The Solar System was formed around 4.6 billion years ago.The solar system includes the Sun and the planets, asteroids, comets, moons and meteoroids. All the mentioned things orbit around the Sun due to gravitational force exerted by it.
There are eight planets in the Solar System. The four inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars while the four outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
As of 2008, there are also five dwarf planets: Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Makemake and Haumea.
The inner planets (also known as terrestrial planets) are smaller and made mostly of rock and metal while the outer planets (also known as gas giants) are much larger and made mostly of hydrogen, helium and other gases.
There is an asteroid belt which lies between the orbits or Mars and Jupiter. It features a large number of irregular shaped asteroids.
Astronomers such as Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler helped develop a new model that explained the movement of the planets with the Sun at the center of the Solar System.
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