Solar System | Wikipedia audio article

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article: Solar System 00:02:58 1 Discovery and exploration 00:04:36 2 Structure and composition 00:09:30 2.1 Distances and scales 00:12:13 3 Formation and evolution 00:16:43 4 Sun 00:18:16 5 Interplanetary medium 00:20:34 6 Inner Solar System 00:21:10 6.1 Inner planets 00:21:57 6.1.1 Mercury 00:22:47 6.1.2 Venus 00:23:42 6.1.3 Earth 00:24:24 6.1.4 Mars 00:25:14 6.2 Asteroid belt 00:26:22 6.2.1 Ceres 00:27:02 6.2.2 Asteroid groups 00:28:04 7 Outer Solar System 00:28:38 7.1 Outer planets 00:29:30 7.1.1 Jupiter 00:30:15 7.1.2 Saturn 00:31:07 7.1.3 Uranus 00:31:43 7.1.4 Neptune 00:32:22 7.2 Centaurs 00:33:00 8 Comets 00:34:13 9 Trans-Neptunian region 00:35:04 9.1 Kuiper belt 00:36:41 9.1.1 Pluto and Charon 00:37:52 9.1.2 Makemake and Haumea 00:38:48 9.2 Scattered disc 00:39:48 9.2.1 Eris 00:40:29 10 Farthest regions 00:41:10 10.1 Heliosphere 00:43:28 10.2 Detached objects 00:45:03 10.3 Oort cloud 00:45:51 10.4 Boundaries 00:46:50 11 Galactic context 00:48:59 11.1 Neighbourhood 00:51:21 11.2 Comparison with extrasolar systems 00:52:39 12 Visual summary 00:53:03 13 See also Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago. Learning by listening is a great way to: increases imagination and understanding improves your listening skills improves your own spoken accent learn while on the move reduce eye strain Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone. You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:    / @wikipediatts983   You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through: https://github.com/nodef/wikipedia-tts "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Socrates SUMMARY ======= The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as the five dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.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 the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic. The Solar System also contains smaller objects. The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly discovered population of sednoids. Within these populations are several dozen to possibly tens of thousands of objects large enough that they have been rounded by their own gravity. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets. Identified dwarf planets include the asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to these two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds, freely travel between regions. Six of the planets, at least four of the dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after the Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a bubble-like region in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere. The heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium; it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousa ...