The Solar System: What’s In It?

The planet Earth participates in a continuous movement around the sun once every 365 days, but it is not the only planet that makes this revolution. But what do we know about the solar system? Are there still many questions waiting to be answered? The only sure thing is that We’ll be in good company For the longest time, our friend the Sun is only in the middle of its life cycle, and is missing more than 5000 million years of lifeso we can rest assured a little longer.

How is the solar system formed?

All the planets revolve around the sun in one way or another on the same plane, which is called the ecliptic plane. The planets are not equidistant but are divided into three groups: the inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. The outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

The inner planets are closest to the sun and are distinguished by the fact that they have phases, like those of the moon, and pass in front of the sun. Another feature of it is the fact that it is a solid, which is strange considering that most of the visible objects in the universe are made of hydrogen and helium gases.

Jupiter and Saturn, the so-called gas giants, are located further from the Sun, and at a greater distance, we find the outer planets. Right now, what we know about Neptune and Pluto is that they have a rocky core covered in a liquid mantle of ammonia and an outer gaseous layer surrounding it.

Thus, the order of the planets starting from the Sun is as follows: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Planets of the solar system

Mercury

Mercury was probably one of the first planets seen in the solar system, as attested by the Mul.Apin tablets. These observations are believed to have been made by an ancient Assyrian astronomer around the 14th century BC. It is assumed that Mercury formed about 4.5 billion years ago, when gravity joined with gas and dust to form the young planet, it is also assumed that the planet Mercury is very young. The pulp is the result of collision with another object. Although it is the smallest planet in the Solar System, it is the second densest, with a density of 5.43 g/cm3 after Earth. For comparison, Mercury is about a third of the Earth’s volume and Earth’s density is 5.51 g/cc.

Venus

There is no reliable data on the discovery of Venus, it is one of the brightest planets in the solar system, so it is likely that the oldest civilizations on Earth saw it. Copernicus and Galilei were the first to classify it as a planet.

Venus has a radius of 6,051 km and a diameter of 12,104 km, which is slightly smaller than the planet Earth.

Earth

Since ancient times, it has been taught that the Earth was at the center of the universe with other celestial bodies revolving around it. Some believed that the Earth was flat, while ancient Greeks such as Plato correctly deduced that the Earth was a sphere. The Earth is believed to have formed about 4.5 billion years ago and the duration of this formation is estimated to be about 10 or even 20 million years. Earth is about 12,742 kilometers in diameter and is the fifth largest planet in the solar system.

Mars

Since it is easy to identify Mars with the naked eye, it is impossible to determine who first saw the planet. The earliest evidence for which we have evidence dates back to ancient Egyptian astronomers in the second millennium BC while we find information about the movements of Mars in some Chinese documents dating back to before the founding of the Zhou Dynasty, in 1045 BC. The Babylonians were especially interested in the planet, who, by studying its movement, were able to make predictions about the future.

Jupiter

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and as the fourth brightest object in the sky, Jupiter has been observed since ancient times and thus no one can be credited with discovering it. However, Galileo Galilei made the first telescopic observations in 1609. And in 1610 Galileo also discovered the main moons of Jupiter, but apparently not the smaller ones. There are theories that speculate that Jupiter may have formed before the Sun, while others claim that Jupiter formed after the Sun about 4.5 billion years ago.

Saturn

Also in this case, because it is so bright, Saturn can be seen by anyone, although Galileo was the first to observe it using a telescope always, in 1610. Another star observer, Christian Huygens, was to discover Saturn’s rings in 1659. Saturn is The second largest planet in the solar system, and second only to Jupiter, with a radius of 58,232 km or 36,183 miles, about nine times the diameter of the planet Earth.

uranium

Although visible to the naked eye, Uranus has eluded clear classification for decades. Generally mistaken for the star, it is speculated that Hipparchus first saw it in 128 BC and put it in his star catalog. It was later incorporated into Ptolemy’s Almagest. To acknowledge that it is indeed a planet, it was William Herschel, who observed it on March 13, 1781 with a telescope. Finding a name for the planet was even more difficult, it took 70 years before astronomers found a name that everyone liked. The name Uranio was only officially adopted in 1850.

Neptune

It is the only planet not visible to the naked eye, so it escaped ancient astronomers until it was officially discovered in 1846 by Le Verrier and Johann Galle. Some simulations suggested that both Neptune and Uranus formed near the Sun and then drifted away from each other. From its discovery until 1930 when Pluto was discovered, Neptune was considered the farthest planet from the Sun. However, in 2006 Pluto went from being a fully developed planet to a dwarf planet, so Neptune reverted to being the farthest planet in the solar system in its own right.

What is in the solar system besides the planets?

In addition to the planets, the solar system obviously hosts the sun, moon, and comets asteroids and asteroid belts. But we must not forget that in addition to the main planets, There are othersThey are known as dwarf planets, or celestial bodies orbiting a star and having such a mass that they have reached a spherical shape. The dwarf planets are: Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake.