The solar system consists of the sun, the planets and their moons, and several smaller objects which revolve around the sun.
- The characteristic of the solar system in which everything revolves around the sun is called heliocentrism.
- There are two types of planets- the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars), which are all small, dense, and rocky; and the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), which are all large, massive, and lack solid surfaces.
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- The solar system was formed when gravity drew in a cloud of gases and dust. Collisions caused larger particles to stick together, and when this process continued, planets could form. Gravity helped the clumps to stay together. The solar system is also held together by gravity.
- The moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago, when the Earth and another planetoid collided, throwing debris into space. This debris eventually, with the help of gravity, coalesced into the Moon.
- The moon's surfaced is covered in many interesting features, including:
- Valleys
- Craters
- Mountains
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- Rotation is the process in which the Earth spins about its axis and takes one day.
- Revolution is one turn around the Sun and takes one year
- Orbit is the path that revolution follows
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- The Earth and Moon are kept in orbit by inertia and gravity.
- The gravity of Earth pulls the moon toward it. Inertia helps keep it moving around rather than travelling in a straight line. The same is true for Earth and the Sun.
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- Comets are made of ice and rocks, with a tail made of dust and ice particles.
- Asteroids are mainly found in the Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars.
- Meteors are small metallic or rocky bodies hurtling through space, which, upon entering Earth's atmosphere, burn up into a "shooting star"
- Meteors come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, as they are the remnants from previous collisions of asteroids.