Very Short Answer Type Question.
What does the solar family consist of?
What does the solar family consist of?
Our solar system includes Sun, planets, satellite etc. but we have other members also which play a very important role in the existence of universe the way it exists today. Let us briefly discuss about the other members of the solar system.
The solar system is huge in size at least a 100 Astronomical Units in size (15 trillion km). It is held together by the sun’s immense gravitational pull that keeps objects like the planets and the asteroids in orbit around it.
The solar system also contains 8 planet which are large almost spherical objects that revolve around the sun in elliptical paths known as orbits.
The earth is also one of the planets and lies at a distance from the sun such that it is neither too hot nor too cold for life to exist.
The planets were formed at least 4.6 billion years ago when discs of dust and gas orbiting around the sun collapsed and clumped together due to gravity. There are two kinds of planets:
- Rocky planets include Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars which are mostly made up of solid rock and metal.
- Gas giants include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune which are mostly made up of gases like Hydrogen, Helium, Methane etc. These planets are very large in comparison to the rocky planets.
The solar system also contains small irregularly shaped objects made of rock, metal and carbon called Asteroidor biting the sun. Most of these objects lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt.
Asteroids
These are big chunks of rock or metal that are mostly found orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. It is believed that these moons did not originally orbit Mars, but were instead a part of the Asteroid belt.
Satellites
Satellites
are objects that revolve around planets and are also part of the solar system.
The Earth’s satellite is the Moon. Some satellites like Ganymede are bigger than Mercury and can have atmospheres.
Comets
Comets
are small irregularly shaped objects made up of ice. They usually come from the
outer most reaches of the solar system beyond Neptune from a region known as
the Kuiper Belt.
When these objects come close to the sun, the ice vaporizes
forming a beautiful tail behind them.
Dwarf planets
Dwarf
planets are objects smaller than planets and larger than asteroids that orbit
the sun at various places. The nearest dwarf planet to us is Ceres which lies
in the asteroid belt. The most famous is Pluto which lies beyond Neptune on the
inner edge of the Kuiper belt. In 2014, Pluto and its 5 satellitewere visited by a spacecraft named
New Horizons for the first time in history capturing images of the icy dwarf
planet in high resolution.
Our solar system includes Sun, planets, satellite etc. but we have other members also which play a very important role in the existence of universe the way it exists today. Let us briefly discuss about the other members of the solar system.
The solar system is huge in size at least a 100 Astronomical Units in size (15 trillion km). It is held together by the sun’s immense gravitational pull that keeps objects like the planets and the asteroids in orbit around it.
The solar system also contains 8 planet which are large almost spherical objects that revolve around the sun in elliptical paths known as orbits.
The earth is also one of the planets and lies at a distance from the sun such that it is neither too hot nor too cold for life to exist.
The planets were formed at least 4.6 billion years ago when discs of dust and gas orbiting around the sun collapsed and clumped together due to gravity. There are two kinds of planets:
- Rocky planets include Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars which are mostly made up of solid rock and metal.
- Gas giants include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune which are mostly made up of gases like Hydrogen, Helium, Methane etc. These planets are very large in comparison to the rocky planets.
The solar system also contains small irregularly shaped objects made of rock, metal and carbon called Asteroidor biting the sun. Most of these objects lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt.
Asteroids
These are big chunks of rock or metal that are mostly found orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. It is believed that these moons did not originally orbit Mars, but were instead a part of the Asteroid belt.
Satellites
Satellites are objects that revolve around planets and are also part of the solar system. The Earth’s satellite is the Moon. Some satellites like Ganymede are bigger than Mercury and can have atmospheres.
Comets
Comets are small irregularly shaped objects made up of ice. They usually come from the outer most reaches of the solar system beyond Neptune from a region known as the Kuiper Belt.
When these objects come close to the sun, the ice vaporizes forming a beautiful tail behind them.
Dwarf planets
Dwarf planets are objects smaller than planets and larger than asteroids that orbit the sun at various places. The nearest dwarf planet to us is Ceres which lies in the asteroid belt. The most famous is Pluto which lies beyond Neptune on the inner edge of the Kuiper belt. In 2014, Pluto and its 5 satellitewere visited by a spacecraft named New Horizons for the first time in history capturing images of the icy dwarf planet in high resolution.
