- The solar system consists of one central star, the Sun and eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, more than 60 moons, millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets.
- If light from the Sun takes a little over eight minutes to reach us. Light travels at 300 000 kilometres/second. How far away is the Sun?
- Planets are different in sizes and colours. The four planets closer to the Sun (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are called 'rocky' or `terrestrial’ planets. They are small in size and similar to Earth in composition. They have no rings and only two of them (Earth and Mars) have moons.
- The four outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) are called 'gas giants' and are much larger than the 'rocky' planets. They all have rings and have many moons. The 'gas giants' are made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, frozen water, ammonia, methane, and carbon monoxide.
- Stars are formed when clouds of dust and gas are pulled together by the force of gravity.
Dense group of stars being born - located 1,000 light years from Earth - NASA
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