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The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that directly or indirectly orbit it. The eight planets are the most significant objects that circle the Sun now, with the dwarf planets and small Solar System entities making up the rest. Two of the natural satellites that orbit the Sun indirectly are more significant than Mercury, the minor planet.

The Solar System was created by the gravitational collapse of a massive interstellar molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago. The Sun holds the great bulk of the system’s mass, with Jupiter holding most of the remaining group. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, the four more minor inner planets, are terrestrial planets mainly made of rock and metal. The four outer planets are enormous planets, with masses far greater than the terrestrial planets.

The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, consisting primarily of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, consisting primarily of volatiles, such as water, ammonia, and methane, with relatively high melting points compared to hydrogen and helium. The orbits of all eight planets are roughly round and sit inside a nearly flat disc known as the ecliptic.

Smaller objects can also be found in the Solar System. The asteroid belt, which sits between Mars and Jupiter’s orbits, is primarily composed of rock and metal objects, similar to the terrestrial planets. The Kuiper belt and dispersed disc, populations of trans-Neptunian objects mainly made of ices, reside beyond Neptune’s orbit, as does a newly discovered population of sednoids.

Some objects among these populations are massive enough to have rounded under their gravity, however how many there will be is a matter of contention. Dwarf planets are the name given to such objects. Pluto is the only dwarf planet known to exist, but another trans-Neptunian object, Eris, is suspected to be one, and the asteroid Ceres is at least near to being one.

Other small-body populations, like comets, centaurs, and interplanetary dust clouds, freely move between these two areas in addition two. Natural satellites circle six of the planets, the six biggest potential dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies, which are commonly referred to as “moons” after the Moon. Planetary rings of dust and other tiny particles encircle each of the outer planets.

The heliosphere is a bubble-like area in the interstellar medium created by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles streaming outwards from the Sun. The heliopause, which stretches out to the edge of the dispersed disc, is the point where the solar wind’s pressure equals the negative pressure of the interstellar medium.

The Oort cloud, which is considered the source of long-period comets, might be thousands of times farther away than the heliosphere. The Solar System is approximately 26,000 light-years from the Milky Way’s core in the Orion Arm.

Humanity did not perceive or comprehend the idea of the Solar System for the majority of its existence. Most people thought that Earth was immobile at the centre of the cosmos until the Late Middle Ages–Renaissance and that it was distinct from the divine or ethereal things that traveled through the sky.

Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to construct a mathematically predicted heliocentric theory, even though Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had theorized on a heliocentric rearrangement of the universe.

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