As a curious person, I always ponder what is hidden in the dark sky except for the visible stars. Whenever I look at the night sky, I always wonder about our solar system and its mystery. Did you ever think about what is behind the night sky? You may say the simple answer for that would be 8 planets, comets,Stars,debris, and moons of planets.
20 years back during schooling, I learnt about the Solar system. Things changed so much from then and now. The planet celebrated as the last planet in the solar system is no more a planet. It lost its status and became a Dwarf planet.
I felt bad for Pluto even though I have no direct connection with it in any way. In this article, we learn why it lost its status as the last planet in the Solar system. Also, how many planets are there and their respective moons?
A brief understanding of the solar system
Is Sun a Planet or Star?
Sun is a gaint star in the solar system where all the 8 offical planets roatates around it. Its consist of 99.8 percent of total solar system mass. As we all studied Sun is loacted at center of the solar system, where all the other planets revolve around it in there own orbit axis.
That is beauty of Gods creation. As a kid I used to wonder how come the planets doesn’t collide with each other while rotating around Sun. Now I know as they rotate in their own orbit, it never cross path with other planet nor it collides with other planet. Another important thing the orbiting axis of planets wont be in same orbital plane.
According to our solar system Sun is the largest Star whose gravity keep planets,debris and comets in place. Whereas its Electromagnetic(EM) field spreads throughout the system through solar winds.
Is Sun one of the biggest stars in our Galaxy?
Unfortunately no, it is consider as a mid size star and its official name is Yellow dwarf star, can you believe it? The hot ball is made of 91 percent of Hydrogen and 7 percent of Helium.
Generally, people live in tropical region hates summer for its humidity and heat. They feel like there are living in hell. Do you know the Sun’s core temperature is 15 million degrees Celsius? Humans can’t even imagine such massive heat. Our mother earth core temperature is 5,200° Celsius.
What are terrestrial planets? why they are called so?
Terrestrial planets are nothing but planets which have land mass in it. There are four terrestrial planets in our solar system which are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
They represent topological features like valleys,volcanoes and impact craters around the surface of the planet. One can view the surface of these planets from anywhere on earth through Telescope.
Gaseous planets and their moons
The four big gas giants which are densely covered by gaseous material are called Gaseous planets or Jovian planets. Jupiter , Saturn, Uranus and Neptune come under this category. Unlike Terrestrial planets, they doesn’t have any solid surface instead it is covered by thick layers of gas like Helium, Hydrogen, Methane and others.
These planets are hostile to human due to poisons gases and horrific atmosphere of the planets. Hence, scientist around the world are interested in Mars as it resembles similar atmosphere as earth. The dream of another “home” may come true in near by future.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system has 79 moon whereas our Earth have only one moon. Jupiter is 11 times times the size of Earth.
Saturn, the beautiful planet having a disc ring around it has 83 moon, more number of moons than Jupiter . Recent study found out 20 new moons started revolving around it. Uranus have 27 moons, whereas Neptune has 13 moons and another interesting fact about Neptune is the wind speed is about 2000 km/hr, strongest in the Solar system.
How Pluto became Dwarf planet?
A mission to study the Kuiper belt and outer Solar system made scientist started observing the furthermost planet, the ninth planet. They found out it doesn’t meet the requirement of the planet.
All most all the planets in the solar system axis around sun in circular shape. Where as Pluto takes oval shape which is almost tilted upright unlike other planets axis. You can see clearly in the above image.
Another big consideration is size which is not even the width of US, which is only half of it. Another strange thing is its moon Charon happens to be half size of it. Hence, scientist name it as dwarf planet along with other three Ceres, Makemake and Eris planets in Solar system. Pluto is considered as ‘the king of Kuiper belt’
A space craft reached the Kuiper belt in 2015 to know more about planets outside Solar system. Some believe study on these planets helps us to understand formation of solar system.
Excellent article on Solar system.
Thank You Anu 🙂