The solar system is the name given to the planetary system made up of the Sun and of the various bodies gravitating around it. If the term solar system is synonymous in people's mind of the above-mentioned bodies, by extension, the term is also sometimes used to refer to other planetary systems.
Composition[]
The solar system is made up of eight (formerly nine) planets divided in two groups: the telluric planets (Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars) and the jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). There are also three dwarf planets, Ceres, Pluto and Eris, two asteroid belts (the main asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt), comets and, of course, the natural satellites of all the bodies previously mentioned. Finally, surrounding the system and stretching as far away from the sun as two light years, is the Oort cloud, a postulated cloud made up of billions of comets.
See also[]
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