please

Hi nobleresearcher,

Thank you for your question.

The Solar System is made up of the Sun, the planets, their moons,
asteroids and comets.

What is a Solar System?
http://www.extremescience.com/solarsys.htm

"A solar system is defined as a central sun with its associated
planets, asteroids, meteors, satellites (i.e.,moons), and comets that
are "captured" in its orbit. These various celestial bodies are
trapped in a constant orbit around the sun by its tremendous
gravitational pull. The paths that the planets take as they travel
around the sun in the same direction - from west to east - is not
truly circular, but more of an ellipse, or egg-shape path. Our solar
system is nestled inside a very large galaxy of stars called the Milky
Way. The outer limit of our solar system extends six billion
kilometers from the sun."


More information about the Solar System
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/solarsys.htm


Take a virtual tour of the solar system with with National Geographic
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/solarsystem/splash.html

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Definition of Solar system 
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Solar_system

=================================================

Best regards,
tlspiegel

Tisplegel gave you a lot of good information, but 6 billion kilometers
excludes billions of comets. I suggest ten trillion kilometers,
perhaps 40 trillion kilometers in some directions = 4 light years. I'm
using the USA definition of trillion = one million times one million. 
Neil

Where did "40 trillion kilometers in some directions = 4 light years"
come from?  The Oort cloud is usualy described as roughly spherical,
with a diameter of 50-100k AU, about 1.5 light years.  The largest
estimate I've seen is a radius of 2 light years.

Ian G.

1. "Solar" comes from latin word "sol" that means "sun".
[Ref: http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/renewables/ed_pack/1116solar.html]

2. So "solar system" = sun + its (9) planets + space containing sun &
its planets & other secondary astronomical objects
[Ref: Self}


3. See solar system models and multimedia tours here:
3a. http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
3b. www.the-solar-system.net/

4. See solar systems images at a glance and learn more by clicking the
appropriate images:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=solar+system

Hi lang: The 4 light years is about how far the gravity of our sun
extends in some directions before the gravity of another star becomes
dominent. Comets, and asteriods travel close to straight lines in
these in these near zero gravity fields, which are natural boundries
between solar systems. We can only guess at the the number of comets
and asteroids per cubic light year (in these near zero gravity
regions) but our guess is only slightly better at a distance of 2
light years. In the direction of the Centari triple solar system the
zero gravity occurs at about 2.1 light years, as we think this system
has slightly more mass than our solar system. We think most other
nearby solar systems have about 1/2 the mass of our solar systems. The
other exception is Sirus A&B which is about 9.6 light years away, with
about (triple?) our mass.  Neil

Neil

Thanks for that!  

Cheers

Ian G.