The Solar System -- our home in space

the solar system our home in space we live in a peaceful part of the Milky Way our home is the solar system a four and a half billion year old formation that races around the galactic center at two hundred thousand kilometers per hour and circles it once every two hundred and fifty million years our star the Sun is at the center of the solar system it's orbited by eight planets trillions of asteroids and comets and a few dwarf planets the eight planets are divided into four planets like ours Mercury Venus Earth and Mars and four gas giants Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune mercury is the smallest and lightest of all the planets a mercury year is shorter than a Mercury Day which leads to enormous fluctuations in temperature mercury does not have an atmosphere or a moon venus is one of the brightest objects in the solar system and by far the hottest planet with atmospheric pressure that is 92 times higher than on earth an out-of-control greenhouse effect means that Venus never calls below 437 degrees Celsius Venus also doesn't have a moon earth is our home and the only planet with temperatures that are moderate enough to allow for a surplus of liquid water furthermore it's so far the only place where life is known to exist the earth has one moon [Music] Mars is the second smallest planet in the solar system and hardly massive enough to keep a very thin atmosphere it's Olympus Mons is the largest mountain in the solar system more than three times as high as Mount Everest Mars has two small moons Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet in the solar system it consists largely of hydrogen and helium and is the theater for the largest and most powerful storm as we know its largest storm the Great Red Spot is three times as large as Earth jupiter has 67 moons Saturn is the second largest planet and possesses the smallest density of all the planets if you had a sufficiently large bathtub Saturn would swim in it Saturn is also known for its extended very visible ring system it has 62 moons Uranus is the third largest planet and one of the coldest of all the gas giants it's also the smallest the special thing about Uranus is that its axis of rotation is tilted sideways in contrast to the seven other planets it has 27 moons Neptune is the last planet in the solar system and is similar to Uranus it's so far removed from the Sun but a Neptune year it's 164 earth years long so the highest wind speed ever measured was in a storm on Neptune at just under 2,000 100 kilometers per hour Neptune has 14 moons if we compare the sizes of the planets the differences between them become even clearer Jupiter is the leader in terms of size and weight small mercury on the other hand is even smaller than one of Jupiter's moons Ganymede Jupiter is so massive that alone it contains roughly 70% of the mass of all the other planets and has a massive impact on its surroundings that's a blessing for Earth since Jupiter draws most of the dangerously large asteroids that could wipe out life on Earth but even Jupiter is a dwarf in comparison to our star the Sun calling it massive does not do justice to the Sun it makes up ninety-nine point eight six percent of the mass in our solar system for the most part it consists of hydrogen and helium only less than 2% is made up of heavy elements like oxygen or iron at its core the Sun fuses 620 million tons of hydrogen each second and generates enough energy to satisfy mankind's needs for years but not only the eight planets orbit our Sun trillions of asteroids and comets also circle it most of them are concentrated into two belts the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper belt at the edge of the solar system these belts are home to countless objects some as large as a dust particle others the size of dwarf planets the most well known object in the asteroid belt is Sarris the most well known objects in the Kuiper belt are Pluto Makemake and Hermia usually we describe the asteroid belt the dense collection of bodies that constantly collide but in fact the asteroids aren't distributed across an area that is so indescribably large that it's even difficult to see two asteroids at once despite the billions of objects in them the asteroid belts are fairly empty places and nonetheless there are collisions over and over again the mass of both belts is also unimpressive the asteroid belt has a little less than 4% of our moon's mass and the Kuiper belt is only between one 25th and 1/10 of Earth's mass one day the solar system will cease to exist the Sun will die and Mercury Venus and maybe earth too will be destroyed in 500 million years it will become hotter and hotter until at some point it will melt Earth's crust then the Sun will grow and grow and either swallow earth or at least turn it into a sea of lava when it has burnt up all its fueled and lost most of its mass it will shrink to a white dwarf and burn gently for a few billion more years before it goes out entirely then at the latest life in the solar system will no longer be possible the Milky Way will not even notice it a small part of it in one of its arms will become just a tiny bit darker and mankind will cease to exist or leave the solar system in search of a new home [Music] you

Channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Views: 3,915,901

Rating: 4.9497809 out of 5

Keywords: Solar system, planets, earth, mars, moon, jupiter, saturn, venus, neptune, mercury, infographic, infographics, animation, explain, space, science, astronomy, kurzgesagt, English Language (Human Language), Alien, Erklärfilm, kurzeng, documentaries, youtube, funny, the sun, the universe, nova

Id: KsF_hdjWJjo

Length: 7min 20sec (440 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/thedurg]

this reminded me of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

[u/PyrohawkZ]

everytime. EVERYTIME he says Uranus....

Neptune is similar to uranus..

[u/ShinyWisenheimer]

One question I've always had is do the gas giants have some sort of rocky core? Or are they literally just a big ball of gas? If they are just gas what the hell is keeping it all in a ball?

[u/BMANN2]

Is there a subreddit for more simple information like this ?

[u/remyseven]

It's pronounced MAH-KAY MAH-KAY.... and I'm willing to bet Eris or even Sedna are more well known than Haumea or Makemake.

[u/torokunai]

the shading on the animated moons //gack//

[u/cthulhu33]

Very Hitchhikers. I enjoyed it.

[u/GeoGeoGeoGeo]

And the Jupiter myth is perpetuated. While Jupiter may clean up some long term comets and eventually removes some short term comets as well (though it can fling them in towards Earth just as well), the vast majority of objects in any given year that cross Earth's orbit are asteroids; and, that's due to perturbations caused by Jupiter.

more than 90 percent of all objects crossing Earth’s orbit are asteroids, so the protection Jupiter provides us from long period comets, or by eventually removing short period comets, is of lesser importance. Hence Jupiter is not the friend that it has been perceived to be. - Villain in disguise: Jupiter’s role in impacts on Earth

Furthermore, currently the most widely accepted theory for the cause of the Late Heavy Bombardment is the migration of the gas giants

[u/Mebi]

Its weird to think that we would be the aliens to any other life we may stumble across