who thought the sun was the center of the solar system
Nicolaus Copernicus
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the center of a spherical, stationary Earth, around which the sun, moon, planets, and stars rotate. With the development of the heliocentric model by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the sun was believed to be the center of the Universe, with the planets (including Earth) and stars orbiting it. In the early 20th century, the discovery of other galaxies and the development of the Big Bang theory led to the development of cosmological models of a homogeneous, isotropic Universe (which lacks a central point) that is expanding at all points. In religion or mythology, the "axis mundi" (also cosmic
History of the center of the Universe
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Space Atlas: Mapping the Universe and Beyond Space Atlas: Mapping the Universe and Beyond is a 2012 book by American physicist James Trefil. It is Trefil's 17th book. The book contains three parts: "The Solar System", "The Galaxy", and "The Universe" "The Space Atlas" includes star charts, photography, and other information. Trefil, the Robinson Professor of Physics at George Mason University also highlights scientists whose discoveries helped inform this book and human knowledge of the universe, such as Nicolaus Copernicus, who produced the first serious model of the solar system in which the sun was at the center and Earth
Space Atlas: Mapping the Universe and Beyond
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Sun at the center of our Solar System. The word comes from the Greek ( "helios" "sun" and "kentron" "center"). The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BCE by Aristarchus of Samos, but had received no support from most other ancient astronomers. Nicolaus Copernicus' major theory of a heliocentric model was published in "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres"), in 1543, the year of his death, though he had formulated the theory several decades earlier. Copernicus' ideas were not immediately accepted, but they did
History of the center of the Universe
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The geocentric system is simpler, being smaller and involving few massive objects: that coordinate system defines its center as the center of mass of the Earth itself. The barycentric system can be loosely thought of as being centered on the Sun, but the Solar System is more complicated. Even the much smaller planets exert gravitational force upon the Sun, causing it to shift position slightly as they orbit. Those shifts are very large in comparison to the measurement precisions that are required for astrometry. Thus, the BCRS defines its center of coordinates as the center of mass of the entire
Barycentric celestial reference system
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History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses The history of scientific thought about the Formation and evolution of the Solar System begins with the Copernican Revolution. The first recorded use of the term "Solar System" dates from 1704. The most widely accepted theory of planetary formation, known as the nebular hypothesis, maintains that 4.6 billion years ago, the Solar System formed from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud which was light years across. Several stars, including the Sun, formed within the collapsing cloud. The gas that formed the Solar System was slightly more massive than the Sun
History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses
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mass lifeform extinction periods on Earth. However, a reanalysis of the effects of the Sun's transit through the spiral structure based on CO data has failed to find a correlation. It takes the Solar System about 240 million years to complete one orbit of the Milky Way (a galactic year), so the Sun is thought to have completed 18–20 orbits during its lifetime and 1/1250 of a revolution since the origin of humans. The orbital speed of the Solar System about the center of the Milky Way is approximately or 0.073% of the speed of light. The Sun moves through
Milky Way
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Akaa Solar System Scale Model Akaa Solar System Scale Model is located at the center of the city of Akaa, Finland. The sun is located at the school campus of Toijalan Yhteiskoulu –school in Toijala district. The scale of the model is 1 : 3 000 000 000, meaning that each centimetre in the scale model represents 30 000 km in real life. The Sun is 464 mm in diameter and the Earth is 4 mm in diameter and located 49.86 meters away from the sun. Neptune is 1500 meters away from the Sun, for example. Akaa Solar System Scale
Akaa Solar System Scale Model
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system describing the solar system, the paths of the planets form (roughly) ellipses with respect to the Sun, not the Earth. With respect to the average reference frame of the fixed stars, the planets do indeed move around the Sun, which due to its much larger mass, moves far less than its own diameter and the gravity of which is dominant in determining the orbits of the planets. (In other words, the center of mass of the solar system is near the center of the Sun.) The Earth and Moon are much closer to being a binary planet; the center
Geocentric model
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nutation. The fundamental plane is the plane of the Earth's orbit, called the ecliptic plane. There are two principal variants of the ecliptic coordinate system: geocentric ecliptic coordinates centered on the Earth and heliocentric ecliptic coordinates centered on the center of mass of the solar system. The geocentric ecliptic system was the principal coordinate system for ancient astronomy and is still useful for computing the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. The heliocentric ecliptic system describes the planets' orbital movement around the Sun, and centers on the barycenter of the solar system (i.e. very close to the center
Celestial coordinate system
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of a comet tail despite its close approach to the Sun, but has since undergone non-gravitational acceleration, potentially consistent with a push from solar radiation pressure. It has significant elongation and rotation rate, so it is thought to be metal-rich with a relatively high density. ʻOumuamua is tumbling, rather than smoothly rotating, and is moving so fast relative to the Sun that there is no chance it originated in the Solar System. It also means that ʻOumuamua cannot be captured into a solar orbit, so it will eventually leave the Solar System and resume traveling through interstellar space. ʻOumuamua's system
ʻOumuamua
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conception of nature, with astrological overtones, could be thought of as an extreme extension of Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, with which it was more or less concurrent. In 1973 his small book “Cosmic Cybernetics: The Foundations of a Modern Astrology” was published by Ebertin-Verlag. Landsheidt’s climatology was based on the idea that solar activity is related to the motions of the Sun around the center of mass (barycenter) of the solar system. In 1989, Landscheidt forecast a period of sunspot minima after 1990, accompanied by increased cold, with a stronger minimum and more intense cold which should peak in 2030 His
