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Pierre-Simon Laplace, one of the originators of the nebular hypothesis. Ideas concerning the origin and fate of the world date from the earliest known writings; however, for almost all of that time, there was no attempt to link such theories to the existence of a "Solar System", simply because it was not generally thought that the Solar System, in the sense we now understand it, existed.
The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G-type main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. [37] The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%.
Today, comets are known to be far too small to have created the Solar System in this way. [8] In 1755, Immanuel Kant speculated that observed nebulae could be regions of star and planet formation. In 1796, Laplace elaborated by arguing that the nebula collapsed into a star, and, as it did so, the remaining material gradually spun outward into a ...
The first atmosphere, captured from the solar nebula, was composed of light elements from the solar nebula, mostly hydrogen and helium. A combination of the solar wind and Earth's heat would have driven off this atmosphere, as a result of which the atmosphere is now depleted of these elements compared to cosmic abundances. [61]
In the Solar System, the number of mineral species has grown from about a dozen to over 5400 as a result of three processes: separation and concentration of elements; greater ranges of temperature and pressure coupled with the action of volatiles; and new chemical pathways provided by living organisms.
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.
A mineral grain from a meteorite preserved evidence that water was present on Mars 4.45 billion years ago, and it may have created hot springs habitable for life. ... and little is known from ...
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...