about how old is the solar system
That is a question that cuts to the heart of it all. By studying several things, mostly meteorites, and using radioactive dating techniques, specifically looking at daughter isotopes, scientists have determined that the Solar System is 4.6 billion years old. Well, give or take a few million years. That age can be extended to most of the objects and material in the Solar System. The United States Geological Survey(USGS) website has a lot of indepth material about how the age of the Solar System was determined. The basics of it are that all material radioactively decays into a stable isotope. The method is to use the age of meteorites, because they are thought to have formed very early in the history of the Solar System. These ages are found using radioactive dati … ng methods. The Solar System is estimated to be about 4.6 thousand million years old. 2 people found this useful. Welcome to Planets for Kids I really hope you enjoy the information that I have provided on this website. You will find lots of information about our solar system with lots of questions and answers and games for you to play. We also have a color in section where you can download pictures and have fun. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets, with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies such as comets and asteroids. Of those that orbit the Sun indirectly, two are larger than the smallest planet. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The Oort cloud is a hypothetical spherical cloud of up to a trillion icy objects that is believed to be the source for all long-period comets and to surround the Solar System at roughly 50,000 AU (around 1 light-year (ly)), and possibly to as far as 100,000 AU (1.87 ly). Confidence votes 8.3K. The Sun is about 4.57 billion years old, so is the solar system. The age of the Solar System is determined through the radiometric dating of heavy elements such as uranium. Measurement of radioactive decay rates allow us to determine when the elements in the Solar System were formed. The most current data places the age of these elements at 4.567 billion years old. Introduction. We have nine planets in our Solar System. These planets circle around the sun (as I’m sure you know already) this is called orbits. A lot of astronomy people like to think of the Solar System been made up in two parts We have the Inner Solar System which has Mercury, Venus, Earth and not forgetting Mars. The Solar System is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing about 200 billion stars. The Sun resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur. The solar system is made of the eight planets that orbit our sun it is also made of asteroids, moons, comets and lots, lots more. The sun has such powerful gravity it tries to pull the planets towards it. While the planets try to fly away in the end they are kind of in the middle floating around the sun. They are 140 moons that orbit the eight planets in the solar system. The moons don’t orbit the sun they orbit the planet they are nearest too. The Oort cloud, which is believed to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. The Solar System is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way.
4.6 billion years