Six short journeys through size, distance, gravity, and the vast dark beyond Neptune.
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Almost everything in the Solar System is the Sun.
Everything else is just crumbs.
Mass of the Solar System
99.8% SunNote: The speckles are not individual objects. They’re just a visual way to divide up the tiny share of mass outside the Sun.
Everything else discovered so far:
, , about , about , and about (including asteroid moons)
In mass terms, the Solar System is basically the Sun.
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The Sun's System
About 4.6 billion years ago, a vast cloud of gas and dust collapsed under gravity. Almost all of it became the Sun.
The rest of the Solar System formed from what was left.
The Sun is about 333,000 times more massive than Earth. Its gravity holds the Solar System together.
Earth receives just of the Sun's energy. That tiny fraction sustains virtually all life here.
In the far future, the Sun will make Earth uninhabitable.
Without the Sun, there is no Earth, no life here, no story.