Solar System: A Historical Perspective and a Deeper Look

Abstract

Almost every one of us has read the names of Solar System Planets in our school days. But we mostly stop there – we know them just as a series of names. In recent past, many space exploration agencies like the NASA, ESA, ISRO and others have sent numerous probes to study and understand our family of planets, and we are also looking for other galaxies, stars and exoplanets. In this review paper, I will concentrate on the planets in our solar system. We have big and small planets, Terrestrial planets, Ice Giants and Gas giants, the lost planets and the dwarf planets. Pluto, which was recently removed from our list of planets and demoted into being just a dwarf one, is one special case to be referred here. Giant Moons like the Ganymede are large enough to be called dwarf planets too. In this paper, we will try to understand the planets size, their atmosphere, the weather and seasons on various planets and the reason behind such variations, their Moons, and distances in our system. The paper will use images from NASA and other agencies which are in public domain for the sake of better understanding of what we are referring to. It aims at a little closer view into the members of the solar family of heavenly bodies.