Social Studies

Congratulations! You have successfully completed you journeythrough our solar system! You have learned many ideas about space and what itwould be like to live in a space station, how much you weigh on another planetand how to compute scientific notation! You have also learned how gravityaffects our solar system and also about one of the great wonders of space, aBlack Hole! The sun also has an effect on earth and the sun patterns pagehelped you to learn about how it gives us a lot of sun at certain timesthroughout the day and no sunlight at all at other points of the day. We hopethat you have had fun learning about the planets in our solar system.

All matters of the Solar System almost contain entirely inthe Sun, about 99.85 %. The eight planets, together with Pluto, only consist of0.135 % of the total mass while the remaining 0.015 % constitute of planets' satellites,comets, asteroids, solar particles, dusts etc. The planets can be divided intotwo gropus: (i) The Terrestrial Planets, consist of four planet closest to theSun: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. (ii) The Jovian Planets, consist of thefollowing four planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The TerrestrialPlanets are generally compact and rocky, whereas the Jovian Planets arecomparatively much bigger in size and gaseous in nature. These planets are alsosometimes referred to as the gas giants.

The distances of the Terrestrial Planets from one another and from the Sun arerelatively close when compare with those of Jovian Planets. Diagram below showsrelative (approximate) size of planetary orbits.

Beside planets,there are many millions more objects that orbit the Sun such as asteroids and comets. Most asteroids are located at the Main Asteroid Belt,located between Mars and Jupiter. However, some orbit between Saturn and Uranusor even as far away as Pluto and beyond.