The Solar System is the planetary system that includes the Sun at its center and the celestial bodies orbiting around it. The Solar System was formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago.
The Sun is the star at the center and the most prominent object in the Solar System. Its enormous mass (332,900 times that of Earth) creates sufficient temperature and density at its core to sustain nuclear fusion, releasing a tremendous amount of energy, mostly emitted into space as electromagnetic radiation, with a peak in the visible spectrum range of 400-700 nm that we know as visible light.
The Solar System includes 8 planets.
Number of Planets in the Solar System
According to Live Science, the Solar System consists of 8 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. All of these planets orbit the Sun due to its immense gravitational force.
1. Mercury
Mercury orbits the Sun in just 88 days, making it the closest planet to the Sun and also the smallest, slightly larger than Earth’s Moon. Due to its proximity to the Sun (about two-fifths of the distance from Earth to the Sun), Mercury experiences significant temperature fluctuations between day and night: daytime temperatures can reach 840°F (450°C), hot enough to melt lead, while at night, temperatures plunge to -290°F (-180°C).
2. Venus
The second planet from the Sun, Venus is Earth’s twin in size. Radar images beneath its thick atmosphere reveal a surface with numerous mountains and volcanoes. However, the two planets could not be more different. With its dense, toxic atmosphere made up of sulfuric acid clouds, Venus is a typical example of the greenhouse effect. It is scorching hot, even hotter than Mercury, with an average surface temperature of 900°F (465°C). At 92 bar, surface pressure would crush and kill a human. Strangely, Venus rotates slowly from east to west, opposite to most other planets.
3. Earth
The third planet from the Sun, Earth is a water world, with two-thirds of the planet covered by oceans. It is the only known world to harbor life. Earth’s atmosphere is rich in nitrogen and oxygen. The Earth’s surface rotates on its axis at a speed of 1,532 feet per second (467 meters per second) – over 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km/h) at the equator. The planet zips around the Sun at more than 18 miles per second (29 km/s).
4. Mars
The fourth planet from the Sun is Mars, a cold, dusty desert world. The dust is made up of iron oxides, giving the planet its iconic red color. Mars shares some similarities with Earth: it has rocks, mountains, valleys, and canyons, as well as various storm systems, ranging from localized dust devils to planet-encircling dust storms.
5. Jupiter
The fifth planet from the Sun, Jupiter is a giant gas world and the largest planet in our Solar System—more than twice the mass of all the other planets combined, according to NASA. Its swirling clouds are colorful due to various trace gases.
6. Saturn
The sixth planet from the Sun, Saturn is best known for its rings. When polymath Galileo Galilei first studied Saturn in the early 1600s, he thought it was a three-part object: a planet with two large moons on either side.
Unaware that he was observing a ringed planet, the astronomer confusingly sketched a small symbol—an icon with a large circle and two smaller circles—into his notebook as a noun in his description of the discovery. More than 40 years later, Christiaan Huygens proposed that they were rings.
7. Uranus
The seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus is an oddball planet. It has clouds made of hydrogen sulfide, the same chemical that gives rotten eggs their foul smell. It rotates from east to west like Venus. But unlike Venus or any other planet, its equator is nearly perpendicular to its orbit—essentially rolling on its side. Astronomers believe that an object twice the size of Earth collided with Uranus about 4 billion years ago, causing it to tilt. This tilt results in extreme seasons that last over 20 years, with the Sun shining on one pole or the other for 84 Earth years at a time.
8. Neptune
The eighth planet from the Sun, Neptune is similar in size to Uranus and is known for its supersonic winds. Neptune is distant and cold, orbiting the Sun at over 30 times the distance of Earth. It was the first planet predicted to exist through mathematics before being discovered visually. Irregularities in Uranus’s orbit led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suspect that another planet might be exerting a gravitational pull. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find Neptune through a telescope. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and has a rocky core.
Below are the planets in the Solar System:
Mercury.
Venus.
Earth.
Mars.
Saturn.
Jupiter.
Uranus.
Neptune.
Dwarf Planet Pluto.
Dwarf Planet Ceres.
Dwarf Planet Haumea.
Dwarf Planet Makemake.
Dwarf Planet Eris.
