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Saturn |
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Jupiter
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Mercury
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Saturn |
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Jupiter
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Mercury
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Composition of the solar system
The Sun contains 99.85% of all the matter in the Solar System. The planets, which condensed out of the same disk of material that formed the Sun, contain only 0.135% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter contains more than twice the matter of all the other planets combined. Satellites of the planets, comets, asteroids, meteoroids, and the interplanetary medium constitute the remaining 0.015%. The following table is a list of the mass distribution within our Solar System.
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Profile of the solar system
All bodies of the solar system - in spite of the sun - don't emit visual light. They are sunlit and consequently visual in the sky. The solar planetary system consists of the inner planets (mercury, venus, earth, mars) and the outer planets (jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptun, pluto). Between mars' and jupiter's orbit a large belt of asteroids and planetoids can be found orbiting the sun.
If you compare the sun's size with an orange, all the other planets would fit into a vast field true to scale: In order to reach the next star, you have to search for another "orange" in about 2000 km distance. Realizing the overwhelming distances the sun and its planets can be considered as a secluded "family" in never-ending space.
The nearer a planet orbits the sun, the shorter is the orbiting time and the faster is the orbiting speed. Mercury, for instance, needs 88 terrestrial days to revolve around the sun instead of pluto needing 250 terrestrial years.
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Venus
Neptune
Uranus
Moon