The Solar System

1. The Sun
2. Planets
3. Dwarf Planets
4. Moons
5. Moonlets
6. Planetoids
7. Asteroids
8. Comets
9. Meteoroids
10. Dust
11. Space Junk
12. Satellites
13. Ring systems
14. Gas
15. Neutrinos

The sun is the source of light and heat in our solar system. It is a star located at the center of the solar system, and its energy is essential for sustaining life on Earth.

Solar systems are formed by nebulae. The larger pieces of dust and other materials attract the smaller ones, get bigger, and attract even more pieces of random things, and so on, until a star and sometimes planets are eventually formed.

The name "green dwarf" is not typically used in astronomy to describe a type of star. Stars are classified based on their spectral characteristics which determine their color. Common types include red dwarfs, white dwarfs, and brown dwarfs, but not green dwarfs.

The largest star in our solar system is the Sun. It makes up about 99.8% of the total mass in the solar system and is responsible for providing light and energy to sustain life on Earth. It is classified as a G-type main-sequence star.

Most of the material from the protoplanetary disk that formed our solar system ended up in the Sun and the eight planets, along with various moons, asteroids, and comets. The inner planets are made mostly of rock and metal, while the outer planets are composed mostly of gases and ice.

Constellations and the visible stars would invert (stars visible over the southern hemisphere would be visible over the nothern hemisphere and vice-versa), the sun would rise in the 'west' and set in the 'east' (inverse of its presently observed track), the seasons would flip (summer in North America would become winter, etc.)

The dust cloud theory was first proposed by astronomers Fred Whipple and Jan Oort in the 1950s. They suggested that comets originate from a cloud of icy bodies located at the outer reaches of the solar system, now known as the Oort Cloud.

Solar cycles are typically around 11 years long, determined by the sun's magnetic activity. These cycles consist of periods of high and low sunspot activity, impacting phenomena such as solar flares and the aurora borealis.

Pluto was ranked down to a dwarf planet in 2006

Water condensed on Mars during the solar system formation. First there was only a planetesimal version of Mars, a little core which accreted material from the surrounding solar nebula thus growing bigger and bigger with time. Hydrogen, Helium, Carbon and Oxygen were amongst the most abundant species. Being one of the simpler polyatomic molecules, H2O was abundant too and Mars had water on it from the beginning of its existence. Most of the water was lost from Mars' atmosphere into space later in its evolution and now all that remains is frozen water (ice) near the poles.

Today the only way to get water to Mars would be to bring it from Earth or somewhere else and drop it there. Fluid water could be produced by melting the polar caps but today's science is far away from doing any terraforming on that scale.

Solar panels cannot generate electricity at night because they require sunlight to produce electricity through the photovoltaic effect. However, batteries or other storage systems can store excess electricity generated during the day for use at night.

Because Jupiter has the most moons (62) and is the most massive planet in our solar system. So it can be a thought of like a central body or star, and its moons can be though of Planets that orbit this central body or Star.

If Earth had such an extreme elliptical orbit, it would face significant challenges for sustaining life. At a million miles from the sun, the planet would suffer from extreme heat, potentially leading to the evaporation of oceans and the destruction of the atmosphere. Conversely, at a light year from the sun, Earth would freeze due to lack of solar radiation, making it uninhabitable.

Earth is the only planet in our solar system known to support life as we know it, due to its unique combination of liquid water, atmosphere, and moderate temperatures. It also has a diverse range of ecosystems and environmental conditions that make it ideal for supporting a wide variety of organisms.

There are no specific laws regarding the destruction of planets. There is the United Nations' Outer Space Treaty, which claims space as the province of all mankind, and not subject to claims by any one nation. Technically, this treaty might suggest that attacking a planet would be an assault on all mankind, but who is going to enforce the claim against somebody who can destroy a planet?

There are, however, treaties concerning the placement of weapons of mass destruction in space. The Outer Space Treaty and the SALT II treaties prohibit placing WMD's on space platforms. They do, however, permit the use of conventional weapons and Kinetic Energy Weapons (KEW's).

A KEW is basically a rock or projectile without a warhead dropped from high orbit that relies on gravity to accelerate it to extremely high speeds, giving them enough energy on impact to explode with the force of a nuclear weapon. A sufficiently large KEW could destroy a planet without much trouble. In fact, it would be a lot cheaper and easier than lofting enough nukes to do the job.

There are two different ways in which a star can die,

Firstly, small stars, they cool and become white dwarfs. Nothing spectacular.

Secondly, large stars. This is more interesting. If a star is big enough and it forms a red giant, then there are two ways it can die. Firstly, the outer layer cools and dissipates away, leaving the core. This is called a neutron star and it is extremely dense, so much so that a piece the size of a marble would weigh 1 billion tonnes.

Secondly, if the red giant is big enough, then it explodes, this is called a supernova, leaving a dust cloud where it was, this cloud is called a nebula which then goes on to form new stars and planets. Alternatively, if the star is big enough, after the supernova, there will be a black hole left in its place. What a black hole is, well, that's another question for you to ask :-)

The term "galaxy" typically refers to a large system of stars, gas, and dust, while a "solar system" refers specifically to our own system, with the Sun and its planets. There are no small galaxies within our solar system since galaxies are much larger in scale compared to solar systems.

The Maya civilization in Mesoamerica had a complicated calendar system that incorporated cycles of the sun, moon, and Venus. They developed a detailed calendar known as the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar which accurately tracked time over long periods and highlighted their understanding of astronomical cycles.

Tax credits. There is also the feeling they get from "doing something" about the environment, and the value of a solar panel as a discussion piece that lets them point out to their neighbors that they are doing something.

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.

Triton is extremely cold because it is located far from the sun in our solar system, receiving very little solar energy. Additionally, its thick atmosphere helps trap heat and create extreme cold temperatures.

I assume you're asking about the criteria for being a "planet" as opposed to a "dwarf planet":

In the Solar System, these boil down to:

1. is in orbit about the Sun

Yes, Pluto orbits the Sun (or at least the barycenter of the Solar System as a whole, which is probably a better definition)

2. is in hydrostatic equilibrium

True as far as we can tell, and we don't have any reason to believe it's NOT in hydrostatic equilibrium, since it's larger and more massive than several other objects that we know are in hydrostatic equilibrium. (By the way, in layman's terms, "hydrostatic equilibrium" = "more or less spherical".)

3. has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

Pluto massively fails this one, since its orbit crosses Neptune's. This is the controversial part of the definition, by the way: has Neptune not "cleared its orbit" because of Pluto? Has Jupiter not "cleared its orbit" because of the Trojan asteroids? It basically comes down to "if your orbit crosses that of a body significantly larger than yourself, you're not a planet."

It originally made sense to call Pluto a planet, because we thought it was a lot bigger than it turns out to actually be (As late as the early 1970s, you can find estimates of Pluto's size indicating that it was thought to be at least the size of Mars, and possibly as large as Earth.)

We now know that not only is Pluto considerably smaller than the Moon, there are bodies of approximately the same size, or even larger, out there in roughly similar orbits. So it really makes sense to recategorize it as something similar to a large asteroid, such as Ceres, which is in fact what the IAU has done.

Planets outside our solar system are called exoplanets. Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered orbiting other stars in the Milky Way galaxy. They come in a variety of sizes and compositions, and many are quite different from the planets in our own solar system.

It was not kicked out of the solar system. It was downgraded to a dwarf planet. Dwarf planets and lesser items, like asteroids and comets, are all part of the solar system. Pluto was downgraded on the 24th of August 2006.