Theodor Landscheidt
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three laws of planetary motion. First, he found that the orbits of the planets in our solar system are elliptical, not circular (or epicyclic), as had previously been believed, and that the Sun is not located at the center of the orbits, but rather at one focus. Second, he found that the orbital speed of each planet is not constant, as had previously been thought, but rather that the speed depends on the planet's distance from the Sun. Third, Kepler found a universal relationship between the orbital properties of all the planets orbiting the Sun. For the planets, the cubes
Orbit
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available at Google Play Store. Akaa Solar System Scale Model Akaa Solar System Scale Model is located at the center of the city of Akaa, Finland. The sun is located at the school campus of Toijalan Yhteiskoulu –school in Toijala district. The scale of the model is 1 : 3 000 000 000, meaning that each centimetre in the scale model represents 30 000 km in real life. The Sun is 464 mm in diameter and the Earth is 4 mm in diameter and located 49.86 meters away from the sun. Neptune is 1500 meters away from the Sun, for
Akaa Solar System Scale Model
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or any other astronomical object. In this sense, word "primary" is always used as a noun. The center of mass is the average position of all the objects weighed by mass. The Sun is so massive that the Solar System's barycenter lies very near the Sun's center. However, the gas giants are far enough from the Sun that the Solar System's barycenter can be outside the Sun, despite the Sun comprising most of the Solar System's mass. A disputed example of a system that may lack a primary is Pluto and its moon Charon. The barycenter of those two bodies
Primary (astronomy)
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KY Cygni KY Cygni is a red supergiant of spectral class M3.5Ia located in the constellation Cygnus. It is one of the largest and most luminous stars, with a luminosity about 300,000 or more times that of the Sun and a radius of over 1,000 times that of the Sun. If it was placed at the center of the Solar System, it would extend past the orbit of Jupiter (or Saturn). It is approximately 5,000 light-years away. KY Cyg lies near the bright open cluster NGC 6913, but is not thought to be a member. The location is close to
KY Cygni
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tends to divide historical actors into "good guys" who are on the side of truth (as is now known), and "bad guys" who opposed the emergence of these truths because of ignorance or bias. From this Whiggish perspective, Ptolemy would be criticized because his astronomical system placed the Earth at the center of the universe while Aristarchus would be praised because he placed the Sun at the center of the solar system. This kind of evaluation ignores historical background and the evidence that was available at a particular time: did Aristarchus have evidence to support his idea that the Sun
Whig history
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Solar core The core of the Sun is considered to extend from the center to about 0.2 to 0.25 of solar radius. It is the hottest part of the Sun and of the Solar System. It has a density of 150 g/cm (150 times the density of liquid water) at the center, and a temperature of 15 million kelvins (15 million degrees Celsius, 27 million degrees Fahrenheit). The core is made of hot, dense plasma (ions and electrons), at a pressure estimated at 265 billion bar (3.84 trillion psi or 26.5 petapascals (PPa)) at the center. Due to fusion, the
Solar core
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Model was built in 2017 by amateur astronomer Kari-Pekka Arola. A walking tour of Akaa Solar System Scale Model starts from the Sun and all the planets are located northbound from the Sun. The walking route goes through the center of Toijala and towards the port of Toijala, where the furthest dwarf planet in the scale model, Eris is located. All the planets and most notable dwarf planets are included in the scale model. The current location (140 AU) of Voyager 1 -spacecraft in relation to our solar system is also presented in the scale model (as the most distant
Akaa Solar System Scale Model
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man-made spacecraft) and the concrete pillar representing its location is at the center of the neighbouring town Viiala, approximately 7 km away from the Sun. The speed of light in the scale model is exactly 10 cm/second, so walking the 50-meter distance from the Earth to Sun "at light speed" takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds. In 2018 scale model of Proxima Centauri -star was added to Akaa Solar System Scale Model. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star and the nearest star to our Solar System. It is located 4.24 light-years away and in the model's scale it has
Akaa Solar System Scale Model
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a better understanding of neutrino oscillation. Solar core The core of the Sun is considered to extend from the center to about 0.2 to 0.25 of solar radius. It is the hottest part of the Sun and of the Solar System. It has a density of 150 g/cm (150 times the density of liquid water) at the center, and a temperature of 15 million kelvins (15 million degrees Celsius, 27 million degrees Fahrenheit). The core is made of hot, dense plasma (ions and electrons), at a pressure estimated at 265 billion bar (3.84 trillion psi or 26.5 petapascals (PPa)) at
Solar core
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of the Sun). The system is primarily used for computing the positions of planets and other solar system bodies, as well as defining their orbital elements. The galactic coordinate system uses the approximate plane of our galaxy as its fundamental plane. The solar system is still the center of the coordinate system, and the zero point is defined as the direction towards the galactic center. Galactic latitude resembles the elevation above the galactic plane and galactic longitude determines direction relative to the center of the galaxy. The supergalactic coordinate system corresponds to a fundamental plane that contains a higher than
Celestial coordinate system
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high-speed streams of solar wind are emitted from coronal holes at the photospheric surface. Both coronal-mass ejections and high-speed streams of solar wind carry plasma and interplanetary magnetic field outward into the Solar System. The effects of solar activity on Earth include auroras at moderate to high latitudes and the disruption of radio communications and electric power. Solar activity is thought to have played a large role in the formation and evolution of the Solar System. With solar-cycle modulation of sunspot number comes a corresponding modulation of space weather conditions, including those surrounding Earth where technological systems can be affected.
