4: The Solar System
- Page ID
- 107996
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For most of history, the Sun and its nearby planets was the only group of planets that humans knew existed. After the 1995 discovery of the first planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun, 51 Pegasi b, many astronomers began searching for new planetary systems.
Our planetary system is called the Solar System. The name is derived from sol, which is both the Latin word for sun and the name of the Roman god of the Sun. We still don't know how many planetary systems are out there, but the last 30 years have led to many exciting discoveries, which we will review in the exoplanets chapter.
This chapter will review what we know about the Solar System. It will include a lot of information without the observations that helped astronomers build our current models. Don't worry! The rest of the textbook chapters are written in the order of exploration first, followed by a discussion of how those observations led to what we know.
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- List the different types of objects in our planetary system.
- Describe the properties of planets and how they vary between the planets.
- Describe the overall structure and scale of the Solar System.
- State Kepler's Laws.
- Describe how gravity is connected to the orbits of objects in the Solar System.
- Define rotation and revolution in astronomy.
- Name the current model of Solar System formation.
- List and describe the stages of Solar System formation.
Thumbnail: This image depicts the dusty disc encircling the young, isolated star HD 169142. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) imaged this disc in high resolution by picking up faint signals from its constituent millimetre-sized dust grains. The vivid rings are thick bands of dust, separated by deep gaps. ("Spring Cleaning in an Infant Star System," ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/ Fedele et al., CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)