THE SOLAR SYSTEM

WHAT IS?
THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS THE GRAVITATIONALLY BOUND SYSTEM OF THE SUN AND THE OBJECTS THAT
ORBIT IT, EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY.[C] OF THE OBJECTS THAT ORBIT THE SUN DIRECTLY, THE
LARGEST ARE THE EIGHT PLANETS,[D] WITH THE REMAINDER BEING SMALLER OBJECTS, THE 
DWARF PLANETS AND SMALL SOLAR SYSTEM BODIES. OF THE OBJECTS THAT ORBIT THE SUN
INDIRECTLY—THE MOONS—TWO ARE LARGER THAN THE SMALLEST PLANET, MERCURY.

 astronomers have said that the origin of the solar system can be traced back to 4.6 billion
years ago. This was when a gravitational collapse of a small portion of a giant molecular cloud
occurred. This is known as Nebular Hypothesis which was developed for the first time by
Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Simon Laplace in the 18th century, and is a
theory widely accepted across the globe. However, this theory has been challenged and refined
after the dawn of the space age and the discovery of extra solar planets in the 1950s and 1990s
respectively.
Solar system facts
•The Sun is a star.
•The Earth is one of eight planets that travel around the Sun.
•The planets are called Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
•The solar system is also home to lots of asteroids, moons,
and dwarf planets such as Pluto.
 PLANETS INSIDE THE SOLAR
SYSTEM
Mercury
Mercury is the smallest planet
in our solar system. It’s just a
little bigger than Earth’s moon.
It is the closest planet to the
sun, but it’s actually not the
hottest. Venus is hotter. Along
with Venus, Earth, and Mars,
Mercury is one of the rocky
planets
Jupiter
Jupiter is the biggest planet in
our solar system. It's similar to a
star, but it never got big enough
to start burning. It is covered in
swirling cloud stripes. It has big
storms like the Great Red Spot,
which has been going for
hundreds of years. Jupiter is a
gas giant and doesn't have a solid
surface, but it may have a solid
inner core about the size of Earth.
Jupiter also has rings, but they're
too faint to see very well.
Venus
Even though Venus isn't the
closest planet to the sun, it is still
the hottest. It has a thick
atmosphere full of the greenhouse
gas carbon dioxide and clouds
made of sulfuric acid. The gas
traps heat and keeps Venus toasty
warm. In fact, it's so hot on Venus,
metals like lead would be puddles
of melted liquid.
Saturn
Saturn isn’t the only planet
to have rings, but it
definitely has the most
beautiful ones. The rings we
see are made of groups of
tiny ringlets that surround
Saturn. They’re made of
chunks of ice and rock. Like
Jupiter, Saturn is mostly a
ball of hydrogen and
helium.
Earth
Our home planet Earth is a
rocky, terrestrial planet. It has
a solid and active surface with
mountains, valleys, canyons,
plains and so much more.
Earth is special because it is
an ocean planet. Water covers
70% of Earth's surface.
Uranus
Uranus is made of water,
methane, and ammonia
fluids above a small rocky
center. Its atmosphere is
made of hydrogen and
helium like Jupiter and
Saturn, but it also has
methane. The methane
makes Uranus blue
Mars
Mars is a cold desert world. It is
half the size of Earth. Mars is
sometimes called the Red
Planet. It's red because of rusty
iron in the ground. Like Earth,
Mars has seasons, polar ice
caps, volcanoes, canyons, and
weather. It has a very thin
atmosphere made of carbon
dioxide, nitrogen, and argon.
Neptune
Neptune is dark, cold, and very windy.
It's the last of the planets in our solar
system. It's more than 30 times as far
from the sun as Earth is. Neptune is
very similar to Uranus. It's made of a
thick fog of water, ammonia, and
methane over an Earth-sized solid
center. Its atmosphere is made of
hydrogen, helium, and methane. The
methane gives Neptune the same blue
color as Uranus. Neptune has six rings,
but they're very hard to see.