The solar system is a term given to the area of space which is near to the sun. The distance of the outer limit of the solar system is believed to be about 10 billion kilometers from the sun. It is likely that to represent the solar system correctly, it's limit is closer to 10,000 billion kilometers from the sun. It is conceivable considering expanding electric wave fronts that the limits of our solar system extend beyond our imagination.

There are four main bodies of matter which make up the classical solar system. They are the sun, planets astrobodies, and comets.

Our classical solar system consists of the sun and nine orbiting planets. They are in order from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Neptune and pluto change positions. Some of the planets have other bodies called moons which orbit the planet.

All the sun's orbiting bodies make up the solar system. The limits of the orbiting bodies make the limits of the system. Therefore, the maximum distance of the physical solar system has not been truly determined, because some comets path are hyperbolic and may be very large, it is possible that some comets have not yet returned, therefore these comets have not yet been tracked.

Planets: and their subplanets called moons are the earliest known major bodies in the solar system. Primitive peoples knew about the sun, and moon because they could see them. It was not until the Egyptians and Greeks did people even concieve there may be an earth. In time, it was figured out that something in the sky was going on at a regular interval. To earily humans, this interval looked like the body was going around the earth. Copernicus was the one who said it was the bodies going around the sun in orbits. Galileo maped the bodies movement and Newton put mathmatics behind it and even then, many didn't want to believe.

Mercury, pictured to the right, is the first planet in the solar system from the sun. Mercury is very small and because of its location with respect to the sun, it can not be seen without a telescope. Additionally, even with a telescope it requires intense filtering in order not to be blinded by the sun when looked at it through a telescope. The best way to see the planet is fly buy it. In the picture to the right, NASA used Mariner 10 to gather these pictures. These pictures show mercury to be a desolate pitted rock which has similar visual characteristics as the earth's moon. The surface is very hot almost without an atmospher.

Venus, to the left, is called the morning star or evening star depending on when you see it. Venus is the second planet from the sun and it is the brightest planet that can be seen without a telescope. There are two reasons venus is bright. One reason is its atmosphere. Venus's atmosphere reflects light well. However, the second reason is the best one in that venus is closer to earth and sun than any of the other visiable planets. Venus's orbital, when it is visabile, reflects the light hitting it before the light reaches earth. In order to see venus, the planet is either in front of the earth's orbital or behind the earth's orbital depending on the time of year. When venus is between the earth and sun you can't see it because the sun's light intensity blinds you and when it is behind the sun you can't see it because the sun is in the way. So when you generally see venus, it is when the light reflecting off venus is actually more intense than the light striking the earth because venus is closer to the sun.

Before the fifteenth century seven planets had been noted; Sun, Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. People began to realize what was going on in the Solar System. The word planet from the Greek word "wanderer" was given to those celestial bodies which could be tracked with the stars.

Galileo applied the telescope to astronomical studies and revolutionalized astronomical observations. Soon more celestial bodies Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were added to the list of planets. So it became known the earth is a planet orbiting about the sun. The moon is a subplanet orbiting about the earth.

Above is what our rock looks like from space. What really helped to understand the univers and the solar system was space travel and space telescopes. For some more pictures, use NASA's collection of space photos which these were taken. Hubble Pictures earth is the third planet from the sun and can not be seen as a planet unless one travels to outer space.

Mars is the forth planet from the sun. It is visible with a slight reddish tinge. The light reflecting off mars must travel beyond earth, strike mars, and then travel back to earth. Mars is about the same size as the earth so it looks dim compared to venus which is smaller than earth. Compared to the atmosphere of all the other planets except earth, mars is the only other planet that me be somewhat hospitable to human habitation.

A lot is known about the planets now as compared to what was known in the fifteenth century. Planets are large massive objects in space orbiting the sun. The smallest planet is mercury and the largest is jupiter. The moon of the planets are much smaller in size, however, some of jupiter's moons are the size of the earth. The number of moons each planet has is going to change because the outer planets have rings and it seems that the rings are made of particles. How big some of these ring particles are will determine if there are more moons.

Jupiter, left, compared to the earth, it is huge. Spite its huge size it is only the third brightest planet we can see without a telescope. This is because the surface is not very reflective and it is a very long ways from the earth. Light must travel a long ways to strike the planet and a long ways back. Jupiter is completely inhospitable. Its outer atmospher is hydrogen, its inner area which becomes boyant is liquid hydrogen, and before one gets to where it would support standing on, there is metalic hydrogen. The pressure near the solid rock core would squash a human to the size of a baseball. Even if humans could stay close to the surface, the gravity would make it impossible to stand up. Also visible in this picture are some of jupiter's planets.

Jupiter has a huge storm on it which has lasted many years. This is commonly called the red spot. It is simply a large distrubance similar to a huricane. In the picture to the right you can see the storm in the lower section of the picture. Jupiter also has some mixed gasses on its surface that account for different reflective colors. The various bands are the result of the different reflective colors being consentrated in bands around the planet. The picture to the right also shows the result of an impact of a astro body called Shoemaker that hit the planet in and around July 1994. The size of this impact would have destroyed the earth and life as we know it if it hit earth.

