Solar system is a collection of various celestial bodies that are held together by the gravitational pull of the sun. Our solar system is located in the Milky Way galaxy. The solar system consists of eight planets, five dwarf planets, over a hundred moons, and countless comets and asteroids.
In this article, we will be looking at 20+ mind-blowing facts about the solar system.
Keep reading!
Mind-Blowing Facts About the Solar System
The following are some of the amazing facts about the Solar system:
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The sun is a medium-sized star, but still huge enough that it would take 1.3 million Earths to fill the sun.
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The sun is situated at a distance of 93 million miles from the Earth.
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The light from sun takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth.
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Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system with temperatures reaching upto 460°C.
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Sun is over 4.6 billion years old.
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Venus and Mercury are the only planets in the solar system that do not have a moon.
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Saturn has the most numbers of moons in the solar system, with recent reports suggesting upto 274 moons.
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Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.
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Jupiter also has the shortest day among all the planets in the solar system. A day in Jupiter is only 9.9 hours long.
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Ganymade is the largest moon in the solar system, it is one of the four largest moons of the planet Jupiter.
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The rings of Saturn are made of ice.
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Mercury travels around the sun in 88 days.
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The sun is so massive that it accounts for 99.8% of the mass of the solar system.
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The Sun’s mass is 0.33 million times more than the Earth.
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The Oort cloud is the farthest point in the solar system.
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Kuiper belt is also referred to as the ‘Third Zone’ of the solar system.
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Pluto is known as the ‘King of the Kuiper Belt’.
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Pluto was earlier a planet, but later demoted to the rank of a dwarf planet.
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The farthest object explored by a spacecraft is the Arrokoth, it is a Kuiper Belt Object, that was visited by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in the year 2019. It also happens to be the most primitive object ever studied by a spacecraft.
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Neptune is the coldest planet in the solar system with average temperatures reaching upto -214°C
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Mars is known as the ‘Red Planet’ because of the presence of iron oxide. It gives Mars it’s characteristic reddish brown hue.
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