Sun
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the material from which the terrestrial planets, including the Earth, were formed. Chondritic uniform reservoir The CHondritic Uniform Reservoir or CHUR is a scientific model in astrophysics and geochemistry for the mean chemical composition of the part of the Solar Nebula from which, during the formation of the Solar System, chondrites formed. This hypothetical chemical reservoir is thought to have been similar in composition to the current photosphere of the Sun. When the Sun formed from its protostar, around 4.56 billion years ago, the solar wind blew all gas particles from the central part of the Solar Nebula. In this
Chondritic uniform reservoir
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Chondritic uniform reservoir The CHondritic Uniform Reservoir or CHUR is a scientific model in astrophysics and geochemistry for the mean chemical composition of the part of the Solar Nebula from which, during the formation of the Solar System, chondrites formed. This hypothetical chemical reservoir is thought to have been similar in composition to the current photosphere of the Sun. When the Sun formed from its protostar, around 4.56 billion years ago, the solar wind blew all gas particles from the central part of the Solar Nebula. In this way most lighter volatiles (e.g. hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon dioxide), that had
Chondritic uniform reservoir
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is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's development of a planetary system because the planets form from the accretion of "metals". The vast majority of the Solar System consists of a near-vacuum known as the interplanetary medium. Along with light, the Sun radiates a continuous stream of charged particles (a plasma) known as the solar wind. This stream of particles spreads outwards at roughly 1.5 million kilometres per hour, creating a tenuous atmosphere that permeates the interplanetary medium out to at least 100 AU "(see )". Activity on the Sun's surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass
Solar System
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the photosphere is normally considered representative of the composition of the primordial Solar System. The solar heavy-element abundances described above are typically measured both using spectroscopy of the Sun's photosphere and by measuring abundances in meteorites that have never been heated to melting temperatures. These meteorites are thought to retain the composition of the protostellar Sun and are thus not affected by settling of heavy elements. The two methods generally agree well. In the 1970s, much research focused on the abundances of iron-group elements in the Sun. Although significant research was done, until 1978 it was difficult to determine the
Sun
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the Sun's retinue of planets. Some planets will be destroyed, others ejected into interstellar space. Ultimately, over the course of tens of billions of years, it is likely that the Sun will be left with none of the original bodies in orbit around it. Ideas concerning the origin and fate of the world date from the earliest known writings; however, for almost all of that time, there was no attempt to link such theories to the existence of a "Solar System", simply because it was not generally thought that the Solar System, in the sense we now understand it, existed.
Formation and evolution of the Solar System
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shaped by two separate forces: the solar wind and the Sun's gravity. The limit of the solar wind's influence is roughly four times Pluto's distance from the Sun; this "heliopause", the outer boundary of the heliosphere, is considered the beginning of the interstellar medium. The Sun's Hill sphere, the effective range of its gravitational dominance, is thought to extend up to a thousand times farther and encompasses the theorized Oort cloud. The heliosphere is a stellar-wind bubble, a region of space dominated by the Sun, which radiates at roughly 400 km/s its solar wind, a stream of charged particles, until
Solar System
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the Sun's mass, the center of gravity of the solar system is displaced slightly away from the center of the Sun. (The masses of the planets, mostly Jupiter, amount to 0.14% of that of the Sun.) Therefore, a hypothetical astronomer on an extrasolar planet would observe a small "wobble" in the Sun's motion. In modern calculations, the terms "geocentric" and "heliocentric" are often used to refer to reference frames. In such systems the origin in the center of mass of the Earth, of the Earth–Moon system, of the Sun, of the Sun plus the major planets, or of the entire
Heliocentrism
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send many comets into the inner Solar System, producing collisions with potentially catastrophic implications for life on Earth. The intense radiation of the galactic centre could also interfere with the development of complex life. Even at the Solar System's current location, some scientists have speculated that recent supernovae may have adversely affected life in the last 35,000 years, by flinging pieces of expelled stellar core towards the Sun, as radioactive dust grains and larger, comet-like bodies. The Solar System is in the Local Interstellar Cloud or Local Fluff. It is thought to be near the neighbouring G-Cloud but it is
Solar System
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Formation and evolution of the Solar System The formation and evolution of the Solar System began 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed. This model, known as the nebular hypothesis was first developed in the 18th century by Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, and Pierre-Simon Laplace. Its subsequent development has interwoven a variety of scientific disciplines including
Formation and evolution of the Solar System
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Discovery and exploration of the Solar System Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation, visitation, and increase in knowledge and understanding of Earth's "cosmic neighborhood". This includes the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the major planets including Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, their satellites, as well as smaller bodies including comets, asteroids, and dust. For many thousands of years, astronomers maintained a geocentric world view and did not recognize the existence of a Solar System. Most believed Earth was stationary at the center of the Universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System
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center of mass of the solar system. After leaving the planetary region of the Solar System, the post-perihelion orbital period is estimated to be about 78,000 years with aphelion around 3,650 AU. In 2007 it became more than 30 AU from the Sun. C/1992 J1 C/1992 J1 is a comet that was discovered 1 May 1992 by David Rabinowitz of the Spacewatch Project. This was the first comet to be discovered using an automated system. Using a generic heliocentric (two-body) solution calculated near the time of perihelion (closest approach to the Sun), it is estimated to have an aphelion (Q)
C/1992 J1
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could have surface liquid water, and thus the capacity to harbor Earth-like life. Historically, heliocentrism (the doctrine that the Sun is the centre of the universe) was opposed to geocentrism (placing the Earth at the center of the universe). The notion of a heliocentric Solar System, with the Sun at the center, is possibly first suggested in the Vedic literature of ancient India, which often refer to the Sun as the "centre of spheres". Some interpret Aryabhatta's writings in Āryabhaṭīya as implicitly heliocentric. The idea was first proposed in Western philosophy and Greek astronomy as early as the 3rd century
Planetary system
