The form of the solar system is a group of planets that orbit the sun in approximately the same plane. There, of course, are also asteroids and moons of other planets.
The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) can be classified as rocky planets since they all have a visible rocky core.
The outer planets start with Jupiter, then Uranus, then Neptune and are made up of more gases and ices than rocks like the inner planets. Plus they are larger so they are called gas giants.
Starting now with Pluto there are millions of icy objects called dwarf planets and smaller in what is called the Kiuper Belt. Beyond the Kiuper Belt is the Oort Cloud (because it surrounds the sun in all directions) which contains billions of differing sizes of icy rocks. These occasionally get thrown into the inners solar system where the sun melts the ice into vapor and we see a comet.
2007-02-03 09:36:13
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answer #2
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answered by Twizard113 5
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The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a main sequence G2 star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally.[4] Jupiter and Saturn, the Sun's two largest orbiting bodies, account for more than 90% of the system's remaining mass.[5] (The currently hypothetical Oort cloud would also hold a substantial percentage were its existence confirmed.)[6]
The ecliptic viewed in sunlight from behind the Moon in this Clementine image. From left to right: Mercury, Mars, SaturnMost objects in orbit around the Sun lie within the ecliptic, a shallow plane parallel to that of Earth's orbit. The planets are very close to the ecliptic while comets and kuiper belt objects are usually at significantly greater angles to it.
All of the planets and most other objects also orbit with the Sun's rotation; in a counter-clockwise direction as viewed from a point above the Sun's north pole. (There are exceptions to this rule, a notable one being Halley's comet.)
There is a direct relationship between how far away a planet is from the Sun and how quickly it orbits. Mercury, the closest to the Sun, travels the fastest, while Neptune, being much farther from the Sun, travels more slowly. Objects orbit in an ellipse around the Sun, so an orbiting object's distance from the Sun varies in the course of its year. Its closest approach to the Sun is known as its perihelion while its farthest point from the Sun is called its aphelion. Although the orbits of the planets are nearly circular (with perihelions roughly equal to their aphelions), many comets, asteroids and objects of the Kuiper belt follow highly elliptical orbits with large differences between perihelion and aphelion.
The paths of objects around the Sun travel according to a law of planetary motion discovered by German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the early 1600s. Under Kepler's laws, each planet orbits along an ellipse with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse. However, Newton's laws of motion dictate that just as the planets orbit around the Sun, so the Sun is minutely affected by the gravity of the planets, and moves in a much, much smaller eliptical trajectory about the focal point too. The primary focal point in the Solar System is that between the Sun and Jupiter, since Jupiter is far and away the largest of the planets. This point lies just outside the Sun itself and is roughly equivalent to the Solar System's centre of mass, or barycentre.[7]
The orbits of the bodies in the solar system to scale (clockwise from top left)Astronomers most often measure distances within the solar system in astronomical units or AU. One AU is the approximate distance between the Earth and the Sun or roughly 149 598 000 km (93,000,000 mi). Pluto is roughly 39 AU from the Sun while Jupiter lies at roughly 5.2 AU. One light year, the best known unit of interstellar distance, is roughly 63,240 AU.
Informally, the Solar System is sometimes divided into separate zones. The first zone, known as the inner Solar System, includes the four terrestrial planets and the main asteroid belt. The outer Solar System is sometimes defined as "everything beyond the asteroids". Alternatively, the term may be used to describe the region beyond Neptune, with the four gas giants considered a separate "middle zone".[8]
One common misconception is that the orbits of the major objects within the Solar System (planets, Pluto and asteroids) are equidistant. To cope with the vast distances involved, many representations of the Solar System simplify these orbits by showing them the same distance apart. However, in reality, with a few exceptions, the Solar System is arranged so that the farther a planet or belt is from the Sun, the larger the distance between it and the previous orbit. For example, Venus is approximately 0.33 AU farther out than Mercury while Jupiter is 1.9 AU from the farthest extent of the asteroid belt and Neptune's orbit is roughly 20 AU farther out than that of Uranus. Attempts have been made to determine a correlation between these distances (see Bode's Law) but to date there is no accepted theory that explains the orbital distances
2007-02-04 21:40:43
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answer #3
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answered by Heady 3
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Elliptical shape (Sphere surrounded by a ring).The diameter of the ring is thousands of light year. More stars, planets are in the center part of this shape.
2007-02-03 16:01:14
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answer #4
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answered by saravanan 1
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