The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the natural satellites—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic.
The Solar System also contains smaller objects. The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly discovered population of sednoids. Within these populations, some objects are large enough to have rounded under their own gravity, though there is considerable debate as to how many there will prove to be. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets. The only certain dwarf planet is Pluto, with another trans-Neptunian object, Eris, expected to be, and the asteroid Ceres at least close to being a dwarf planet. In addition to these two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds, freely travel between regions. Six of the planets, the six largest possible dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after the Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects.
The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a bubble-like region in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere. The heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium; it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. The Solar System is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
You are traveling through space and come upon a solar system having a star like the Sun, but with planets being extremely rich in calcium, aluminum, titanium. How were the formation conditions different from our solar system?
Attempt at solution: The supernova that created this solar...
Hi all,
I just realize that for most of the planets in our solar system, the heavier the planet, the faster it rotates around its axis. Do you think there may be any reasons for that?
... so that there are no seasons and it's spring forever?
It would make many species go extinct. But is it possibly a good thing in the longer term?
Imagine it's summer forever, like in Equador. Or spring forever, like in a flower conservatory.
Is there anything wrong with this...
Our Milky Way is a spiral galaxy whose ecliptic plane is the same with the ecliptic of the Sun (or nearly). So do you think all other solar systems in the Milky Way also have the same characteristics?
Seeing as motion always has to be defined relative to something. And seeing that relative to, say, the sun, the Earth spins around it's own axis...
Doesn't that mean that, relative to Earth, everything moves around it?
It's not elegant neither mathematically nor logically, but isn't it...
Just a light-hearted post.
What are in your opinion, the freakiest things in our solar system. Here are my votes.
1) The axis of rotation of Uranus.
2) The two moons (Saturn I think) that leap frog each other instead of colliding.
3) The football shaped minor planet 2003 EL61
Any...
Of the four gas giants in the Solar system, only Saturn possesses very magnificient rings. I have just read that the rings are as old as the solar system themselves.
My question is why did only Saturn create (or receive) those rings? Is there anything to do with the side of the gas giants?
Today I told my astronomy teacher I would like to write my 5 page paper, that is due Monday, on the origin of the solar system. I am in no way one of the best writers out there and have no clue on how I could write 5 pages about this.
Hopefully someone here can give me some helpfull input...
I have found 11 of these but it's taken two days, if you have any idea where to even begin looking for these please help me out! The ones I can't figure out are 1,2,3,5,6,11,14, and 18. If you know what the others are feel free to let me know no problem in double checking! Thanks a ton...
Homework Statement
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
I have found 11 of these but it's taken two days, if you have any idea where to even begin looking for these please help me out! The ones I can't figure out are 1,2,3,5,6,11,14, and 18. If you know what the others are feel free to...
I was just wondering, how long would it take to travel from Earth to the edge of our solor system if we were traveling at the speed of light? and how long would it take to get from Earth to the furthest we can see into space at the moment?
To my knowledge, it is still a mystery if the universe is finite or infinite in size.
Assume the universe is infinite in size.
Does it imply that there exist an infinite number of copies of our solar system in the whole infinite universe?
I presume that the answer depends whether the...
I am a high school physics teacher, and this year I am incorporating more history into the course, from the first class onwards. Among the topics I wish to cover are the various models of the solar system (which in early days were also models of the entire known universe.)
I am looking to...
How would the solar system capture an extra solar planet ??
Hello! - my first post here...and an informative site to be sure!
I have checked the archives here and checked additional online resources, the point of my question being...
How would the solar system capture an extra solar...
Anybody familiar with:
D. V. Reames and C. K. Ng, 2004; Heavy-Element Abundances in Solar Energetic Particle Events, The Astrophysical Journal, 610:510–522, 2004 July 20 ?
What is going on? Are we rewriting the birth of the solar system?
I recently did a school project about Copernicus, and after researching him, I have found that he believed the Sun was the center of the Universe, rather than the solar system. So, I was wondering: who was the person who discovered that the Sun was actually just the center of the Solar System -...
Hello everyone,
I'm new to this sector of the Gould's Belt, so let me introduce myself :I go by the name of Santural,the resident of...ok I'll stop being such a dork:rolleyes: .
Well, I recently read ("studied") The G theory of R, and one thing failed to penetrate the walls of stupidity into...
Ok, so semi-irrelevant information out of the way first - I'm writing a program that will give a basic model of the solar system - taking into account interactions from the planets on each other.
I can get my program running when containing the individual starting points of each of the...
Because if would seem to me, that planets suffer relativly little disturbance from these collisions, that is, they're not pulled away from their main star, by other massive objects passing nearby. (Or in most cases they're not) During the 4 billion year history of our solar system, the Earth and...
Reynaud and Jaekel's paper published in the Phsics ArXiv today:
Long range gravity tests and the Pioneer anomaly
(Report-no: LPTENS 06/46)
(Laboratoire de Physique The'orique de l'Ecole Normale Supe'rieure)
Garth
Let's say, in an hypothetic situation, that the moon would explode to tiny bits.