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lighter and heavier rocks and metals, a high water ice and volatiles content (with less mechanical strength) in cooler regions of the Solar System, or primarily ices with a low rock/metal content even farther from the Sun. This continuum is thought to record the varying chemistries of the early Solar System, with refractories surviving in warm regions, and volatiles driven outward by the young Sun. The cores of planets are inaccessible, studied indirectly by seismometry, gravimetry, and in some cases magnetometry. However, iron and stony-iron meteorites are likely fragments from the cores of parent bodies which have partially or completely
Comparative planetary science
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Arinna Arinna was the major cult center of the Hittite sun goddess, (thought to be Arinniti) known as UTU "Arinna" "sun goddess of Arinna". Arinna was located near Hattusa, the Hittite capital.The name was also used as a substitute name for Arinniti. The sun goddess of Arinna is the most important one of three important solar deities of the Hittite pantheon, besides UTU "nepisas" - "the sun of the sky" and UTU "taknas" - "the sun of the earth". She was considered to be the chief deity in some source, in place of her husband. Her consort was the weather
Arinna
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Solar Quest Solar Quest is a monochrome vector arcade game created by Cinematronics in 1981. It was designed and programmed by Scott Boden, who previously worked on "Star Castle". It had a home release for the Vectrex system in 1982. The player controls a ship that can rotate to the left and right and thrust forward, similar to the better known "Asteroids", and like that game the player also has a "hail mary" device, hyperspace. In the center of the screen is the sun, which pulls objects into it, in a fashion similar to "Spacewar!". The screen wraps at the
Solar Quest
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Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process.<ref name="doi10.1146/annurev-astro-081913-040012"></ref> It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometers, or 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Roughly three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is
Sun
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Solar Energy Center both use parabolic troughs in a combined cycle with natural gas. The enclosed trough architecture encapsulates the solar thermal system within a greenhouse-like glasshouse. The glasshouse creates a protected environment to withstand the elements that can negatively impact reliability and efficiency of the solar thermal system. Lightweight curved solar-reflecting mirrors are suspended within the glasshouse structure. A single-axis tracking system positions the mirrors to track the sun and focus its light onto a network of stationary steel pipes, also suspended from the glasshouse structure. Steam is generated directly, using oil field-quality water, as water flows from the
Solar thermal energy
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measured the length of Earth's meridian arc. The scaphe is also known as a skaphe, scaphion (diminutive) or . Aristarchus of Samos (; , "Aristarkhos"; c. 310 – c. 230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it (see Solar system). He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. His astronomical ideas were often rejected
Scaphe
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with Hipparchus' discovery of precession. (Precession of the equinoxes is a slow motion of the place of the equinoxes through the zodiac, caused by the shifting of the Earth's axis). Hipparchus thought it was caused by the motion of the sphere of fixed stars. In the 3rd century BC, Aristarchus of Samos proposed an alternate cosmology (arrangement of the universe): a heliocentric model of the solar system, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe (hence he is sometimes known as the "Greek Copernicus"). His astronomical ideas were not well-received, however, and only a few
Ancient Greek astronomy
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Solar System The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as the five dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with
Solar System
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in Babylonian astronomy was likely intended as approximating the number of days in a solar year). The correction due to the division by the square root of reflects the fact that the Earth-Moon system is not orbiting the Sun itself, but the center of mass of the system. Isaac Newton himself determined a value of this constant which agreed with Gauss' value to six significant digits. Gauss (1809) gave the value with nine significant digits, as 3548.18761 arc seconds. Since all involved parameters, the orbital period, the Earth-to-Sun mass ratio, the semi-major axis and the length of the mean solar
Gaussian gravitational constant
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belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter. The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometre in diameter. Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of Earth. The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident. The outer region of the Solar System is home to the giant planets and their large
Solar System
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is read "Nebra" and implies the pharaoh's rule over the Sun (as a celestial body), which was indeed also under Horus' or Seth's control. Any solar religion or solar symbolism were not yet established in any useful form and it is now thought that king Nebra might actually have been the first king who adopted extended religious thought about the sun and the sky. The wife of Nebra is unknown. A “son of the king” and “priest of Sopdu” named "Perneb" might have been his son, but since the clay seals providing his name and titles were found in a
Nebra (Pharaoh)
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resembles illustrations in astronomy books of her period. The quilt shows the sun at the center, the eight planets of our solar system, with indicated orbits around the sun, as well as the asteroid belt. The pattern also indicates the myriad of stars that exist beyond our solar system. Earth's Moon, the Galilean moons of Jupiter, as well as a number of moons for Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus are included, as are Saturn's rings. A comet with its very eccentric orbit is also included, perhaps meant to be Halley's comet, which had last been seen in 1835. The quilt is
Ellen Harding Baker
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position of the Solar System's barycenter, a result achieved mainly by combining only the masses of Jupiter and the Sun. "Science Program" stated in reference to his work: The Sun wobbles as it rotates around the galactic center, dragging the Solar System and Earth along with it. What mathematician Kepler did in arriving at his three famous equations was curve-fit the apparent motions of the planets using Tycho Brahe's data, and "not" curve-fitting their true circular motions about the Sun (see Figure). Both Robert Hooke and Newton were well aware that Newton's "Law of Universal Gravitation" did not hold for
N-body problem
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Heliocentrism Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but at least in the medieval world, Aristarchus's heliocentrism attracted little attention—possibly because of the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era. It was not until the 16th century that a mathematical model of a heliocentric system was presented, by
Heliocentrism
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the present day and have been central to the evolution of the Solar System. The positions of the planets might have shifted due to gravitational interactions. This planetary migration is now thought to have been responsible for much of the Solar System's early evolution. In roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will cool and expand outward to many times its current diameter (becoming a red giant), before casting off its outer layers as a planetary nebula and leaving behind a stellar remnant known as a white dwarf. In the far distant future, the gravity of passing stars will gradually reduce
Formation and evolution of the Solar System
