Solar System

Solar System: Encyclopedia - Solar system

The solar system comprises our Sun and the retinue of celestial objects gravitationally bound to it. Traditionally, this is said to consist of the Sun, nine planets and their 158 currently known moons; however, a large number of other objects, including asteroids, meteoroids, planetoids, comets, and interplanetary dust, orbit the Sun as well. Although the term "solar system" is frequently applied to other star systems and the planetary systems which may comprise them, it should strictly refer to our system specifically: the wor ...

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Solar System: Encyclopedia II - Solar system - Discovery of the solar system The planets out to Saturn were known to ancient astronomers, who observed the wandering of these objects against the apparently fixed pattern of stars. Venus and Mercury were each identified as single objects despite the difficulty of connecting "evening" and "morning stars". It was also identified that the two non-pointlike objects, the sun and the Moon, moved across the same fixed background. However knowledge of the nature of these cele ...

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Colonization of the outer solar system - Asteroids

Colonization of the outer solar system - Ceres

Colonization of the outer solar system - Jupiter

Colonization of the outer solar system - Saturn

Colonization of the outer solar system - Titan

Solar System: Encyclopedia - Centaur and TNO pronunciation

Centaur and TNO pronunciation - Pronunciation of Centaurs Kuiper Belt Objects and other planetoids of the outer solar system. Pronunciation key ...

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Centaur and TNO pronunciation - Pronunciation of Centaurs Kuiper Belt Objects and other planetoids of the outer solar system

Solar System: Encyclopedia - Abundance of the chemical elements

The abundance of a chemical element measures how common the element is, or how much of the element there is. Abundance of the chemical elements - Abundance of elements in the Universe. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known Universe; helium is second. However, after this, the rank of abundance does not continue to correspond to the atomic number; oxygen has abundance rank 3, but atomic number 8. All others are orders of magnitude less common. Both helium-3 and helium-4 were produced in th ...

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Solar System: Encyclopedia - Eclipse

An eclipse (Greek verb: ecleipo, "to cease existing" or calypse, "to cover" ) is an astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object moves into the shadow of another. The term is most often used to describe either a solar eclipse, when the Moon's shadow crosses Earth's surface, or a lunar eclipse, when the Moon moves into the shadow of Earth. However, it can also refer to such events beyond the Earth-Moon system: for example, a planet moving into the shadow cast by one of its moons, a moon passing into the shadow cast by its parent planet, or a ...

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Eclipse - Eclipses in the Earth-Moon system

Eclipse - Eclipses elsewhere in the solar system

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Solar System: Encyclopedia - Earth

Earth, also known as Terra, and Tellus mostly in the 19th century, is the third-closest planet to the Sun. It is the largest of the solar system's terrestrial planets, and the only planetary body that modern science confirms as harboring life. Scientific evidence indicates that the planet formed around 4.57 billion (4.57×109) years ago, and shortly thereafter (4.533 billion years ago) acquired its single natural satellite, the Moon. Earth - Lexicography. Its astronomical symbol con ...

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Earth - The Moon

Earth - Descriptions of Earth

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Solar System: Encyclopedia - Watchmaker analogy

The watchmaker analogy is often used as a teleological argument (argument from design) in support of the view that the universe (or features of it) are the product of a conscious designer or designers. Watchmaker analogy - History. Monotheists have suggested: if we find a watch in a field, it is too complex to have appeared there by natural process so they assume that there must be a watchmaker responsible for its creation. Similarly, the argument goes, life is extremely complex and requires a creato ...

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Watchmaker analogy - History

Watchmaker analogy - The case against the watchmaker analogy

Watchmaker analogy - Bad Design

Solar System: Encyclopedia - Planet

A planet is generally considered to be a relatively large mass of accreted matter in orbit around a star that is not a star itself. The name comes from the Greek term πλανήτης, planētēs, meaning "wanderer", as ancient astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Based on historical consensus, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) lists nine planets in our solar system. Since the term "planet" has no precise scientific definition, however, many astronomers contest that ...

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Planet - Extrasolar planets

Planet - Definition and classification of planets

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Solar System: Encyclopedia II - Solar system - Regions of the solar system

According to their location, the objects in the solar system are divided into three zones: Zone I or the inner solar system, including terrestrial planets and the Main belt of asteroids; Zone II, including the giant planets, their satellites and the centaurs, and Zone III, or the outer solar system, comprising the area of the Trans-Neptunian objects including the Kuiper Belt, the Oort cloud, and the vast region in between.

Solar System: Encyclopedia II - Solar system - Galactic orbit of the solar system

The solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy, a spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light years containing approximately 200 billion stars, of which our Sun is rather large and bright. (The vast majority of stars are red dwarfs; our Sun is placed near the middle of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, but stars larger and hotter than it are rare, whereas stars dimmer and cooler than it are very common, although we can observe on ...

