The document provides an overview of the solar system, including its name and composition. It describes the inner and outer planets, with details on each planet's characteristics such as size, composition, and moons. Additional celestial bodies like asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and dwarf planets are also summarized, including their properties and current known counts. The document contains a table comparing key attributes of the eight major planets.

1. The Solar System
--MrzRashed

2. Why Is It Called The "Solar" System?
There are many planetary systems like ours in the universe, with
planets orbiting a host star. Our planetary system is named the
"solar" system because our Sun is named Sol, after the Latin
word for Sun, "solis," and anything related to the Sun we call
"solar."

3. Inner Planets
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars

4. Outer Planets
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

5. Sun
The Sun—the heart of our solar
system—is a yellow dwarf star, a hot ball
of glowing gases.
Its gravity holds the solar system
together, keeping everything from the
biggest planets to the smallest particles
of debris in its orbit.
Though it is special to us, there are
billions of stars like our Sun scattered
across the Milky Way galaxy.
The connection and interactions between
the Sun and Earth drive the seasons,
ocean currents, weather, climate,
radiation belts and aurorae.

6. Orbits of the Planets
The orbits of the planets are nearly
circular, but many comets, asteroids, and
Kuiper belt objects follow highly elliptical
orbits.

7. Gravity
Gravity is what holds the planets
in orbit around the sun and what keeps
the moon in orbit around Earth. The
gravitational pull of the moon pulls the
seas towards it, causing the ocean tides.
Gravity creates stars and planets by
pulling together the material from which
they are made.
Objects with more mass have more
gravity. Gravity also gets weaker with
distance. So, the closer objects are to
each other, the stronger their
gravitational pull is.

8. TABLE OF PLANETARY STATISTICS
Name of Planet
Average
Distance
from Sun
Diameter
Time to Spin on
Axis (a day)
Time to
Orbit Sun (a
year)
Gravity
(Earth = 1)
Average
Temperature
Contents of Atmosphere
Year of
Discovery
Number
of
Known
Moons
Mercury
58 million
km
4,878 km 59 days 88 days 0.38
-183 °C to 427 °C
(-297 °F to 800 °F)
Sodium, helium n/a None
Venus
108 million
km
12,104 km 243 days 224 days 0.9
480 °C
(896 °F)
Carbon Dioxide (96%), Nitrogen
(3.5%)
n/a None
Earth
150 million
km
12,756 km 23 hours, 56 mins 365.25 days 1
14 °C
(57 °F)
Nitrogen (77%), Oxygen (21%) n/a 1
Mars
228 million
km
6,794 km 24 hours, 37 mins 687 days 0.38
-63 °C
(-81 °F)
Carbon Dioxide(95.3%), Argon n/a 2
Jupiter
778 million
km
142,984
km
9 hours, 55 mins 11.86 years 2.64
-130 °C
(-202 °F)
Hydrogen, Helium n/a 79
Saturn
1427million
km
120,536
km
10 hours, 39 mins 29 years 1.16
-130 °C
(-202 °F)
Hydrogen, Helium n/a 82
Uranus
2870 million
km 51,118 km 17 hours, 14 mins 84 years 1.11
-200 °C
(-328 °F)
Hydrogen, Helium, Methane 1781 27
Neptune
4490 million
km
49,532 km 16 hours, 7 mins 164.8 years 1.21
-200 °C
(-328 °F)
Hydrogen, Helium, Methane 1846 14

9. Mercury
The smallest planet in our solar system
and nearest to the Sun, Mercury is only
slightly larger than Earth's Moon.
Mercury is a rocky planet, also known as
a terrestrial planet. Mercury has a solid,
cratered surface, much like the Earth's
moon.

10. Venus
Similar in size and structure to Earth,
Venus has been called Earth's twin.
These are not identical twins, however –
there are radical differences between the
two worlds.
Venus has a thick, toxic atmosphere filled
with carbon dioxide and it’s perpetually
shrouded in thick, yellowish clouds of
mostly sulfuric acid that trap heat,
causing a runaway greenhouse effect. It’s
the hottest planet in our solar system,
even though Mercury is closer to the Sun

11. Mars
​A dusty, cold, desert world with a very
thin atmosphere. Mars is also a dynamic
planet with seasons, polar ice caps,
canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence
that it was even more active in the past.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun at
an average distance of about 228 million
km (142 million miles) or 1.52 AU.

12. Asteroids
Asteroids, sometimes called minor
planets, are rocky, airless remnants left
over from the early formation of our solar
system about 4.6 billion years ago.
The current known asteroid count
is: 1,069,928
Most of this ancient space rubble can be
found orbiting the Sun between Mars and
Jupiter within the main asteroid belt.
Asteroids range in size from Vesta — the
largest at about 329 miles (530
kilometres) in diameter — to bodies that
are less than 33 feet (10 meters) across.
The total mass of all the asteroids
combined is less than that of Earth's
Moon.

13. Jupiter
Fifth in line from the Sun, Jupiter is, by
far, the largest planet in the solar system
– more than twice as massive as all the
other planets combined.
Jupiter is a gas giant and so lacks an
Earth-like surface. If it has a solid inner
core at all, it’s likely only about the size of
Earth.
Jupiter's atmosphere is made up mostly
of hydrogen (H2) and helium (He).

14. Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun
and the second largest planet in our solar
system.
Adorned with thousands of beautiful
ringlets, Saturn is unique among the
planets. It is not the only planet to have
rings—made of chunks of ice and rock—
but none are as spectacular or as
complicated as Saturn's.

15. Uranus
Uranus is an ice giant. Most of its mass is
a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials –
water, methane and ammonia – above a
small rocky core.
Uranus has an atmosphere made mostly
of molecular hydrogen and atomic
helium, with a small amount of methane.

16. Neptune
Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic
winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth
and most distant planet in our solar
system.
Neptune is an ice giant. Most of its mass
is a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials –
water, methane and ammonia – above a
small rocky core.
Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly
of molecular hydrogen, atomic helium
and methane.

17. Pluto
Pluto is officially classified as a dwarf
planet.
Pluto has a thin atmosphere of nitrogen,
methane and carbon monoxide. The
atmosphere has a blue tint and distinct
layers of haze.

18. Meteoroids
Meteoroids are objects in space that
range in size from dust grains to small
asteroids. Think of them as “space
rocks."
When meteoroids enter Earth’s
atmosphere (or that of another planet,
like Mars) at high speed and burn up, the
fireballs or “shooting stars” are
called meteors.
When a meteoroid survives a trip through
the atmosphere and hits the ground, it’s
called a meteorite.

19. Comets
Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen
gases, rock and dust that orbit the Sun.
When frozen, they are the size of a small
town. When a comet's orbit brings it close
to the Sun, it heats up and spews dust
and gases into a giant glowing head
larger than most planets. The dust and
gases form a tail that stretches away
from the Sun for millions of miles. There
are likely billions of comets orbiting our
Sun in the Kuiper Belt and even more
distant Oort Cloud.
The current number of known comets
is: 3,720