Planets orbit the sun in an elliptical motion with a described eccentricity continuously. Generally, all the orbits are in the same plane but there is a range of inclination to the plane by as much as 17 degrees by pluto. Very little alters a planets course through the solar system.

The make-up of a planet is generally dense material as compared to outer space. The two main types of planets are rock surface with an atmosphere of some type. Most planets, like earth, have an atmosphere of some sort. Mercury's atmosphere is more likely very weak due to the high heat. Any gas surrounding a planet other than hydrogen can be considered an atmosphere. However, the outer planets have heavy hydrogen mixed in its general outer atmosphere. The point being, jupter's atmosphere makes up most its size.

All the planets are spherical with slight elongation at their equators. The elongation makes it difficult to accurately figure the volume of each of the planets. The elongation is said to be associated with the planets spin, however, the elongation has been shown to increase and decrease without a contributing increase or decrease in spin. All the planets seem smooth. Some of the larger planets surface seems to be in a state of fluid, thus, they are very smooth. All the planets seem to follow Kepler's Law of Planetary Motion.

Saturn, above, is the last visible planet we can see without a telescope. Saturn is a very big planet but not as large as jupiter. Generally it has the same makeup of jupiter. The light to illuminate saturn had to travel a very long way. Additionally, saturn has rings. These rings were discovered when Galileo saw them in his telescope. The rings are made of gas, molocules, and particles trapped in a vortex at the planet's equator. Most these particles are about a pound measured in inches. However, lately, some of the particles have been called moons because of their larger size. The rings are in motion about the planet.

Uranus, pictured to the left, is smaller than saturn and jupiter. Uranus can not be seen without a telescope. Unlike jupiter and saturn which have some surface features, uranus is smooth. Uranus has another characteristic which is unique to it only and that is it rotates sideways. This will be explained in its own chapter sometime later.

Three of the planets; saturn, uranus and neptune have rings around them. The rings are continuous and can be seen with a good telescope or a instrumented fly-by. It is believed the rings are trapped gases or dust material as the inner edge and outer edges rotate about the planets at different speeds. Of all the planets, only jupiter gives off radio waves naturally. Earth gives off radio waves but they are not natural to the earth but rather man made. This would indicate some active energy creation process exists on jupiter.

Jupiter, saturn, and uranus are believed to have a small heavy core covered by thick atmosphere or fluid body like the earth's oceans. The difference between the those planets and earth is that there is atmosphere is so thick that it seems like there is no land area. Jupiter's and saturn's surface, as we see it from earth, show parallel bands. These bands circle the planet in alternating intensities and colors. The bands are in the direction of rotation. Also, the bands are not necessarily rotating at the same speed.

The Voyager 2 space mission has shown that jupiter, saturn and uranus exhibit a characteristic in their upper atmospheres which requires energy from some other source than internal thermal energy and sunlight. Additionally, they are radiating heat beyond that which can be explained by light from the sun hitting the planets. This directly supports the 1 Star Drive theory and is easily answered by the 1 Star Drive theory. Another extremely interesting phenomenon occurring to one or more of jupiter's moons is an intense electron current from a band going into and out of the planet which describes a donut as it circles with the moon. This current is believed to be the cause of jupiter's radio waves. This is an interesting phenomenon which doesn't have an explanation yet. Pioneer satellites have shown that of the planets visited, each is affected by the solar wind; each has some magnetic moment; and each its mysterious phenomenons that can not be explained by receiving light energy from the sun.

Neptune is another cold featureless planet so far from the sun it is difficult to see clearly with a telescope. Neptune is about the same size as uranus with about the same makeup.

Pluto is so far from the sun it is difficult to see clearly with a telescope as good as the Hubble Telescope. Pluto is a small planet and may not even be a planet. Pluto's orbit is irregular in that it goes inside neptune's orbit. So, at the moment, pluto is the furthest planet from the sun, but in time, neptune will be the furthest planet. It will eventually happen that pluto will run into neptune and either crash into neptune or become a moon of neptune.

The above plot shows the relative planet sizes and orbital distance with respect to the sun. Although compared to the various planets the sun is huge, if the sun's diameter were incorporated in this distance plot, it would be less than the thickness of the line. If the maximums and minimum distances were plotted, Pluto's orbit would be closer to the sun than neptune some times. Of all the planets, pluto's orbit is most distorted. Besides pluto being extremely elliptical compared to the other 8 planets, pluto has the greatest inclination of orbit. The solar system itself, as we know it, extends relatively far out into deep space with respect to the size of the sun and comets extend way out beyond pluto. When these vast distances are put in perspective, the planets are really just so much dust specks in space.

The chart below shows the various spins of the planets with respect to each other and that of the sun. Most all the planets spin is generally on a similar axis as the sun. Close anyway. Uranus's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its orbit, but, almost 90 degrees to its orbit.