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Cloud or the Gould Belt, at a distance of 7.5–8.5 kpc (25,000–28,000 light-years) from the Galactic Center. The Sun is contained within the Local Bubble, a space of rarefied hot gas, possibly produced by the supernova remnant Geminga, or multiple supernovae in subgroup B1 of the Pleiades moving group. The distance between the local arm and the next arm out, the Perseus Arm, is about 6,500 light-years. The Sun, and thus the Solar System, is found in what scientists call the galactic habitable zone. The "Apex of the Sun's Way", or the solar apex, is the direction that the Sun
Sun
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stored and used when the sun is not shining. The Audubon Environmental Center at the Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in Los Angeles has an example solar air conditioning installation, which failed fairly soon after commissioning and is no longer being maintained. The Southern California Gas Co. (The Gas Company) is also testing the practicality of solar thermal cooling systems at their Energy Resource Center (ERC) in Downey, California. Solar Collectors from Sopogy and Cogenra were installed on the rooftop at the ERC and are producing cooling for the building’s air conditioning system. Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates
Solar air conditioning
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nearly the same now as they did hundreds of years ago. However, precise long-term observations show that the constellations change shape, albeit very slowly, and that each star has an independent motion. This motion is caused by the movement of the stars relative to the Sun and Solar System. The Sun travels in a nearly circular orbit (the "solar circle") about the center of the Milky Way at a speed of about 220 km/s at a radius of from the center, which can be taken as the rate of rotation of the Milky Way itself at this radius. The proper
Proper motion
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system. In a closed system such as the cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun was formed, mass and angular momentum are both conserved. That conservation would imply that as the mass concentrated in the center of the cloud to form the Sun, it would spin faster, much like a skater pulling their arms in. The high speed of rotation predicted by early theories would have flung the proto-Sun apart before it could have formed. However, magnetohydrodynamic effects transfer the Sun's angular momentum into the outer solar system, slowing its rotation. Breakdown of ideal MHD (in the form
Magnetohydrodynamics
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imagery, and sorted by volume. Some omitted objects are larger than the ones included here, notably Eris, because these have not been imaged in high quality. Solar System The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as the five dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System formed
Solar System
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Distant minor planet A distant minor planet, or "distant object", is any minor planet found beyond Jupiter in the outer Solar System that is not commonly thought of as an "asteroid". The umbrella term is used by IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), which is responsible for the identification, designation and orbit computation of these objects. , the MPC maintains 3497 distant objects in its data base. Most distant minor planets are trans-Neptunian objects and centaurs, while relatively few are damocloids, Neptune trojans or Uranus trojans. All distant objects have a semi-major axis (average distance from the Sun) greater than 6
Distant minor planet
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Domenico Cassini later discovered four more moons of Saturn and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. Edmond Halley realised in 1705 that repeated sightings of a comet were recording the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets orbited the Sun. Around this time (1704), the term "Solar System" first appeared in English. In 1781, William Herschel was looking for binary stars in the constellation of Taurus when he observed what he thought was a new comet. Its orbit revealed that it was a new planet, Uranus, the first
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System
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now termed ice giants. Jupiter's mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined—this is so massive that its barycenter with the Sun lies above the Sun's surface at 1.068 solar radii from the Sun's center. Jupiter is much larger than Earth and considerably less dense: its volume is that of about 1,321 Earths, but it is only 318 times as massive. Jupiter's radius is about 1/10 the radius of the Sun, and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of the Sun, so the densities of the two bodies are similar. A "Jupiter
Jupiter
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the largest satellite system, the Jovian system, with 79 known moons (including the large Galilean moons) and the Saturnian System with 62 known moons (and the most visible ring system in the Solar System). Both satellite systems are large and diverse. In fact all of the giant planets of the Solar System possess large satellite systems as well as planetary rings, and it is inferred that this is a general pattern. Several objects farther from the Sun also have satellite systems consisting of multiple moons, including the complex Plutonian system where multiple objects orbit a common center of mass, as
Satellite system (astronomy)
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(comets, asteroids, trans-Neptunians, etc.), as well as some abstract concepts (like the Termination Shock zone). Because of the existence of many small bodies in the real Solar System, the model can always be further increased. The Sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe (Globen), Stockholm, which is the largest hemispherical building in the world, 110 m in diameter. To respect the scale, the globe represents the Sun including its corona. Sweden Solar System The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest permanent scale model of the Solar System. The Sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, the largest
Sweden Solar System
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thought that, during the Solar System's formation, Mars was created as the result of a stochastic process of run-away accretion of material from the protoplanetary disk that orbited the Sun. Mars has many distinctive chemical features caused by its position in the Solar System. Elements with comparatively low boiling points, such as chlorine, phosphorus, and sulphur, are much more common on Mars than Earth; these elements were probably pushed outward by the young Sun's energetic solar wind. After the formation of the planets, all were subjected to the so-called "Late Heavy Bombardment". About 60% of the surface of Mars shows
Mars
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The migration of the outer planets is a scenario proposed to explain some of the orbital properties of the bodies in the Solar System's outermost regions. Beyond Neptune, the Solar System continues into the Kuiper belt, the scattered disc, and the Oort cloud, three sparse populations of small icy bodies thought to be the points of origin for most observed comets. At their distance from the Sun, accretion was too slow to allow planets to form before the solar nebula dispersed, because the initial disc lacked enough mass density to consolidate into a planet. The Kuiper belt lies between 30
Planetary migration
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becoming significantly more—or less—elliptical. In calculation, the unknowns include asteroids, the solar quadrupole moment, mass loss from the Sun through radiation and solar wind, drag of solar wind on planetary magnetospheres, galactic tidal forces, and effects from passing stars. Furthermore, the equations of motion describe a process that is inherently serial, so there is little to be gained from using massively parallel computers. The Neptune–Pluto system lies in a 3:2 orbital resonance. C.J. Cohen and E.C. Hubbard at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division discovered this in 1965. Although the resonance itself will remain stable in the short term,
