The Solar System -- three small words for a great amount of space and matter. Our Solar System is made up of lots of open and empty space. The largest body or matter in our solar system is the sun. Our sun contains 99.85% of the matter in our Solar System. Does that seem funny? Our sun seems small compared to all of the empty space, stars, and other matter we see so vibrantly at night in the dark sky.
The beginning of our solar system is quite simple. Our Solar System was formed from a cloud of gas. The cloud of gas consisted of three things -- 75% of hydrogen, 25% helium and 1% heavier elements. These three main elements condensed into the gas cloud which continued to condense into solid objects. Those solid objects are what we know today as our Sun and the nine planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. A very humble beginning.
In addition to the sun and planets, our solar system also consists of small bodies. These small bodies are comets, asteroids, meteoroids, satellites of the planets, and interplanetary medium. Interplanetary medium is considered the gas and dust that floats around in our solar system.
All of this "stuff", this matter, makes up our solar system. Below is the breakdown by percentage of our solar system and it's matter make-up:
WOW! How amazing that our sun really contains that amount of matter. It really is as large as it seems out there in our sky!
OK, remember when I mentioned everything that made up our solar system? Do you remember the planets? OK, our solar system is in a way divided in to two. The two "divides" are the inner solar system and the outer solar system
Our "inner" solar system consists of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The four planets included in the "inner" solar system - Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars - are called the terrestrial planets. The terrestrial planets are called this because they have a solid, rocky surface.
