What is the Solar System? Explain and how many planets are in our solar system?
The collection of planets and their corresponding moons in their orbits around the sun together with smaller bodies like asteroids, meteoroids, and comets is known as the Solar system.
Our Solar System consists of a central star(Our Sun) and all the objects bound to it by gravity, like planets, asteroids, dwarf planets. Our solar system consists of 9 planets. But the ninth planet, Pluto, is no more considered a planet because, unlike the eight planets, Pluto shares its orbit with other objects such as asteroids and comets. The eight planets of our solar system are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun. It is a little bigger than our moon. Because mercury is the closest planet to the sun, it moves faster than any other planet, traveling at a speed of 48 kilometers per second and completes one revolution around the sun in just 88 Earth days. But it rotates about its axis very slowly, taking nearly 59 Earth days to complete one rotation.
Venus is the second planet, which is the brightest. It is slightly smaller than the Earth. It makes one revolution around the sun in 225 Earth days. The main component of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide(CO2), which traps heat and reflects the surface. So, Venus is the hottest planet, with a surface temperature of 480°C
Our Earth is the third planet, the only planet in our solar system to support life. Some crores of years ago, the Earth was also a hot burning sphere. With time, as lakhs of years passed by, it had cooled down to come to the present shape and structure. The Earth has four layers: crust, mantle, outer core, inner core. The inner core has a temperature of 6,600°C. The atmosphere consists of 71 percent of Nitrogen, 21 percent of Oxygen, and other gases like CO2, Argon, Neon, etc.
Mars is the fourth planet, with an average distance of 22,79,40,500 kilometers from the sun. It makes one revolution around the sun in about 687 Earth days and rotates around itself in about 24 1/2 hours, a few minutes longer than Earth. It is known as the Red planet as it contains rust-red soil. Mars has ice caps at its poles, just like the earth. It is supposed that water exists on Mars, but there is no atmosphere to protect it from the sun's ultra-violet radiation. Maybe it will be our future home.
Jupiter is the largest of all the planets, which revolves around the sun in 12 earth years. Jupiter is huge, with a diameter about 11 times that of the earth. There are spots on Jupiter, just like the sun. One of them is The Great Red Spot which has 40,000kms of length and 10,000kms of breadth. Jupiter has 17 moons.
Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and is the second-largest planet. Saturn has a fragile wide system of rings, and it has more than 60 known moons.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and the third largest planet. It completes one revolution around the sun in 84 earth years but rotates in 16 hours and 10 minutes around its axis. Uranus has 18 moons. The atmosphere has Hydrogen(H), Helium(He), and Methane(CH4).
Neptune is the last planet, which revolves around the sun in 165 earth days. It has 13 moons. Out of 13, Triton is the largest Neptunian moon and the coldest object in the solar system, with a temperature of -240°C.
Pluto is no more considered a planet. In 2006, it was decided that pluto wasn't a planet but a dwarf planet. Dwarf planets are similar to planets in many ways but share their orbits around the sun with other objects such as asteroids and comets. It takes more than 248 earth years to complete one revolution around the sun and rotates about its own axis in just 6 days, 9 hours, and 18 minutes.
Our solar system also consists of planet-like objects called asteroids, meteoroids, comets.
Asteroids:
A rocky object that orbits around the sun. They are much smaller than planets.
Meteoroids:
A small piece of rock or dust that has broken off an asteroid or comet is called Meteoroid
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Comets:
Comets are made of ice, rock, and dust; they are the size of mountains. There are thousands of billions of comets in our solar system.
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