LAY OUT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

A solar system refers to a star and all the objects that travel in orbit around it. Our solar system consists of the sun - our star - eight planets and their natural satellites (such as our moon); dwarf planets; asteroids and comets. Our solar system is located in an outward spiral of the Milky Way galaxy

SOLAR SYSTEM SCOREBOARD PLANETS (8)The planet count in our solar system has gone as high as 15 before new discoveries prompted a fine tuning of the definition of a planet. The most recent change was in 2006 when scientists reclassified Pluto as a new kind of object - a dwarf planet.

DWARF PLANETS (5)- his new class of worlds helps us categorize objects that orbit the Sun but aren't quite the same as the rocky planets and gas giants in our solar system. There could be hundreds more of these small worlds far out there waiting to be discovered.

MOONS (173) This count includes only the moons

orbiting the eight planets in our solar system. It is likely there are more moons orbiting the giant planets of our solar system and there are moons orbiting around dwarf planets and asteroids

ASTEROIDS (688,414) New asteroids are discovered on an

almost daily basis. It is estimated that the mineral wealth of the asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter is about $100,000,000 for every person on Earth.

COMETS (3,352) Orbiting spacecraft such as SOHO have

raised this tally in recent years by catching the comets as they plunge toward the Sun - and sometimes vaporize. Scientists estimate there could be as many as 1,000,000,000 comets held in the gravitational grip of the Sun

ASTEROID BELT

Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped region

of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune -- billions of kilometers from our sun. Pluto and Eris are the best known of these icy worlds. There may be hundreds more of these ice dwarfs out there. The Kuiper Belt and even more distant Oort Cloud are believed to be the home of comets that orbit our sun.

10 Need-to-Know Things About Our Solar System:1. Our solar system is made up of the sun and

everything that travels around it. This includes eight planets and their natural satellites such as Earth's moon; dwarf planets such as Pluto and Ceres; asteroids; comets and meteoroids.

2. The sun is the center of our solar system. It contains almost all of the mass in our solar system and exerts a tremendous gravitational pull on planets and other bodies.

3. Our solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago.4. The four planets closest to the sun -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars -- are called the terrestrial planets because they have solid, rocky surfaces.5. Two of the outer planets beyond the orbit of Mars -- Jupiter and Saturn -- are known as gas giants; the more distant Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants.

6. Most of the known dwarf planets exist in an icy zone beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt, which is also the point of origin for many comets.7. Many objects in our solar system have atmospheres, including planets, some dwarf planets and even a couple moons.8. Our solar system is located in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. There are most likely billions of other solar systems in our galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies in the Universe.

9. We measure distances in our solar system by Astronomical Units (AU). One AU is equal to the distance between the sun and the Earth, which is about 150 million km (93 million miles).10. NASA's twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are the first spacecraft to explore the outer reaches of our solar system.