Top 5 Facts About The Solar System

1: Solar System is 4.6 Billion Years Old

The solar system is 4.6 billion years old and 99.86% of its mass is contained in our Sun, a rotating yellow dwarf star whose powerful gravity causes numerous objects to revolve  around it in nearly circular orbits including the planets, moons, comets, asteroids, meteoroids, dust and gas.

2: Sunlight Takes Around 8 Minutes To Reach Earth

The Earth is located 93 million miles (150 million km) away from the Sun, a distance known to astronomers as an astronomical unit or AU. Traveling at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second), sunlight is able to cross this vast distance in around 8 minutes 20 seconds.

3: Solar System 2 Light-years Across

The size of a solar system is determined by how far its sun’s gravity overpowers other objects in the region, which in the case of the Sun extends to the Oort Cloud, a reservoir of cometary material located between 5,000 and 50,000 AU away. That boundary would give the solar system a diameter of around 2 light-years across.

4: Planets Are Made of Rock or Gas

The 8 planets in our solar system are divided into the inner planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, which are basically made of rock and metal; and the outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, which are made of hydrogen, helium and other gases. Despite being referred to as gas giants, intense heat and pressure towards their centers cause their gases to compress into liquid metal or rock.

5: Nearest Star To Earth is Proxima Centauri

Outside of our own solar system, the nearest star to Earth is a red dwarf star called Proxima Centauri (4.24 light-years), followed by Barnard’s Star in the constellation of Ophiuchus (6 light-years). The brightest star in the night sky, Sirius (-1.46 magnitude) in the constellation of Canis Major, is the 5th closest star to Earth at a distance of 8.6 light-years.

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