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The Solar System remains in a relatively stable, slowly evolving state by following isolated, gravitationally bound orbits around the Sun. Although the Solar System has been fairly stable for billions of years, it is technically chaotic, and may eventually be disrupted. There is a small chance that another star will pass through the Solar ...
The Solar System travels alone through the Milky Way in a circular orbit approximately 30,000 light years from the Galactic Center. Its speed is about 220 km/s. The period required for the Solar System to complete one revolution around the Galactic Center, the galactic year, is in the range of 220–250 million years. Since its formation, the ...
The Solar System is one of many planetary systems in the galaxy. The planetary system that contains Earth is named the "Solar" System. The word "solar" is derived from the Latin word for Sun, Sol (genitive Solis). Anything related to the Sun is called "solar": for example, stellar wind from the Sun is called solar wind.
Planet. The eight planets of the Solar System with size to scale (up to down, left to right): Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune (outer planets), Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury (inner planets) A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular ...
Alpha Centauri – star system nearest to the Solar System, at about 4.4 light years away; Solar System – star and planetary system where the Earth is located. Earth – the only planet known to have life. Structure and composition of the Solar System. Interplanetary space; Physical characteristics of the Sun Structure of the Sun. Solar core ...
The Solar System Portal. The Sun and planets of the Solar System (distances not to scale) The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It was formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc.
ammonia. water ice. ammonium hydrosulfide. Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine-and-a-half times that of Earth. [26] [27] It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive.
Venus to scale among the terrestrial planets of the Solar System, which are arranged by the order of their Inner Solar System orbits outward from the Sun (from left: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) Venus is one of the four terrestrial planets in the Solar System, meaning that it is a rocky body like Earth.