The solar system



The solar system consist of the sun at the center and eight planets with more than 130 satellites of the planets that revolve around the sun, earlier, there were mine planets but on august24, 2006, international astronomical union redefined the nature of planets and excluded Pluto from the list. Besides the eight planets and satellites; asteroids, comets, meteors, meteorites, dust and gasses can also be found revolving around the sun. Each planet maintains its path of revolution due to the force extended by the sun’s gravitational forces and the orbital speed of the planet. The formation of the solar system began billions of years ago. The orbitals of the planets are ellipse with the sun but the orbit of mercury is nearly circular. The orbits of the planets are more or less in the same plane (called the ecliptic and defined by the plane of the earth’s orbit.) the following diagram shows the relative sizes of the orbits of the eight planets.

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