Page 4 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

The Sun is a star that lies at the center of the Solar System—that is, our star’s system. The Solar System is made up of the Sun and a collection of bodies that orbit around it, such as the nine planets and their moons, comets, and asteroids.
The first part of this book deals with the Sun, and its position in space. The relationship of the Sun to its planets and the rest of the Solar System is dealt with in more detail on pages 46 to 57.
Getting a cosmic perspective
The Sun contains over 99% of the entire mass of the Solar System. In space terms, therefore, the Sun is the only significant body in our part of space. But where did the Sun come from? And did it come from the same place as the planets and all the other material in the Solar System? To answer these questions, we need to take a much wider view of where the Sun is in space.
asteroid Any of the many small objects within the Solar System.
comet A small object, often described as being like a dirty snowball, that appears to be very bright in the night sky and has a long tail when it approaches the Sun.
mass The amount of matter in an object. moon The name generally given to any
large natural satellite of a planet.
orbit The path followed by one object as it tracks around another.
planet Any of the large bodies that orbit the Sun.
space Everything beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.
star A large ball of gases that radiates light. The star nearest the Earth is the Sun.
To find out about the planets in our Solar System see Volume 3: Earth and Moon, Volume 4: Rocky planets, and Volume 5: Gas giants.
 An artist’s impression of coronal mass ejections leaving the Sun (see page 35). They are the cause of the solar wind (see page 38).
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