An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The collective name for the Sun and all objects gravitationally bound to it. These objects are the eight planets, their 166 known moons, five dwarf planets, and billions of small bodies. The small bodies include asteroids, icy Kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust. The solar system is roughly a sphere with a radius greater than 100,000 AU.
Planets, satellites, and all interplanetary material together comprise only about 1/750 of the total mass. Geochemical dating methods show that the solar system chemically isolated itself from the rest of the Galaxy (4.7 ± 0.1) × 10⁹ years ago.

See also: → solar; → system.