Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 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 ...
French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was the first to propose a model for the origin of the Solar System in his book The World, written from 1629 to 1633.. In his view, the universe was filled with vortices of swirling particles, and both the Sun and planets had condensed from a large vortex that had contracted, which he thought could explain the circular motion of the plane
In 1950 Jan Oort suggested the presence of a cometary reservoir in the outer limits of the Solar System, the Oort cloud, [109] and in 1951 Gerard Kuiper argued for an annular reservoir of comets between 40 and 100 astronomical units from the Sun having formed early in the Solar System's evolution, but he did not think that such a belt still ...
The Sun moves through the heliosphere at 84,000 km/h (52,000 mph). At this speed, it takes around 1,400 years for the Solar System to travel a distance of 1 light-year, or 8 days to travel 1 AU (astronomical unit). [113] The Solar System is headed in the direction of the zodiacal constellation Scorpius, which follows the ecliptic. [114]
The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System (as well as other planetary systems). It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting the Sun which clumped up together to form the planets.
This is the boundary of the Solar System to interstellar space. The outermost region of the Solar System is the theorized Oort cloud, the source for long-period comets, extending to a radius of 2,000–200,000 AU. The closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light-years (269,000 AU) away.
The Earth-Moon system is formed after a giant impact by the hypothetical planetoid Theia A major collision with a Pluto-sized planetoid causes the Martian dichotomy, forming Mars' North Polar Basin. The Sun enters main sequence: solar wind sweeps Earth Moon system clear of debris (mainly dust and gas). 4.5–3.5 Ga: Hadean eon beginning of ...