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720,000 km/h (450,000 mi/h) [10] Orbital period. ~230 million years [10] The Solar System [c] is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. [11] It was formed 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc.
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 ...
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 Sun and planets of the Solar System (distances not to scale) The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It was formed 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc. The Sun is an ordinary main sequence star that ...
Solar System models, especially mechanical models, called orreries, that illustrate the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System have been built for centuries. While they often showed relative sizes, these models were usually not built to scale.
The term "Solar System" entered the English language by 1704, when John Locke used it to refer to the Sun, planets, and comets as a whole. By then it had been stablished beyond doubt that planets are other worlds, then the stars would be other distant suns, so the whole Solar System is actually only a small part of an immensely large universe ...
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a massive, hot ball of plasma, inflated and heated by energy produced by nuclear fusion reactions at its core. Part of this energy is emitted from its surface as visible light, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation, providing most of the energy for life on Earth.
The history of scientific thought about the formation and evolution of the Solar System began with the Copernican Revolution. The first recorded use of the term "Solar System" dates from 1704. [1] [2] Since the seventeenth century, philosophers and scientists have been forming hypotheses concerning the origins of our Solar System and the Moon ...