Solar Systems?

Question

I am wondering ..
I realize it is called a " solar system" because the sun is the center of the system of planets. Now i am wondering if there is some scientific reason that it could not be the opposite. A planet in the center with stars orbiting it.
Is this possible?

I do not seek the human definition of these bodies - that is based on what we have come to know - we created the definition. That definition has nothing to do with the laws of the universe that govern everything. That is purely to clarify things so we know we what we are speaking of when using such words.

I am wondering here, " Does it always have to be planets orbiting a sun(star)." Is there no other system that can exist for some scientific law of the universe.
Stars orbiting a planet, planets orbiting a star cluster, planets orbiting a central planet...etc. Or is this all that can exist, our type of system.

Answer 1

Well take a look at Jupiter. Jupiter is a star that never was. A little bigger and we would have 2 stars in the solar system.

Jupiter is mostly hydrogen, needed to make a start. Generally speaker the light gas accumulates in the centre, like the star or jupiter. It is then surronded by heavier rocky planets or moons.

This is because of the way solar systems form. Gas, dust and rocks floating around in space slowly accumulate. One area ends up heaver than others because it contains more matter. It creates a gravity well, sucking things in. As things come in it starts to spin, slowly at first, then getting quicker and quicker.

The amount of heavy matter is not very big. In fact, iron, gold and other metals had to formed in the centre of a star (they were not made in the big bang). As Moby sings, we are all made of stars. Everything around us was once in the centre of a star, which exploded.

Due to the physics of the way solar systems form, heavy rocky planets form at certain places and gas giants at others. Due to the amount of different materials available, there will also be a lot of Hydrogen, so the centre is where a sun will form, with the possibility of several more being formed in orbit.

However, if you wanted to make your own solar system, you could first feed in heavy materials to make a centre planet, and then add in gases to make stars in orbit.

Answer 2

Yes, you are correct

As the previous people have said, a planet is classified as an object that revolves around a star, or stars. True.

But in the sense that a ball of hydrogen and helium producing molecular fusion in it's core can not revolve around a rocky-bodied mass in the solar system? Now that is possible, therefore you are right.

However, scientists have never viewed such an object, and so it is believed that once a rocky-bodied mass reaches even close to the density of a star, they believe the pressure it builds so much that the object blows itself apart. However, the star, made of gasses, is much more stable and can grow to a greater density than the rock-bodied masses can. Therefore becoming the most dense bodies in the viscinty. And the object with the most mass, becomes the center of the solar system.

So it's just more common that stars are the center of a solar system.

Answer 3

Because the sun is not a planet. Planets also (typically) have much, much lower masses than stars, so they would not be able to exert the required g force on stars to cause them to orbit around it.

Answer 4

A planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.

So, by definition, it orbits a star and a star cannot orbit around a planet.


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Edit:
Your question is asking why a planet cannot have a star orbiting it. A planet is not massive enough to have a star orbiting it. If a planet was massive enough to have a star orbiting it, people wouldn't call it a planet.

Answer 5

our solar systems consist of an average star we call the sun,the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. It includes: the satellites of the planets; numerous comets, asteroids, and meteoroids; and the interplanetary medium. The Sun is the richest source of electromagnetic energy (mostly in the form of heat and light) in the solar system. The Sun's nearest known stellar neighbor is a red dwarf star called Proxima Centauri, at a distance of 4.3 light years away. The whole solar system, together with the local stars visible on a clear night, orbits the center of our home galaxy, a spiral disk of 200 billion stars we call the Milky Way. The Milky Way has two small galaxies orbiting it nearby, which are visible from the southern hemisphere. They are called the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. The nearest large galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy. It is a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way but is 4 times as massive and is 2 million light years away. Our galaxy, one of billions of galaxies known, is traveling through intergalactic space.
The planets, most of the satellites of the planets and the asteroids revolve around the Sun in the same direction, in nearly circular orbits. When looking down from above the Sun's north pole, the planets orbit in a counter-clockwise direction. The planets orbit the Sun in or near the same plane, called the ecliptic. Pluto is a special case in that its orbit is the most highly inclined (18 degrees) and the most highly elliptical of all the planets. Because of this, for part of its orbit, Pluto is closer to the Sun than is Neptune. The axis of rotation for most of the planets is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic. The exceptions are Uranus and Pluto, which are tipped on their sides.

