Our Solar System

The sun is a yellow dwarf located at the center of our galaxy-it puts the "solar" in Solar System! It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields. Without the sun, life on Earth would cease to exist. In fact, if the sun didn't exist, our planet itself might never have formed in the first place!

However, the Earth is just one of eight planets that orbits the sun, just one of eight planetary bodies that depend on the sun for their very existence. Each of these planets is incredibly different. For example, Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, only takes 87.969 Earth days to orbit the sun, while Neptune, the furthest planet from the sun, takes 164.79 years! In the articles and activities in this section, you can learn about everything from Jupiter's many moons to Saturn's rings.

Of course, the planets aren't the only things you can find in our solar system! Maybe you've heard of the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter, or maybe you want to know why Pluto isn't a planet anymore. Maybe you want to learn about something a little closer to home, like why the moon has phases, or what would happen if Earth had another moon. In this section, you can learn these things and more!