Solar system, Solar system - Structure and layout of the solar system, Solar system - Origin and age of the solar system, Solar system - Regions of the solar system, Solar system - Interplanetary medium, Solar system - The inner planets, Solar system - The asteroid belt, Solar system - The outer planets, Solar system - The trans-Neptunian region, Solar system - And beyond, Solar system - Galactic orbit of the solar system, Solar system - Planetary system formation, Solar system - Discovery of the solar system, Solar system - Exploration of the solar system, Solar system - Attributes of major planets, Solar system - Attributes of the largest minor planets, Solar system - Other facts

Solar System: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Solar System

Solar System Commonly, the Sun with the nine principal planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto -- their satellites, and the minor planets, comets, and meteors; in theosophy, however, the solar system is a far more complex entity, for many of its worlds manifest on planes of being invisible to our senses.

The planets are individual manifestations of conscious intelligences, their distances from the sun being generally in rhythmical progression and their motions directed by mind and volition, as Kepler declared in his doctrine of Rectors, following the ancient teachings. The nebular hypothesis, once so popular in European scientific thought and now more or less rejected, was first suggested by Swedish seer Swedenborg and German philosopher Kant, and around the beginning of the 19th century was worked out in mathematical detail by the Frenchman Laplace. Though the nebular hypothesis as scientifically presented was unacceptable to theosophical thinkers, it nevertheless was based upon facts of cosmic evolution accepted by the ancient wisdom-religion and approximated somewhat more closely to what theosophy teaches as the facts of cosmogony than do the later tidal or planetesimal theories.

In theosophy the universe is the product of cosmic mind or intelligence, whose all-permeant activities manifest on our material plane as the laws of nature. The universe and all in it, proceeding from cosmic consciousness, is imbued throughout with the qualities and attributes of its divine originators; and as there is but one primordial fundamental life -- and therefore one fundamental law -- energizing and guiding all, the ancient teaching of analogy is the master key to understanding universal nature.

Calling the primordial origins of every being and thing by the term monads, as Leibniz did following Pythagoras, these monads may be looked upon as the seeds of cosmic life, life-centers or energy points, and in such case naught in the universe is the product of chance, but is the offspring of mind. Thus the solar system itself sprang from such a cosmic seed or monad; and the same holds true for the planets, nebulae, comets, and all other individually enduring cosmic bodies.

Comets are coordinated with earlier and later stages of nebular evolution, playing an activating part in the formation of individual celestial bodies. The planets did not emerge from the sun, but the sun is their "co-uterine brother" with the same nebular origin. The sun is the great distributor of light and other radiations, including vital energy, throughout the solar system, and is itself a member of a hierarchy of solar beings.

The ancient wisdom speaks of seven sacred planets which are especially connected with the earth, as indeed our own earth is likewise especially connected with various planetary chains, which mutually assisted in the formation of the seven or twelve globes of the planetary chains. These sacred planets are: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn -- the Sun and Moon being substitutes for esoteric and invisible planets. The complete number of the planets of a solar system is twelve, which is the number of globes composing a planetary chain. These twelve sacred planets are closely linked with the twelve houses of the zodiac, these links of unity being the energic coordinates tying our solar system in with the life and structure of the galaxy.

Theosophy makes a distinction between the solar system and the universal solar system -- the former has especial reference to the twelve sacred planets, while the universal solar system refers to all bodies belonging to and revolving around a master- or king-sun (raja-sun) and within the latter's far-flung realm on seven or more planes of being. It therefore contains planets and suns invisible to our present range of sense perception. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are said not to belong to the solar system (nor are they included among the twelve sacred planets), but are members of the universal solar system.

In the Brahmanical system the solar system was regarded as an Egg of Brahma (brahmanda), the prakritic or prithivi-form of Brahma, so that its life span is equivalent to the length of Brahma's manifested life. A Day of Brahma for a planetary chain consists of a planetary manvantara -- seven rounds of the various life-waves around that chain -- a period of 4,320,000,000 terrestrial years. The ensuing pralaya or Night of Brahma is of an equivalent length, together equaling 8,640,000,000 terrestrial years. Forty-nine such planetary Days and Nights equal one solar manvantara, equivalent to a Year of Brahma; and each such year of Brahma is figured as being 360 of his Days; and 100 such Years of Brahma equal Brahma's Life, a period of 311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years -- including in this vast time period the various twilights and dawns. Theosophic philosophy states that one-half of Brahma's Life has been spent, or 50 Years of Brahma. At the end of Brahma's Life, the final consummation of the solar system, so far as the planetary chain is concerned, will occur, and everything within the bounds of this system will vanish, and the succeeding solar pralaya will commence.

(See also: Solar System, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Solar System Dictionary

Solar System: Encyclopedia II - Solar system - Structure and layout of the solar system

The Sun (astronomical symbol ☉) is a main sequence G2 star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass. Its two largest orbiting bodies, Jupiter and Saturn, account for 91% of the remainder (the Oort Cloud might hold a substantial percentage, but as yet its existence is unconfirmed). In broad terms, the charted regions of our solar system consist of the Sun and its planetary system: the eight bodies in relatively unique orbits (commonly called planets or major planets) and two belts of smaller objects (which can be called minor ...

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