Composition Of The Solar System
The Sun contains 99.85% of all the matter in the Solar System. The planets, which condensed out of the same disk of material that formed the Sun, contain only 0.135% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter contains more than twice the matter of all the other planets combined. Satellites of the planets, comets, asteroids, meteoroids, and the interplanetary medium constitute the remaining 0.015%. The following table is a list of the mass distribution within our Solar System.
Sun: 99.85%
Planets: 0.135%
Comets: 0.01% ?
Satellites: 0.00005%
Minor Planets: 0.0000002% ?
Meteoroids: 0.0000001% ?
Interplanetary Medium: 0.0000001% ?

Interplanetary Space
Nearly all the solar system by volume appears to be an empty void. Far from being nothingness, this vacuum of "space" comprises the interplanetary medium. It includes various forms of energy and at least two material components: interplanetary dust and interplanetary gas. Interplanetary dust consists of microscopic solid particles. Interplanetary gas is a tenuous flow of gas and charged particles, mostly protons and electrons -- plasma -- which stream from the Sun, called the solar wind.



The solar wind can be measured by spacecraft, and it has a large effect on comet tails. It also has a measurable effect on the motion of spacecraft. The speed of the solar wind is about 400 kilometers (250 miles) per second in the vicinity of Earth's orbit. The point at which the solar wind meets the interstellar medium, which is the "solar" wind from other stars, is called the heliopause. It is a boundary theorized to be roughly circular or teardrop-shaped, marking the edge of the Sun's influence perhaps 100 AU from the Sun. The space within the boundary of the heliopause, containing the Sun and solar system, is referred to as the heliosphere.

The solar magnetic field extends outward into interplanetary space; it can be measured on Earth and by spacecraft. The solar magnetic field is the dominating magnetic field throughout the interplanetary regions of the solar system, except in the immediate environment of planets which have their own magnetic fields.

The Terrestrial Planets
The terrestrial planets are the four innermost planets in the solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. They are called terrestrial because they have a compact, rocky surface like the Earth's. The planets, Venus, Earth, and Mars have significant atmospheres while Mercury has almost none. The following diagram shows the approximate distance of the terrestrial planets to the Sun.




The Jovian Planets
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are known as the Jovian (Jupiter-like) planets, because they are all gigantic compared with Earth, and they have a gaseous nature like Jupiter's. The Jovian planets are also referred to as the gas giants, although some or all of them might have small solid cores. The following diagram shows the approximate distance of the Jovian planets to the Sun.




Solar System Animation

Formation of the Solar System.

Views of the Solar System
Our Milkyway Galaxy
This image of our galaxy, the Milky Way, was taken with NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer's (COBE) Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE). This never-before-seen view shows the Milky Way from an edge-on perspective with the galactic north pole at the top, the south pole at the bottom and the galactic center at the center. The picture combines images obtained at several near-infrared wavelengths. Stars within our galaxy are the dominant source of light at these wavelengths. Even though our solar system is part of the Milky Way, the view looks distant because most of the light comes from the population of stars that are closer to the galactic center than our own Sun. (Courtesy NASA)

Spiral Galaxy, NGC 4414
The majestic galaxy, NGC 4414, is located 60 million light-years away. Like the Milky Way, NGC 4414 is a giant spiral-shaped disk of stars, with a bulbous central hub of older yellow and red stars. The outer spiral arms are considerably bluer due to ongoing formation of young, blue stars, the brightest of which can be seen individually at the high resolution provided by the Hubble camera. The arms are also very rich in clouds of interstellar dust, seen as dark patches and streaks silhouetted against the starlight. (Courtesy NASA/STSCI)

