The need of the human being to investigate and transport the imagination to the most mysterious places has been a recurring practice since ancient times. Investigating among the curiosities of the Solar System is a journey that many have dared to undertake. Although it is true that today we have technologies that allow us to know beyond the limits of our planet, previously this did not represent an impediment to question the existence of life itself.
Human ingenuity and curiosity are unstoppable. So much so that since before having powerful telescopes and space probes, the existence of the Solar System was already known. Although of course not with the precision with which we can investigate it today. Even so, there is much to discover about our cosmic home, but while we learn more about it, we bring you 15 curiosities of the Solar System that you probably did not know.
Curiosities of the Solar System
More sun than planets
The Sun, our main star, is so vast that you might even be surprised to know that it makes up more than 99% of all the mass in the Solar System. Not even adding the masses of all the planets, could they equal the size of the Sun.
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A big empty
Despite the large size of the Sun and the fact that the Solar System is made up not only of the 8 planets that we know of, but also of minor planets and cosmic objects, they do not equal the large amount of space that is in it. The totality of the mass that inhabits it is too small compared to the void that exists between each element of the system.
How old are you
According to NASA, the Solar System is 4.5 billion years old. It formed from a dense cloud of gas and stellar dust. The data indicates that the cloud probably collapsed due to the shock wave of a nearby supernova. Then gravity did its thing, forming our home.
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What place does it occupy?
The Solar System itself already represents a great void, but the home of our set of planets lives within an even greater void; the Milky Way. It orbits the center of this at about 828 thousand kilometers per hour and is part of one of the spiral arms called the Orion arm or the local arm.
second largest object
The Sun is the largest object in the planetary ensemble, followed by Jupiter, the massive planet is 318 times larger than Earth and 2.5 times larger than all the other planets combined.
Has its own protective layer
Like the Earth and all the planets, the Solar System has its own protective magnetic field. It is formed by ions from the solar atmosphere that travel in the form of solar winds and extend beyond the orbit of Pluto. The result is a kind of protective bubble that envelops the entire Solar System.
Does it have a border?
Speaking of protective layers, we also think of edges. Where does the Solar System end? A thousand times further than Pluto is, we find the last gravitational barrier that supports our Sun and it is called the Oort Cloud. It is made up of trillions of leftover objects such as asteroids and comets.
How many moons inhabit it?
We know that the Solar System is made up of a Sun, 8 planets and a handful of dwarf planets like Pluto. But how many moons are there? According to data, our system has more than 150 moons, the planet with the most moons discovered so far is Saturn, with its current 81 satellites, surpassing Jupiter’s current 79.
Venus, the hottest planet
The average temperature of Venus is around 450°C, making it the hottest planet in the entire Solar System.
ice water everywhere
Water ice exists throughout the Solar System, contrary to what was previously thought. We now know that ice exists on Mars, the Moon, and other bodies such as Jupiter’s moon Europa and Ceres, a minor planet.
the shortest day
Among the curiosities of the Solar System we find that Jupiter takes 1,433 Earth days to complete one revolution around the Sun, however a Jovian day lasts just 10 hours.
Magnetosphere larger than the Sun
And as you would expect from the massive planet in the neighborhood, Jupiter has the largest magnetosphere of all the planets and even larger than the Sun. This is the layer of the magnetic field that deflects the solar wind, the stronger the magnetic field, the stronger the magnetic field. larger the magnetosphere. To put ourselves in context, Jupiter’s magnetic field is 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
different types of planets
The composition of the planets in our system varies greatly, there are so-called terrestrial planets that are composed mainly of rock and metal. But there are also gas giants that are made up mainly of hydrogen and helium. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars belong to the first denomination. While Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are gas giants, also called «ice giants».
It is possible to fly on Titan
Titan is a moon of Saturn, but it is not just any satellite since it has unique characteristics in the entire Solar System. According to astrophysicists, flying on Titan would be much easier than on Earth thanks to its low gravity and its thick atmosphere with low pressure, two elements necessary to take flight.
Asteroid belt
Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, passes a belt that extends to a thickness of at least 500 million kilometers and is densely populated by asteroids. It is estimated that there are at least 960,000 of these objects orbiting in the so-called asteroid belt of the Solar System.
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