The objects that make up the solar system include:
- The Sun: The central star and by far the most massive object, containing about 99.86% of the solar system's mass
- Eight Planets:
- Terrestrial (rocky) planets close to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.
- Gas giants: Jupiter, Saturn.
- Ice giants: Uranus, Neptune
- Five officially named dwarf planets: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, Eris, among others recognized by astronomers
- Natural satellites (moons): Hundreds orbiting planets and dwarf planets
- Small Solar System bodies:
- Asteroids: Rocky and metallic objects mainly found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter
* Comets: Composed of ice, dust, and rocky material, often with highly elliptical orbits
* Meteoroids and interplanetary dust
- Other components:
- The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
- The Kuiper belt beyond Neptune, containing many small icy bodies.
- The hypothesized Oort cloud, a distant spherical shell of icy objects
All these objects orbit the Sun, held by its gravitational field, with planets generally following roughly circular orbits and smaller bodies like asteroids and comets often having more elliptical paths
. In summary, the solar system is composed of the Sun, eight planets, dwarf planets, their moons, and numerous smaller objects such as asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and dust