Obliquity of the Nine Planets
This illustration shows the obliquity of the nine planets. Obliquity is the angle between a planet's equatorial plane and its orbital plane. By International Astronomical Union (IAU) convention, a planet's north pole lies above the ecliptic plane. By this convention, Venus, Uranus, and Pluto have a retrograde rotation, or a rotation that is in the opposite direction from the other planets. (Copyright 1999 by Calvin J. Hamilton)

The Solar System
During the past three decades a myriad of space explorers have escaped the confines of planet Earth and have set out to discover our planetary neighbors. This picture shows the Sun and all nine planets of the solar system as seen by the space explorers. Starting at the top-left corner is the Sun followed by the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. (Copyright 1998 by Calvin J. Hamilton)

Sun and Planets
This image shows the Sun and nine planets approximately to scale. The order of these bodies are: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. (Copyright Calvin J. Hamilton)

Jovian Planets
This image shows the Jovian planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune approximately to scale. The Jovian planets are named because of their gigantic Jupiter-like appearance. (Copyright Calvin J. Hamilton)

The Largest Moons and Smallest Planets
This image shows the relative sizes of the largest moons and the smallest planets in the solarsystem. The largest satellites pictured in this image are: Ganymede (5262 km), Titan (5150 km), Callisto (4806 km), Io (3642 km), the Moon (3476 km), Europa (3138 km), Triton (2706 km), and Titania (1580 km). Both Ganymede and Titan are larger than planet Mercury followed by Io, the Moon, Europa, and Triton which are larger than the planet Pluto. (Copyright Calvin J. Hamilton)

Diagram of Portrait Frames
On February 14, 1990, the cameras of Voyager 1 pointed back toward the Sun and took a series of pictures of the Sun and the planets, making the first ever "portrait" of our solar system as seen from the outside. This image is a diagram of how the frames for the solar system portrait were taken. (Courtesy NASA/JPL)

All Frames from the Family Portrait
This image shows the series of pictures of the Sun and the planets taken on February 14, 1990, for the solar system family portrait as seen from the outside. In the course of taking this mosaic consisting of a total of 60 frames, Voyager 1 made several images of the inner solar system from a distance of approximately 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) and about 32° above the ecliptic plane. Thirty-nine wide angle frames link together six of the planets of our solar system in this mosaic. Outermost Neptune is 30 times further from the Sun than Earth. Our Sun is seen as the bright object in the center of the circle of frames. The insets show the planets magnified many times. (Courtesy NASA/JPL)

Portrait of the Solar System
These six narrow-angle color images were made from the first ever "portrait" of the solar system taken by Voyager 1, which was more than 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) from Earth and about 32° above the ecliptic. Mercury is too close to the Sun to be seen. Mars was not detectable by the Voyager cameras due to scattered sunlight in the optics, and Pluto was not included in the mosaic because of its small size and distance from the Sun. These blown-up images, left to right and top to bottom are Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (Courtesy NASA/JPL)




Sun and Planet Summary
The following table lists statistical information for the Sun and planets:

Distance
(AU) Radius
(Earth's) Mass
(Earth's) Rotation
(Earth's) # Moons Orbital
Inclination Orbital
Eccentricity Obliquity Density
(g/cm3)
Sun 0 109 332,800 25-36* 9 --- --- --- 1.410
Mercury 0.39 0.38 0.05 58.8 0 7 0.2056 0.1° 5.43
Venus 0.72 0.95 0.89 244 0 3.394 0.0068 177.4° 5.25
Earth 1.0 1.00 1.00 1.00 1 0.000 0.0167 23.45° 5.52
Mars 1.5 0.53 0.11 1.029 2 1.850 0.0934 25.19° 3.95
Jupiter 5.2 11 318 0.411 16 1.308 0.0483 3.12° 1.33
Saturn 9.5 9 95 0.428 18 2.488 0.0560 26.73° 0.69
Uranus 19.2 4 17 0.748 15 0.774 0.0461 97.86° 1.29
Neptune 30.1 4 17 0.802 8 1.774 0.0097 29.56° 1.64
Pluto 39.5 0.18 0.002 0.267 1 17.15 0.2482 119.6° 2.03


* The Sun's period of rotation at the surface varies from approximately 25 days at the equator to 36 days