bills in half
Nov 25, 2009 |
3.7 / 5 (3) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Oak Ridge National Laboratory has announced plans to conduct a series of deep energy retrofit research projects with the potential to improve the energy efficiency in selected homes by as ...
'Safety valve' protects photosynthesis from too much light
Nov 25, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (3) |
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Photosynthetic organisms need to cope with a wide range of light intensities, which can change over timescales of seconds to minutes. Too much light can damage the photosynthetic machinery and cause cell death. Scientists ...
Golden Oldie: Key Role for Ancient Protein in Algae Photosynthesis
Nov 27, 2009 |
3 / 5 (2) |
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The discovery that an ancient light harvesting protein plays a pivotal role in the photosynthesis of green algae should help the effort to develop algae as a biofuels feedstock. Researchers with the Lawrence ...
Cassini Captures Ghostly Dance of Saturn's Northern Lights (w/ Video)
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 24, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (10) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known "northern lights" in the solar system, flickering in shape and brightness ...
Chang'E-1 has blazed a new trail in China's deep space exploration
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
2 hours ago |
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A huge amount of scientific data have been accumulated by the CE-1 lunar orbiter. Using laser altimeter data, Jinsong Ping and Qian Huang et al obtained improved 3D lunar topography, and based on this, they ...
Superior Super Earths
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
15 hours ago |
4.8 / 5 (32) |
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Super Earths are named for their size, but these planets - which range from about 2 to 10 Earth masses - could be superior to the Earth when it comes to sustaining life. They could also provide an answer to ...
Sharp shows plant making 10th generation panels
19 hours ago |
4 / 5 (1) |
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(AP) -- Huge sheets of glass are guided by robotic arms, sliding and turning in a towering germ-free plant, the world's first making giant "10th generation" panels for flat screen TVs.
Climate change in Kuwait Bay
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
19 hours ago |
3.4 / 5 (10) |
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Since 1985, seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay, northern Arabian Gulf, has increased on average 0.6°C per decade. This is about three times faster than the global average rate reported by the Intergovernmental ...
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