How many planets are in our solar system?

by Techno News | 11/02/2008 06:00:00 AM in |


What is a planet? It is a heavenly body which moves around the sun on a fixed route. It has no light of its own; you can see it because it reflects the sun's light. There are eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. Pluto is the furthest away; it takes 248 years to make one circuit of the sun!

Three of these planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars are similar to Earth. They are made of rock and their size is similar to Earth's. The four other planets are giants compared to our own. These are: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Nowadays, we know about the laws of gravity. But there are other questions to be answered: where did our solar system come from? Astronomers carry on their research with the help of their scientific apparatus.

Interestingly, they have not found a single substance in the Solar System which does not exist on Earth.

What does this mean? It means that the sun and the planets appeared around the same time.

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