How far is it across our solar system

Our Milky Way Galaxy: How Big is Space?

A trip at light speed to the very edge of our solar system – the farthest reaches of the Oort Cloud, a collection of dormant comets way, way out there – would take about 1.87 years. Keep going to Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighboring star, and plan on arriving in

Scroll through the entire Solar System

Let''s see if you can make it to the end of our solar system just by swiping. On Other Planets. Skip to navigation [n] Skip to content [c] Skip to footer [f] Menu. Close. Language. Home; About; To make it that far on Earth you would need to go around it 150 thousand times. That is an amazing feat. You definitely deserve some recognition for

Imagine the Universe!

The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light-years in diameter. Our solar system is 26,000 light-years from the center of the Galaxy. All objects in the Galaxy revolve around the Galaxy''s center. It takes 250 million years for our Sun (and the Earth with it) to make one revolution around the center of the Milky Way.

Neptune: A guide to the windy eighth planet from the sun

Our solar system''s blue gas giant is far larger than Earth, at more than 17 times Earth''s mass and nearly 58 times Earth''s volume, according to NASA. Neptune''s rocky core is surrounded by a slushy

Milky Way galaxy: Facts about our cosmic

Our home galaxy''s disk is about 100,000 light-years in diameter and just 1000 light-years thick, according to Las Cumbres Observatory.. Just as Earth orbits the sun, the solar system orbits the

Milky Way

The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy''s appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a D 25 isophotal diameter estimated at 26.8 ± 1.1 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years),

Milky Way galaxy: Facts about our cosmic neighborhood | Space

Our home galaxy''s disk is about 100,000 light-years in diameter and just 1000 light-years thick, according to Las Cumbres Observatory.. Just as Earth orbits the sun, the solar system orbits the

How Big is Our Solar System? 1

How Big is Our Solar System? Our solar system is so big it is almost impossible to imagine its size if you use ordinary units like feet or miles. The distance from Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles (149 million kilometers), but the distance to the farthest planet Neptune is nearly 3 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers). Compare

Jupiter Facts

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Jupiter''s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth. The vivid colors you see in thick bands across Jupiter may be plumes of sulfur and phosphorus-containing gases rising from the planet''s warmer interior. The findings also indicate these storms are far taller than

In Depth | Our Solar System – NASA Solar System Exploration

Our solar system extends much farther than the eight planets that orbit the Sun. The solar system also includes the Kuiper Belt that lies past Neptune''s orbit. This is a sparsely occupied ring of

Solar System Exploration

1. Many Worlds. Our solar system has eight planets, and five dwarf planets. 2. Small Worlds, Too. About 1.4 million asteroids, and about 4,000 comets are in our solar system. 3. Lots of Moons. Our solar system has more than 200 planetary

Solar System

OverviewFormation and evolutionGeneral characteristicsSunInner Solar SystemOuter Solar SystemTrans-Neptunian regionMiscellaneous populations

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc. The Sun is a typical star that maintains a balanced equilibrium by the fusion of hydrogen into helium at its core, releasing this energy from its outer photosphere. Astronomers

Does the sun move in the solar system? | Space

The solar system orbits around the center of the Milky Way — our galaxy — but even within the frame of the solar system, the sun is not exactly static because of the gravitational interaction

Solar System Exploration

Temperatures Across the Solar System; About the Planets. Learn about the planets in our solar system. The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Get the Facts. An illustration of our solar system showing the planets far closer together than

Solar System Exploration

Temperatures Across the Solar System; About the Planets. Learn about the planets in our solar system. The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Ceres, Pluto, Haumea,

How Big Is the Solar System?

Today, scientists consider Neptune to be the farthest official planet, but dwarf planet Pluto is still out there in our solar system. Pluto sits 39.2 astronomical units from the Sun, or about 3.67 billion miles. So is that the size of our solar system? Around 3.67 billion miles? Nope! Our solar system extends well beyond Pluto.

In Depth | Neptune – NASA Solar System Exploration

Dark, cold, and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. These winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles

How Far Is It to the Edge of the Solar System? | Space

How far away is the solar system''s edge in units that are easier to understand? Skip to main content. Our satellite orbits at an average distance of 238,857 miles (384,403 km). Line up 37,679

Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System

The mosaic shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system stretching across the center of Mars. It''s more than 2,000 miles (3,000 kilometers) long, 370 miles (600 kilometers) wide and 5 miles (8 kilometers) deep. Pluto

How Big is Our Solar System?

The best way to appreciate the size of our solar system is by creating a scaled model of it that shows how far from the sun the eight planets are located. Astronomers use the distance between Earth and sun, which is 93 million miles, as a new unit of measure called the Astronomical Unit. It

Where Are We In The Milky Way | Milky Way Facts

Our Solar System is placed between two main arms — Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus, within the small partial arm named the Orion Arm or Orion Spur. This arm is about 3,500 light-years wide and more than 20,000

How long to orbit Milky Way''s center?

Our sun and solar system move at about about 500,000 miles an hour (800,000 km/hr) in this huge orbit. So in 90 seconds, for example, we all move some 12,500 miles (20,000 km) in orbit around the

Student Project: Make a Scale Solar System | NASA/JPL Edu

1. Learn about sizes and distances in our solar system. 2. Decide what kind of model you want to build. 3. Choose where your model solar system will go. 4. Calculate scale distances. 5. Calculate scale planet sizes. 6. Calculate combined scale distance and planet size. 7. Create and display your model. 8. Make a Solar System on a String (scale

Teach Astronomy

The 5 hours it takes light to travel across our Solar System may seem like a short period to cross such a large distance, but we have to think about scale. While distances within the Solar System are large to us, they are dwarfed by the

how big is our universe?

Imagine that our entire Solar System were the size of a quarter. The Sun is now a microscopic speck of dust, as are its planets, whose orbits are represented by the flat disc of the coin. the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy will be about the size of the United States! How far away is the nearest star to our sun? In our model, Proxima

Big Space: The Scale of the Solar System

Key concepts Solar system Space Planets. From National Science Education Standards: Objects in the sky. Introduction Have you ever built a model of the solar system for school—or even just seen

In Depth | Sun – NASA Solar System Exploration

Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system. Our solar system is moving with an average velocity of 450,000 miles per hour (720,000 kilometers per hour). But even at this speed, it takes about 230 million years for the Sun to make one complete trip around the Milky Way.

Neptune Facts

Neptune is our solar system''s windiest world. Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, Neptune''s winds can be three times stronger than Jupiter''s and nine times stronger than Earth''s. These winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour).

how big is our universe?

how far is it across the milky way? Our Milky Way galaxy of stars is so huge that even at the speed of light it would take 100,000 years to travel . across it! Imagine that our entire solar system were the size of a quarter. The Sun is now a microscopic speck of dust, as are its planets, whose orbits are represented by the flat disc of