Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Sun is the Solar System's star and by far its most massive component. Its large mass (332,900 Earth masses ), [ 75 ] which comprises 99.86% of all the mass in the Solar System, [ 76 ] produces temperatures and densities in its core high enough to sustain nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. [ 77 ]
The stars with the most confirmed planets are the Sun (the Solar System's star) and Kepler-90, with 8 confirmed planets each, followed by TRAPPIST-1 with 7 planets. The 1,033 multiplanetary systems are listed below according to the star's distance from Earth. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System, has three planets (b, c and d).
A multiple star system consists of two or more stars that appear from Earth to be close to one another in the sky. [dubious – discuss] This may result from the stars actually being physically close and gravitationally bound to each other, in which case it is a physical multiple star, or this closeness may be merely apparent, in which case it is an optical multiple star [a] Physical multiple ...
The Solar System is divided into the inner Solar System (subdivided into the inner planets and the asteroid belt), the outer Solar System (subdivided into the outer planets and centaurs), comets, the trans-Neptunian region (subdivided into the Kuiper belt, and the scattered disc) and the farthest regions (e.g., boundaries of the heliosphere ...
[110] [111] [112] Most stars are within galaxies, but between 10 and 50% of the starlight in large galaxy clusters may come from stars outside of any galaxy. [113] [114] [115] A multi-star system consists of two or more gravitationally bound stars that orbit each other. The simplest and most common multi-star system is a binary star, but ...
An artist's concept of a planetary system. A planetary system is a set of gravitationally bound non-stellar bodies in or out of orbit around a star or star system.Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although such systems may also consist of bodies such as dwarf planets, asteroids, natural satellites, meteoroids, comets, planetesimals [1] [2] and ...
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.
The Solar System is also unlike many stellar systems in that it only contains one star (see Habitability of binary star systems). Working from these constraints and the problems of having an empirical sample set of only one, the range of stars that are predicted to be able to support life is limited by a few factors.