[glactus]

Know your new Solar system



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This insertion is to keep you up to date with the composition of our new Solar system.

What Planets it now comprises of. What names are given to the two groups - the inner and outer Planets. What each Planet is made up of. Where the Asteroid belt is and where the home of the comets is located.

Since the invention of the telescope, three more planets were discovered in our solar system: Uranus (1781), Neptune (1846), and Pluto (1930).

Recently Though, pluto has been downgraded to a Dwarf Planet status, leaving eight recognized Planets that make up our Solar System.

In addition, there are thousands of small bodies such as asteroids and comets. Most of the asteroids orbit in a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, while the home of comets lies far beyond the orbit of Pluto, in the Oort Cloud.

The four planets closest to the Sun -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars -- are called terrestrial planets because they have solid rocky surfaces. The four large planets beyond the orbit of Mars -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune -- are called gas giants. Tiny, distant Dwarf Planet Pluto has a solid but icier surface than the terrestrial planets.

Nearly every planet -- and some of the moons -- has an atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere is primarily nitrogen and oxygen. Venus has a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere is extremely thin, while Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.

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Glactus