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Components of the Solar System
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Comets
Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust that orbit the Sun. When near the Sun, they display a visible atmosphere or coma and sometimes a tail.
Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper Belt is a region of the Solar System beyond Neptune's orbit, populated by icy bodies and dwarf planets such as Pluto. It is similar to the asteroid belt but far larger.
Asteroids
Asteroids are small rocky bodies that orbit the Sun, mainly found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. They range in size from boulders to hundreds of kilometers in diameter.
Oort Cloud
The Oort Cloud is a hypothesized spherical shell of icy objects that exist in the outermost reaches of the Solar System. It is thought to be the source of long-period comets.
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and has a unique sideways rotation. It is an ice giant with a blue-green color due to methane in its atmosphere and has 27 known moons.
Europa
Europa is one of Jupiter's largest moons and is unique for its smooth, icy surface and subsurface ocean. It is one of the most likely places to find extraterrestrial life in our Solar System.
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma and generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium.
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, distinguished by its extensive ring system. It is a gas giant with the most extensive rings of any planet, composed mainly of ice particles.
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is similar in structure to Earth but with a thick, toxic atmosphere consisting mainly of carbon dioxide. A day on Venus is longer than its year.
Mercury
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and due to its small size, has no significant atmosphere. Its surface is heavily cratered and it completes an orbit every 88 days.
Pluto
Pluto, once considered the ninth planet, is now classified as a dwarf planet. It has a complex orbit and is known for its heart-shaped glacier called Sputnik Planitia.
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. It has a large amount of water and a relatively mild climate due to its atmosphere.
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, known as the Red Planet due to iron oxide on its surface. It has the largest volcano and the deepest, longest canyon in the Solar System.
Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System and the fifth from the Sun. It is a gas giant with a massive magnetosphere and has at least 79 moons, including the four large Galilean moons.
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest-known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is an ice giant known for its strong winds, and it has 14 known moons.
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