Stability of the Solar System
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known as the heliosphere. The heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium; it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. The Solar System is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System. Most people
Solar System
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green stripes at the ends, representing the territories of Aibonito and Barranquitas; and a blue one in the center representing the regional domain of the cacique Orocobix prior to the Spanish colonization. These stripes are divided by two narrower white stripes, representing the territories granted by Barranquitas and Morovis to form the municipality in 1825. Over the blue portion there's an oval with a sun. The sun has seventeen rays that represent the different regions of the town. The sun, being the center of our solar system, represents Orocovis as the center of the island of Puerto Rico. The oval
Orocovis, Puerto Rico
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a rotating star map. The term should not be confused with "astronomical regulator", a high precision but otherwise ordinary pendulum clock used in observatories. Astronomical clocks usually represent the solar system using the geocentric model. The center of the dial is often marked with a disc or sphere representing the earth, located at the center of the solar system. The sun is often represented by a golden sphere (as it initially appeared in the Antikythera Mechanism, back in the 2nd century BC), shown rotating around the earth once a day around a 24-hour analog dial. This view accorded both with
Astronomical clock
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the first time a comet had been seen to do so, but astronomers soon found that almost every comet they looked at was emitting X-rays. The emission from Hyakutake was brightest in a crescent shape surrounding the nucleus with the ends of the crescent pointing away from the Sun. The cause of the X-ray emission is thought to be a combination of two mechanisms. Interactions between energetic solar wind particles and cometary material evaporating from the nucleus is likely to contribute significantly to this effect. Reflection of solar X-rays is seen in other Solar System objects such as the Moon,
Comet Hyakutake
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Tau Ceti in fiction The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in much science fiction. Tau Ceti is the second closest spectral class G star to the Sun (after Alpha Centauri A), making it a popular story setting or system of origin in science fiction tales. The Sun, itself of spectral class G, provides an obvious model for the possibility that the star might harbor worlds capable of supporting life. But Tau Ceti, weighing in at ~0.78 , is metal-poor and so is thought to be unlikely to host rocky
Tau Ceti in fiction
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may leave the Solar System. Such comets follow the open path of a hyperbola, and as such they are called hyperbolic comets. To date, comets are only known to be ejected by interacting with another object in the Solar System, such as Jupiter. An example of this is thought to be Comet C/1980 E1, which was shifted from a predicted orbit of 7.1 million years around the Sun, to a hyperbolic trajectory, after a 1980 close pass by the planet Jupiter. Jupiter-family comets and long-period comets appear to follow very different fading laws. The JFCs are active over a lifetime
Comet
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(82158) 2001 FP185 , provisional designation , is a highly eccentric trans-Neptunian object from the scattered disc in the outermost part of the Solar System, approximately 330 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 26 March 2001, by American astronomer Marc Buie at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, United States. is a scattered-disc object which belong to the most distant and coldest objects in the Solar System and are thought to be source of most periodic comets. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 34.3–420.2 AU once every 3425 years and 4 months (1,251,096 days). Its orbit has
(82158) 2001 FP185
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1800s, from which properties of the solar atmosphere could be determined, while the creation of daguerreotypy led to the first solar photographs on 2 April 1845. Photography assisted in the study of solar prominences, granulation and spectroscopy. Early in the 20th century, interest in astrophysics surged in America. A number of new observatories were built with solar telescopes around the world. The 1931 invention of the coronagraph allowed the corona to be studied in full daylight. The Sun is a star located at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma and
Solar phenomena
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Copernicus proposed his heliocentric system, with the Earth in revolution around the Sun, it was possible to build a model of the whole Solar System without scale. To ascertain the scale, it is necessary only to measure one distance within the Solar System, e.g., the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (now called an astronomical unit, or AU). When found by triangulation, this is referred to as the "solar parallax", the difference in position of the Sun as seen from the Earth's centre and a point one Earth radius away, i. e., the angle subtended at the Sun
Parallax
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effect can be quite significant: up to 90% of all comets originating from the Oort cloud may be the result of the galactic tide. Statistical models of the observed orbits of long-period comets argue that the galactic tide is the principal means by which their orbits are perturbed toward the inner Solar System. Besides the galactic tide, the main trigger for sending comets into the inner Solar System is thought to be interaction between the Sun's Oort cloud and the gravitational fields of nearby stars or giant molecular clouds. The orbit of the Sun through the plane of the Milky
Oort cloud
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The Black Cloud The Black Cloud is a science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. Published in 1957, the book details the arrival of an enormous cloud of gas that enters the solar system and appears about to destroy most of the life on Earth by blocking the Sun's radiation. In 1964, astrophysicists on Earth become aware of a cloud of gas and dust, initially thought to be a Bok globule, that is heading for the solar system. The cloud, if interposed between the Sun and the Earth, could wipe out most of the life on Earth by blocking
The Black Cloud
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the formation of more complex molecules, which are thought to be tholins, and may form the basis for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cyanopolyynes and their derivatives. Remarkably, negative ions such as these have previously been shown to enhance the production of larger organic molecules in molecular clouds beyond our Solar System, a similarity which highlights the possible wider relevance of Titan's negative ions. Energy from the Sun should have converted all traces of methane in Titan's atmosphere into more complex hydrocarbons within 50 million years — a short time compared to the age of the Solar System. This suggests that methane
Atmosphere of Titan
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Ecliptic coordinate system The ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions and orbits of Solar System objects. Because most planets (except Mercury) and many small Solar System bodies have orbits with slight inclinations to the ecliptic, using it as the fundamental plane is convenient. The system's origin can be the center of either the Sun or Earth, its primary direction is towards the vernal (northward) equinox, and it has a right-hand convention. It may be implemented in spherical or rectangular coordinates. The celestial equator and the ecliptic are slowly moving due to
