1.What is a Solar system?

 A solar system consists of:
      one central star, the Sun and   nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto  more than 60 moons  millions of rocky asteroids  billions of icy comets 
 
 

 2.How many planets are there in our solar system?

 Our solar system has 9 planets and one star: the Sun. They are : Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. An  easy way to remember them is: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pakodas.(M for Mercury,V for Venus etc)
 

 3.How did this solar system begin/form? Theory of it's formation.

 The planets, asteroids and comets in the Solar System are loose particles left over from the formation of the Sun. Originally the gas and dust  which would become the Sun was the core of a cloud much larger than the Solar System, probably several lightyears(far far away) across;  where 1 light-year is equal to approximately 10,000,000,000,000 miles. The core was slowly rotating at first, but as it collapsed it spun faster,
 like a spinning ice-skater pulling in their arms. The rotation prevented the core's equator from collapsing as fast as the poles, so the core  became a spinning disc.

 Gas and dust in the disc spiraled gradually in to the center, where it accumulated to form the Sun. But because dust is denser than gas, some of  the dust settled to the mid-plane of the disc. These dust particles stuck together to make clumps, then clumps stuck together to make rocks,
 then rocks collided to make planets. In the case of the `gas giant' planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the rocky cores were massive  enough to also attract some of the gas. The outer layers of these planets are made up of hydrogen and other gases.

 So the Sun is the collapsed core of an interstellar gas cloud, and the planets, asteroids and comets are small lumps of dust which stayed in  orbit instead of spiraling into the Sun. The planets all formed within a very short period, probably a few million years, about five billion years ago.
 Within that short time, no-one knows for sure which of them formed first. Maybe the inner planets formed first and were dragged by the spiraling  gas so they are now closest to the Sun; or maybe the outer planets formed first, and the inner ones are small because they didn't have a long  time to grow
 
 

 4.How old is our solar system?

 The solar system is said to be over 5 billion years old.
 
 

 5.And how big is our solar system?

 There are no physical boundaries in space. The solar system consists of nine planets orbiting around one star: the Sun. Pluto, the farthest  planet from the Sun orbits approximately as far as 40 astronomical units. An astronomical unit is a unit of length used by astronomers. One  astronomical unit equals the distance from Earth to the Sun: 93 million miles.Really too big for us to imagine!
 
 

 6.What are the differences between our planets?

 Planets are different in sizes and colors. The four planets closer to the Sun are called 'rocky'  planets. They are small in size and similar to Earth  in composition. They have no rings and only two of them 
(Earth and Mars) have moons.

 The four outer planets, also called 'gas giants', are much larger than the 'rocky' planets. They all have rings and have many moons. The 'gas  giants' are made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, frozen water, ammonia, methane, and carbon monoxide.

 Pluto, the most remote planet, might be little more than a giant comet. Its composition is similar to that of comets, and its orbit is quite different  from that of the other comets and planets. Pluto has one moon: Charon.

 7.What is the asteroid belt?

 The asteroid belt is a zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is said that the asteroids in the asteroid belt never formed a planet  because the gravity of nearby Jupiter kept pulling them apart. Today, millions of asteroids probably inhabit the asteroid belt, with many more  scattered throughout the solar system.
 
 

 8.Where do planet come from?

 Comets are solar system leftovers; they are often described as 'dirty snowballs', lumps of frozen gas and dust. Astronomers suspect that many  of these objects live in a giant cloud called the 'Oort' Cloud, that extends as much as a light year from the Sun
 
 

 9.Can we ever see planets with our naked eye?

 Yes! Some planets can be seen with the naked eye (Without telescope or binoculars). That is how they were discovered by the ancient  civilizations: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. 
 Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were all discovered using a telescope.
 
 

 10.Which are rocky or terrestial planets?

 Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are called 'rocky' or' terrestial' planets. They are similar to Earth in composition. Being close to the Sun,  lightweight elements like hydrogen and helium were sandblasted away by the intense radiation. Mostly rock and metal was left in this zone and
 clumped together to form the inner rocky planets.
 
 

 11. What are gaseous planet?

 Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are called the gaseous planets. Jupiter and Saturn contain the largest percentages of hydrogen and  helium, while Uranus and Neptune contain largest shares of ices -- frozen water, ammonia, methane, and carbon monoxide.
 
 

 12.And which planets have rings?

 The four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have rings.
 
 

 13. How powerful is the Hubble telescope?

 Hubble is one of the worlds most powerful telescopes.(for more details see our sites/links page). 
 Mercury and the Earth are the only two planets that the Hubble Space Telescope has not observed for astronomical purposes. Mercury is too  close to the Sun which is too bright for the Hubble to look at. The Earth is too bright as it clouds reflect the light from the Sun.
 
 

 14.Can the Hubble telescope take pictures of the sun too?

 No. The Sun is too bright for the Hubble Space Telescope to observe. Its bright light can damage the telescope's sensitive detectors.

PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
India is a very small part of earth which is a very small part of the universe.
We live in a very small part of the universe, what we call home.