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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 ...
The inner Solar System's period of giant impacts probably played a role in Earth acquiring its current water content (~6 × 10 21 kg) from the early asteroid belt. Water is too volatile to have been present at Earth's formation and must have been subsequently delivered from outer, colder parts of the Solar System. [63]
A solar wind of plasma particles constantly streams outward from the Sun until, at the outermost limit of the Solar System, it reaches the heliopause. As the solar wind passes the Earth, it interacts with the Earth's magnetic field ( magnetosphere ) and deflects the solar wind, but traps some creating the Van Allen radiation belts that envelop ...
Solar System – gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies.
Exoplanet (also known as extrasolar planets) – planet outside the Solar System. A total of 4,341 such planets have been identified as of 28 Jan 2021. Super-Earth – exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants. Mini-Neptune – also known as a gas dwarf or transitional planet. A ...
Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system, according to NASA. Jupiter’s radius is over 11 times the equatorial radius of the Earth.
The universe consists of a plasma of nuclei, electrons, and photons; temperature is too low to create electron-positron pairs (or any other pairs of massive particles), but too high for the binding of electrons to nuclei. Recombination: 18 ka ~ 370 ka 6000 ~ 1100 4000 K (0.4 eV) Electrons and atomic nuclei first become bound to form neutral ...
The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.