Ecliptic coordinate system
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hypothesis is that comet nuclei are resurfaced as they approach the Sun by subsurface materials which subsequently bury the older material. Scattered disc The scattered disc (or scattered disk) is a distant circumstellar disc in the Solar System that is sparsely populated by icy small solar system bodies, which are a subset of the broader family of trans-Neptunian objects. The scattered-disc objects (SDOs) have orbital eccentricities ranging as high as 0.8, inclinations as high as 40°, and perihelia greater than . These extreme orbits are thought to be the result of gravitational "scattering" by the gas giants, and the objects
Scattered disc
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between Jupiter and Neptune, being the intermediate stage in an object's migration from the disc to the inner Solar System. Eventually, perturbations from the giant planets send such objects towards the Sun, transforming them into periodic comets. Many objects of the proposed Oort cloud are also thought to have originated in the scattered disc. Detached objects are not sharply distinct from scattered disc objects, and some such as Sedna have sometimes been considered to be included in this group. Traditionally, devices like a blink comparator were used in astronomy to detect objects in the Solar System, because these objects would
Scattered disc
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apparent motions of stars other than the Sun.) By the 1950s it had become clear that the Earth's rotation rate was not constant, so astronomers developed ephemeris time, a time scale based on the positions of solar system bodies in their orbits. The apparent sun is the true sun as seen by an observer on Earth. Apparent solar time or true solar time is based on the apparent motion of the actual Sun. It is based on the apparent solar day, the interval between two successive returns of the Sun to the local meridian. Solar time can be crudely measured
Solar time
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Heliocentric orbit A heliocentric orbit (also called circumsolar orbit) is an orbit around the barycenter of the Solar System, which is usually located within or very near the surface of the Sun. All planets, comets, and asteroids in the Solar System, and the Sun itself are in such orbits, as are many artificial probes and pieces of debris. The moons of planets in the Solar System, by contrast, are not in heliocentric orbits, as they orbit their respective planet (although the Moon has a convex orbit around the Sun). The barycenter of the Solar System, while always very near the
Heliocentric orbit
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Orbiter Mission. Heliocentric orbit A heliocentric orbit (also called circumsolar orbit) is an orbit around the barycenter of the Solar System, which is usually located within or very near the surface of the Sun. All planets, comets, and asteroids in the Solar System, and the Sun itself are in such orbits, as are many artificial probes and pieces of debris. The moons of planets in the Solar System, by contrast, are not in heliocentric orbits, as they orbit their respective planet (although the Moon has a convex orbit around the Sun). The barycenter of the Solar System, while always very
Heliocentric orbit
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the Earth–Moon system, whereas the orbit of a quasi-satellite would negligibly change if Earth and the Moon were suddenly removed because a quasi-satellite is orbiting the Sun on an Earth-like orbit in the vicinity of Earth. Earth possesses one known trojan, a small Solar System body caught in the planet's gravitationally stable Lagrangian point. This object, is roughly 300 metres across. Like quasi-satellites, it orbits the Sun in a 1:1 resonance with Earth, rather than Earth itself. On 14 September 2006, an object estimated at 5 meters in diameter was discovered in near-polar orbit around Earth. Originally thought to be
Claimed moons of Earth
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LBV 1806-20 LBV 1806-20 is a candidate luminous blue variable (LBV) and likely binary star located around 50,000 light-years from the Sun, towards the center of the Milky Way. It has an estimated mass of around 36 solar masses and an estimated variable luminosity of around two million to five million times that of the Sun. It is highly luminous but is invisible from the Solar System at visual wavelengths because less than one billionth of its visible light reaches us. When first discovered, LBV 1806-20 was considered both the most luminous and most massive star known, challenging our understanding
LBV 1806-20
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their mass, orbit, and distance from the Sun, with a possibly significant contribution from comets. The Sun, which comprises nearly all the matter in the Solar System, is composed of roughly 98% hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn, which comprise nearly all the remaining matter, are also primarily composed of hydrogen and helium. A composition gradient exists in the Solar System, created by heat and light pressure from the Sun; those objects closer to the Sun, which are more affected by heat and light pressure, are composed of elements with high melting points. Objects farther from the Sun are composed
Solar System
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appears to be applying pressure. Energetic particles originating in the Solar System declined by nearly half, while the detection of high-energy electrons from outside increases 100-fold. The inner edge of the stagnation region is located approximately 113 astronomical units from the Sun. In 2013 it was thought "Voyager 1" crossed the heliopause and entered interstellar space on August 25, 2012 at distance of 121 AU from the Sun, making it the first known human-manufactured object to do so. , the probe was moving with a relative velocity to the Sun of about 16.95 km/s (3.58 AU/year). If it does not
Interstellar probe
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nearly 10,000 students. The SLI and the Real Goods Store are both headquartered at the Solar Living Center (SLC), a strawbale building surrounded by of permaculture gardens in Hopland, California. The building was designed using passive solar principles and requires little additional heat or light, and the gardens are laid out in a pattern similar to that of U.S. climate zones. In 2000, Real Goods installed a commercial solar system at the SLC that produces 160,000 kW-hours of electricity annually. Opened in 1996, the SLC serves as a “place in the sun” for everyone interested in sustainable living. Approximately 200,000
Real Goods Solar
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announced the discovery of Eris in 2005, a scattered disc object initially thought to be larger than Pluto, which would make it the largest object discovered in orbit around the Sun since Neptune. "New Horizons"' fly-by of Pluto in July 2015 resulted in more-accurate measurements of Pluto, which is slightly larger, though less massive, than Eris. Since the start of the Space Age, a great deal of exploration has been performed by robotic spacecraft missions that have been organized and executed by various space agencies. All planets in the Solar System have now been visited to varying degrees by spacecraft
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System
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Neptune's migration, a slow sweeping of mean-motion resonances removes the higher-eccentricity objects from the cold belt, truncating its eccentricity distribution. Being distant from the Sun and major planets, Kuiper belt objects are thought to be relatively unaffected by the processes that have shaped and altered other Solar System objects; thus, determining their composition would provide substantial information on the makeup of the earliest Solar System. Due to their small size and extreme distance from Earth, the chemical makeup of KBOs is very difficult to determine. The principal method by which astronomers determine the composition of a celestial object is spectroscopy.
