Solar System - Planets

The Solar
System

-Roughly 100,000
AU in length

-Eight planets

-Five dwarf planets

-One yellow dwarf
star

-Two belts and a cloud!

​​Our Sun is a yellow dwarf star

​Our sun is of a reasonable common type, making up about 7.5% of all stars in the Universe

Common!

Our sun is average sized, about 1.4 million km in diameter

​​...not that big

In the sun's core, four hydrogen atoms are squeezed together to make one helium atom in a process called fusion

​​Fusion

​More officially, its a G-type main-sequence star

Planets!

Earth has three types of true planets and one type of sub-planets

Three rules to be a planet:

1. Must be large enough for gravity to crush it into a ball

2. Must directly orbit a star

3. Must establish orbital dominance "Clear out the neighborhood"

Three types of planets in our solar system

1. ​Rocky Planets

2. Gas Giants

3. Ice Giants

Rocky planets form closest to the Sun

• These are any planet mostly made of silicate rocks and/or metals

We have four rocky planets

​

Rocky Planets

Smallest and closest to the Sun

​​Mercury

Roughly Earth-sized, it offers us a grim glance at our future with runaway greenhouse gasses

​​Venus

You live here. Look outside?

​​Earth

Red, dead, and we're fascinated by it. Only other rocky planet we can visit without dying immediately.

​​Mars

Gas giants are planets composed mostly of hydrogen and helium.

​

Gas giants can only exist far away from the Sun, or they'll be eaten

Gas giants

"Failed Stars"

Our largest planet, Jupiter has acted like a big catcher's mitt for Earth, intercepting or deflecting multiple incoming rocks that were aimed at Earth

It has a storm that's been going for at LEAST 350 years

​​Jupiter

So gorgeous that the solar system put a ring on it.

While rings around planets are common, Saturn's is the most visible and striking

​​Saturn

Formerly considered gas giants until the mid-1990s, ice giants are made of heavier elements (carbon, oxygen, etc)

Ice giants only exist in the furthest reaches of the solar system where the Sun's energy can't reach

Ice Giants

Made of water, ammonia, and methane ice.

A beautiful cyan color, Uranus rotates on its side, presenting it's poles towards Earth

Uranus

This was the first planet ever predicted to exist by using observation and math!

Predicted in 1843 (Bouvard), it was observed in 1846 within a degree of position of where it was predicted.

​​Neptune