Sunday, November 11, 2012

What is a Planetary System?

Astronomers have studied the Solar system for many years and because of this they know that planetary systems take 1 to 10 million years to form.

Here is a general picture of what a planetary system could looks like:






A planetary system is a collection of gravitationally bound celestial objects that orbit around a star or a system of stars.  These systems vary in sizes and vary in the amount of planets they contain.  Astronomers have frequently discovered single planetary systems using radial velocity method calculations.

Planetary systems usually describe systems with one or two planets and a star, but these systems can contain multiple stars, multiple planets, satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets.

No comments:

Post a Comment