Kuiper belt
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Scattered disc The scattered disc (or scattered disk) is a distant circumstellar disc in the Solar System that is sparsely populated by icy small solar system bodies, which are a subset of the broader family of trans-Neptunian objects. The scattered-disc objects (SDOs) have orbital eccentricities ranging as high as 0.8, inclinations as high as 40°, and perihelia greater than . These extreme orbits are thought to be the result of gravitational "scattering" by the gas giants, and the objects continue to be subject to perturbation by the planet Neptune. Although the closest scattered-disc objects approach the Sun at about 30–35
Scattered disc
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the Earth, but not as a location in space or the center of a planetary system. "There follow references to Vega as a location in space or the center of a planetary system, categorized by genre:" Vega is referred to as a location in space or the center of a planetary system unusually often in fiction. For a list containing many stars and planetary systems that have a less extensive list of references, see Stars and planetary systems in fiction. Vega in fiction The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and its solar system are a staple element
Vega in fiction
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Sweden Solar System The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest permanent scale model of the Solar System. The Sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, the largest hemispherical building in the world. The inner planets can also be found in Stockholm but the outer planets are situated northward in other cities along the Baltic Sea. The system was started by Nils Brenning and Gösta Gahm and is on the scale of 1:20 million. The bodies represented in this model include the Sun, the planets (and some of their moons), dwarf planets and many types of small bodies
Sweden Solar System
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Solar eclipse of November 21, 1862 A partial solar eclipse occurred on June 27, 1862 during spring. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions of the Earth when the center of the Moon's shadow misses the Earth. As is shown under 6% obscuration, the center of the Moon's shadow was missed by about 2,670 km above the area (68 S) south of the Antarctic Circle. It was the first of
Solar eclipse of November 21, 1862
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India. Parts of the northern portion by the Equator was largely blocked by clouds due to the monsoon season. Solar eclipse of June 27, 1862 A partial solar eclipse occurred on June 27, 1862 during winter. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions of the Earth when the center of the Moon's shadow misses the Earth. As is shown over 92% obscuration, the center of the Moon's shadow was missed
Solar eclipse of June 27, 1862
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Solar eclipse of June 27, 1862 A partial solar eclipse occurred on June 27, 1862 during winter. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions of the Earth when the center of the Moon's shadow misses the Earth. As is shown over 92% obscuration, the center of the Moon's shadow was missed by about 250 km (150 mi) above the Antarctic Circle. It was the first of three partial eclipses that
Solar eclipse of June 27, 1862
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weeks, alternating between lunar eclipses and solar eclipses. The Hill sphere, or the sphere of gravitational influence, of the Earth is about in radius. This is the maximum distance at which the Earth's gravitational influence is stronger than the more distant Sun and planets. Objects must orbit the Earth within this radius, or they can become unbound by the gravitational perturbation of the Sun. Earth, along with the Solar System, is situated in the Milky Way and orbits about 28,000 light-years from its center. It is about 20 light-years above the galactic plane in the Orion Arm. The axial tilt
Earth
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other bodies orbiting the Sun. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%. The remaining objects of the Solar System (including the four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) together comprise less than 0.002% of the Solar System's total mass. Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's
Solar System
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surface of the Sun. Eugene Parker Eugene Newman Parker (born June 10, 1927) is an American solar astrophysicist who—in the mid-1950s—developed the theory of the supersonic solar wind and predicted the Parker spiral shape of the solar magnetic field in the outer solar system. In 1987, Parker proposed that the solar corona might be heated by myriad tiny "nanoflares", miniature brightenings resembling solar flares that would occur all over the surface of the Sun. Parker spent four years at the University of Utah and has been at the University of Chicago since 1955, where he has held positions in the
Eugene Parker
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case, the distance from the center of the primary to the barycenter, "r", is given by: where : The following table sets out some examples from the Solar System. Figures are given rounded to three significant figures. The term primary–secondary is used to distinguish between involved participants; with the larger called "the primary", and the smaller called "the secondary". If — which is true for the Sun and any planet — then the ratio approximates to: Hence, the barycenter of the Sun–planet system will lie outside the Sun only if: That is, where the planet is massive "and" far from
Barycenter
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the center in late 2002, and its completion in 2003. The facility was powered, in part, by a fuel cell and a micro turbine, which turned natural gas into electricity. In addition, the building's photovoltaic solar roof tiles harnessed the solar power generated by the sun to create useful energy. MAREC then used a nickel metal hydride battery system to store some of the energy produced by these sources for use during peak energy consumption periods. The building was also constructed using many alternative and renewable building materials including flooring surfaces produced from fast-growing bamboo and recycled tires, and rigid
Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center
864346
the geocentric view than Newtonian physics does, relativity is not geocentric. Rather, relativity states that the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, Jupiter, or any other point for that matter could be chosen as a center of the solar system with equal validity. For this reason Robert Sungenis, a modern geocentrist, spent much of Volume I of his book "Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right" critiquing and trying to unravel the Special and General theories of Relativity. Relativity agrees with Newtonian predictions that regardless of whether the Sun or the Earth are chosen arbitrarily as the center of the coordinate
Geocentric model
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Galactocentrism In astronomy, Galactocentrism is the theory that the Milky Way Galaxy, home of Earths Solar System, is at or near the center of the Universe. Observations by William Herschel in 1785 suggested that the Milky Way was a disk-shaped galaxy with the sun in a central position. Although heliocentric, Herschel's observations were the first attempt at an observational cosmology. Herschel's heliocentric theory was overthrown by astronomer Harlow Shapley's work on globular clusters in 1918. Shapley's research marked the transition from heliocentrism to galactocentrism, placing the Galactic Center of the Milky Way Galaxy far away from the sun, towards Sagittarius.
Galactocentrism
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Kreutz sungrazer The Kreutz sungrazers (, pronounced kroits) are a family of sungrazing comets, characterized by orbits taking them extremely close to the Sun at perihelion. They are believed to be fragments of one large comet that broke up several centuries ago and are named for German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first demonstrated that they were related. A Kreutz sungrazers's aphelion is about 170 AU from the Sun; these sungrazers make their way from the distant outer Solar System from a patch in the sky in Canis Major, to the inner Solar System, to their perihelion point near the Sun,
Kreutz sungrazer