What would happen to the earth?
I was said it would actually change:
The orbit of the Earth *duh!*
Water levels all around the world *duh!*
And the point I have a problem with is this last one...
It...
Dark matter plays a significant role on the relation between orbital radius and velocity of stars within galaxies. Does it, however, have a theoretically calculable and eventually measurable effect on planets, like those of our solar system?
The International Astronomical Union is about to decide the Solar System has 12 planets. The new planets:
Xena would become the most distant planet.
Charon would become a planet. Since Pluto and Charon both orbit a point in space outside of both, Pluto and Charon become a double planet...
Is anyone interested in building a discussion about possible missions on the planets of the Solar System? More specific starting from Mercury and end to Pluto (and forget about the gas planets and Earth) what would be the problems of a mission when astronauts reach the surface and what could be...
planet venus?
i read sometime ago that the venus revolves in opposite direction around the sun as compared to other planets.please tell me is it true? if yes then WHY?
Why is it that for the most part, all orbiting planets in our solar system orbit together on the same 2D plane. The same can be asked for the disk shape of all of the galaxies. (sp everywhere)
Thanks,
-scott
We had a project in PHYC 2050 to write an applet simulating a scientific model. Me and my partner chose the solar system, which was a step up from the other projects (ideal gas law, refraction :biggrin: ).
We took into account inter-planetary actions and used a simple "assume force is contant...
I had a thought about the possition of the sun in our SS, and wondered if
the suns possition varied by any significant amount due to the gravitational
pull of the planets, all the simulations i can find have the sun static.
Lammerzahl, Preuss & Dittus' paper Is the physics within the Solar system really understood? claims that the following anomalies may indicate new physics, even within solar syatem:
Are these serious concerns or is "more compelling evidence" required before our basic understanding of...
How many places in the solar system do think have liquid water in significant quantities(I would consider the quantities on Enceladus to be significant, and the quantities on Mars to be insignificant)?
I'd bet there are a half dozen or more moons that have liquid water, but does anyone else...
Okay,
Looking at pictures of other galaxies - and representations of our own - each spiral arm seems surrounded in huge clouds and bright swirls. I am presumbing this is some sort of illuminated gas and debris, but here's my question:
If our solar system is on one indiscriminate spiral...
Is it correct to say that as the Earth (or any other planet I guess) gets closer to the Sun during parts of its yearly revolution, that (at incredibly small levels) gravity on Earth gets stronger (weaker?) ?
Basically, if a planet's orbit from one year to the next stays the same, but its...
What is the size of our solar system?And are the planets in the same plane?,like whether a drawn plane passes through the centre of the planets?Same with the comets?These questions might sound ametuerish,but someone please answer me.
Possible Miniature Solar System Discovered
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_sc/tiny_solar_system;_ylt=AkzJivxvW0DGRbs1ZW0JAzRxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw
Consider the physical aspects of our Solar System that result in the Earth having seasons... how does this gives us variable hours of daylight.
How would i calculate the shortest or longest day for a specific point on earth?
cheers.
Compared to the rest of the Universe:Sean M Carroll and Eugene A Lim.
Quote:The different rescalings of Newton’s constant in the Solar System versus the universe as a whole offer a potential window for observational constraints on the parameters of our vector field. Newton’s constant enters...
What do we know about the atom? All we know is that it has mass and that mass is energy. We know that when you smash an atom you get smaller parts.
Ok let's forget the silly names we give everything and let's call mass well let's call mass mass.
We know that our solar system is made up of...
Greetings all :smile:
This seems like a good place to ask a question that's been rolling around my head for a while...
1. To my knowledge there are no "moons of moons" within the Solar Sytem - no natural satellites of any of the moons of Earth,Mars,Jupiter,Saturn,Uranus, Neptune or Pluto...
We know the speed light travels on Earth and in our solar system, but if there is a universal speed max then one of two things must be true. One, light moves with its origanator's velocity and hence its own velocity to a subjective observer moving with the originator's velocity seems slower then...
Here is a celestial mechanics problem I can't seem to solve:To escape the solar system, an interstellar spacecraft must overcome the gravitational attraction of both the Earth and Sun. Ignore the effects of the other bodies in the solar system. Show that the escape velocity is
v =...
If Sedna has such a crazy elliptical and lengthy orbit, what exactly ties it to our solar system? Gravity, OK, but is it just the Sun or all the planets combined that have the ability to pull the wee one back from its farthest point?
It just doesn't seem feasible that once it gets to the...
Okay, everyone, I know that this is sounds like a set-up question. And that's because it is. But please humor me, because I'm trying to get this straight:
A MACHO is passing the solar system at the velocity of .5c.
Therefore, the MACHO experiences a time dilation. Its time is slowed by...
I have to solve a problem regarding the minimum velocity required to escape from the solar system while taking into account the gravitational force of the Earth as well as the sun. What I am supposed to do is calculate the velocity of an object after escaping from earth. Then I am supposed to go...