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# The Solar System

The **solar system** is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and everything that orbits it. At its center is the **Sun**, a medium-sized star that contains more than 99% of the system’s mass and provides the light and energy that shape the planets and smaller bodies.

## Major components

- **The Sun** — A G-type main-sequence star; fusion in its core powers the entire system.
- **Eight planets** — In order from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars (the rocky **terrestrial** worlds); Jupiter, Saturn (large **gas giants**); Uranus, Neptune (**ice giants**).
- **Dwarf planets** — Including Pluto, Ceres, Eris, and others, mostly in the outer regions or the asteroid belt.
- **Smaller bodies** — Moons, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and dust, from tight orbits near the Sun to the distant **Kuiper belt** and **Oort cloud**, where long-period comets are thought to originate.

## Scale and motion

Planets and most other objects orbit the Sun in roughly the same plane (**the ecliptic**), moving in the same general direction inherited from the rotating cloud of gas and dust that formed the system about **4.6 billion years ago**. Distances are vast: even light takes minutes to hours to cross planetary orbits, and the outer edge of the Sun’s influence (the **heliosphere**) extends far beyond Neptune.

Together, these parts form a single dynamical system: one star, its family of worlds, and the debris that still drifts between them.