Thursday, May 10, 2012
Solar system
The solar system is a planetary system composed of a star, the Sun, and celestial bodies or defined objects orbiting around it (ie, our planetary system): the eight planets and their moons connus1 165 (commonly called the "moons "), the five dwarf planets, and billions of small bodies (asteroids, icy objects, comets, meteorites, interplanetary dust, etc..).
Schematically, the solar system consists of the Sun, four terrestrial planets internal to an asteroid belt composed of small rocky bodies, four gas giant outer belt and a second called the Kuiper belt, composed of icy objects. Beyond this belt is a disk of scattered objects, named according to the theory advanced by Jan Oort, the Oort cloud. Then comes the heliopause, the solar system limit defined by the judgment of the solar wind (they become weaker than the galactic wind).
The nearest to farthest (the Sun), planets of the system are called Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Six of those have planets orbiting satellites and each of the outer planets is surrounded by a planetary ring dust and other particles. All planets, including Earth, are named after gods and goddesses of Roman mythology and Greek mythology.
The five dwarf planets, with names of various deities, Pluto is the oldest known object in the Kuiper belt, Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, Eris, the largest dwarf planet which lies in the scattered disk objects, Haumea and Makemake and objects of the Kuiper Belt. The dwarf planet orbiting beyond Neptune, which is the case of four of them, are also classified as Pluto.
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