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Solar System

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

A colorful diagram of our Solar System showing planets, moons, and dwarf planets to help learn about space!

Our Solar System

The Solar System is our home in space! It is made up of the Sun and everything that orbits around it. This includes eight planets, many moons, asteroids, comets, and lots of tiny bits of space dust. The Sun is a big, bright star that gives us light and warmth. Without the Sun, Earth would be a very cold and dark place!

Our Solar System is part of a huge galaxy called the Milky Way. The Sun and all the planets orbit around the center of the Milky Way. It takes about 240 million years to complete one big loop around the galaxy. Lucky for us, our place in the Milky Way is quiet and safe, helping life on Earth to grow and thrive.

The Planets

There are eight main planets in our Solar System. Four of them are close to the Sun and are called the inner planets. These are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They are rocky and have solid surfaces. Earth is special because it is the only planet we know that has life and lots of water.

Beyond the inner planets, far from the Sun, are the outer planets. These are called the giant planets because they are much bigger than the inner planets. The outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Jupiter and Saturn are made mostly of gas, while Uranus and Neptune are made of icy materials. They all have many moons and beautiful rings.

Fun Facts

  • The Sun is so big that it could fit 1.3 million Earths inside it!
  • Jupiter is the biggest planet. It is so large that all the other planets could fit inside it!
  • Earth has one big moon called the Moon. Many other planets have lots of moons. For example, Jupiter has more than 90 moons!
  • The Solar System is about 4.6 billion years old — that’s older than any mountain or ocean on Earth!

Exploring our Solar System helps us learn about space and our place in the universe. Scientists have sent special machines called spacecraft to visit the planets. These spacecraft take pictures and collect information to help us understand our cosmic neighborhood better. One day, maybe you will travel to space too!

Images

An illustration of a young star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust where planets can form.
An image showing the Plane of the Ecliptic with the Moon, Sun’s corona, and planets Saturn, Mars, and Mercury lined up, illustrating how celestial bodies orbit in our solar system.
An animation showing the movement of the inner planets in our solar system over time.
An animation showing the movement of the outer planets in our solar system over time.
Artist's impression of the TRAPPIST-1 system, showing seven Earth-sized planets orbiting their star, three of which are in the habitable zone where liquid water could exist.
A diagram showing the habitable zone around stars where planets like Earth, Venus, and Mars can support liquid water.
A photograph of the Sun showing sunspots and other natural surface features, taken from Earth on May 8, 2019.
A comparison of the sizes of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars to help learn about our solar system planets.
A diagram showing the positions of asteroids in the inner solar system.
The Four Largest Asteroids in our Solar System: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.
A comparison of the planets in our solar system shown to scale, helping us understand their relative sizes.
Diagram showing the positions of objects in the Kuiper belt and other areas of the outer Solar System.
A diagram showing the orbits of distant objects in space, including the predicted path of a hypothetical planet called Planet Nine.
A diagram showing the distances between planets in our solar system, lined up to show how far each planet is from the Sun.

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Solar System, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Images from Wikimedia Commons. Tap any image to view credits and license.