Interesting Facts about Solar System - Fun Facts about Solar System

Solar System consists of a central star - the Sun and the numerous other celestial bodies that are bound to it by gravity. These celestial bodies comprise of eight planets, their 166 known moons and four dwarf planets. Other than this, there are billions of small bodies, including asteroids, icy Kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids and interplanetary dust. Solar System is constantly permeated by plasma, which is also known as the solar wind. Amongst the four dwarf planets, Ceres lies in the asteroid belt, while the other three - Pluto, Makemake and Eris all revolve around the Sun. For some more interesting and fun facts about solar system, read on.

Interesting and Fun Facts about Solar System

Solar System consists of one central star - Sun and eight planets, more than 60 moons, millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets.
Each planet in the Solar System revolves around the sun, on its orbit.
A complete round done by any planet around the sun is known as revolution.
Earth takes 365 and 1/4 days to make a revolution around the sun.
All the planets in Solar System spin on an axis, which is an imaginary line passing through the center of the planet.
Earth takes 24 hours to revolve on its axis.
Sun is about 1.4 million kilometers wide.
Sun is filled with scorching hot gases that constitute more than 99.8 percent of the total mass in the solar system.
The temperature of sun is about 10,000 deg F (5,500 deg C) on the surface and more than 28 million deg F (15.5 million Celsius) at the center.
The solar system is considered to be 5 billion years old.
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are called 'rocky' or 'terrestrial' planets.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are called the gaseous planets.
Jupiter and Saturn contain the highest percentages of hydrogen and helium gases.
Uranus and Neptune contain the highest percentages of ices, frozen water, ammonia, methane, and carbon monoxide.
The four gas planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have rings.
Venus is the brightest planet in the solar system and can sometimes be seen even with naked eye.
Three quarters of Earth surface is covered with water.
Mars is the home of 'Olympus Moon', the largest volcano found in the solar system.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, but spins very fast on its axis. It completes one rotation in 9 hours and 55 minutes.
Saturn is the second biggest, yet the lightest planet in the Solar System. It would float in water if immersed in an ocean big enough.
The axis of Uranus is at 97 degree angle, meaning that it orbits lying on its side.
Pluto is often referred to as a dwarf planet.

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