1 A Place in Space

World Book's Learning Ladders A Place in Space

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The solar system The solar system is our place in space. The solar system is made up of the sun and the planets and other things that travel around the sun. The word solar means from or of the sun. Asteroids, comets, and meteoroids are chunks of rock or metal much smaller than planets. They travel around the sun, too. Our sun is the star at the center of our solar system.

Scientists called astronomers explore and study our solar system. Earth, Where we live, is the third planet away from the sun. There are eight planets in our solar system that travel around the sun. It's a fact! Our solar system began as a huge spinning cloud of gas. Gas is something that is not a liquid, like water, or a solid, like rock. There were bits of rock and metal in the cloud The bits banged into one another. The bits stuck together and started to form planets.

The sun From Earth the sun looks like a giant ball of fire. The sun gives us light, heat, and energy. Almost all living things on Earth—plants, animals, people— need energy from the sun to live. The sun is a thing called a star. There are many, many more stars like our sun in outer space. Plants use light from the sun to make their own food. The outside of the sun has a temperature of about 10,000°F (5500°C)! Sunspots are dark, circular areas on the outside of the sun.

Large loops of gas can shoot out of the sun during a bright solar flare. It's a fact! The sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) away from Earth. Any closer and our planet would be too hot for us to live on it. Any farther away and it would be too cold.