Introduction
Our Solar System is an amazing place. Our planet, Earth, is one of the nine that orbit a giant nuclear furnace called the Sun-a furnace so hot that its core is over 15,000,000 C (32,400,000 F). Apart from Earth, the planets in the Solar System are not welcoming to life. They range from cloud-covered death-traps to enormous balls of gas on which giant storms rage continuously. One has planet-wide volcano that covers everything with molten lava. Another has winds of over 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) per hour. Between the planets, collections of rock speed through space, destroying smaller objects in their paths, and giant moons, some with volcanoes of ice, circle their parent planets at incredible speeds.
Facts And Figures
Diameter of solar systems: 1.6 light years
Age: 4.6 billion years
Time taken to orbit centre of Milky Way Galaxy: 220 million years
Star: The Sun
Total no of Planets: 9
Total no of Moons: 63
Future Life: 5 billion years
Formed from the force of an exploding star, our Solar System is a neighbourhood in space. Held in place by the enormous gravitational pull of the sun are nine planets, over sixty moons and billions of asteroids and comets. These stretch over a distance of 7.6 million million(trillion) kilometres(4.7 trillion miles). Scientists believe there could be cuontless similar systemsin the Universe, but with the nearest possibility being over 43 trillion kilometres (27 trillion miles) away, it is impossible to tell for sure.
How Our Solar System Was Formed
1) The force of nearby supernova caused a cloud of gas and dust to rotate and collapse. The Supernova enriched the cloud with many different materials, including carbon, which is fundamental to life.
2) The cloud bewgan to shrink and rotated faster and faster. This movement caused many of the particles in the clouds to group at the center where they heated up to form the young star that was to become our "SUN".
3) The cloud was full of tiny pieces of debris. It was moving so rapidly that these pieces of material collided and joined together to form planets.
4) When the center of the cloud reached ten million degree celsius a nuclear reaction began, which turned hydrogen into helium. The force of this change blew away the loose gas and dust in the solar system, leaving only the planets and larger pieces of debris.
5) Over millions of years, The Solar System settled down into the pattern we know today.
Birth Of Our Solar System
Scientists believe that the solar system came about because of the death of a star. When some giant stars reach the end of their lives, they explode violently as supernova, sending shock waves of energy into space. Around 4.6 billion years ago one of these shock waves, travelling at over 30 millions Km (19 million miles) an hour, hit a cloud of gas, dust and ice. The strength of this impact forced the gases to flatten into a swirling spiral of debris.
Formation
As the center of the cloud of debris contracted, it heated until the temperature was hot enough for nuclear reaction to begin in its core. In the center of this turbulent storm of the particles our SUN was born. The nine Planets were formed over millions of years from the debris caught in the sun's gravitational pull. As the young sun became hotter, its solar wind blew away most of the remaining gas and dust in the solar system. The planets closed to the sun were stripped of their atmospheres, and only four giant planets were able to hold on to their enormous bodies of gas.
Leftover Material
Even after the planets were formed a great deal of material remained, but it was no longer being thrown together with the force needed to create planets. The debris was instead left to orbit the sun as rocky bodies called "ASTEROIDS", icy chunks called "COMETS", or smaller pieces of space dust known as "METEOROIDS"
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