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The Solar System remains in a relatively stable, slowly evolving state by following isolated, gravitationally bound orbits around the Sun. [28] Although the Solar System has been fairly stable for billions of years, it is technically chaotic, and may eventually be disrupted. There is a small chance that another star will pass through the Solar ...
Jupiter has been called the Solar System's vacuum cleaner [217] because of its immense gravity well and location near the inner Solar System. There are more impacts on Jupiter, such as comets, than on any other planet in the Solar System. [218] For example, Jupiter experiences about 200 times more asteroid and comet impacts than Earth. [66]
The Solar System travels alone through the Milky Way in a circular orbit approximately 30,000 light years from the Galactic Center. Its speed is about 220 km/s. The period required for the Solar System to complete one revolution around the Galactic Center, the galactic year, is in the range of 220–250 million years. Since its formation, the ...
The Solar System is one of many planetary systems in the galaxy. [1] [2] The planetary system that contains Earth is named the "Solar" System. The word "solar" is derived from the Latin word for Sun, Sol (genitive Solis). Anything related to the Sun is called "solar": for example, stellar wind from the Sun is called solar wind.
The Sun is 1.4 million kilometers (4.643 light-seconds) wide, about 109 times wider than Earth, or four times the Lunar distance, and contains 99.86% of all Solar System mass. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star that makes up about 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. [26]
Over the age of the Solar System, certain regions of the Kuiper belt became destabilised by Neptune's gravity, creating gaps in its structure. The region between 40 and 42 AU is an example. [146] There do exist orbits within these empty regions where objects can survive for the age of the Solar System.
Parts-per-million chart of the relative mass distribution of the Solar System, each cubelet denoting 2 × 10 24 kg. This article includes a list of the most massive known objects of the Solar System and partial lists of smaller objects by observed mean radius. These lists can be sorted according to an object's radius and mass and, for the most ...
The Solar System is a gravitationally bound system consisting of the Sun and the celestial bodies that orbit it. After the Sun, the largest objects in the Solar system are the eight planets, consisting of the four gas and ice giants as well as the four terrestrial planets .