Solar System Diagram Label the Key

The Solar System formed 4. 6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system’s mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic.


Each of the little Space eggs resides within its own ring arc--which is a fragmentary ring of Saturn. One hypothesis states that glittering ice crystals swarming around in the ring arc might be floating down to the surface of Methone, filling in its impact craters or other rough topography. This is something that is thought to have occurred on two other small, icy moons of Saturn--Atlas and Pan. Icy stuff swarming around in Saturn's rings apparently piled up around each moonlet's equator. In fact, it may be much more reasonable to suppose that the American government's real capabilities in space exceed anything we have heard about, or can easily believe. Saturn is the smaller of the two gas-giant planets, twirling around our Sun, in the outer regions of our Solar System--far from the delightful warmth of our lovely incandescent roiling gas-ball of a Star. Jupiter is the larger of the duo of gas-giants dwelling in our Solar System, as well as the largest planet in our Sun's bewitching family, which is composed of eight major planets, an assortment of moons and moonlets, and a rich menagerie of smaller objects. Saturn is the second-largest planet in our Solar System--and probably the most beautiful.