The Solar System consists of the sun, together with the planets, comets, and meteors which revolve around it as the center of their motions. The planets all move round the sun in the same direction, from west to east. Their motions are nearly circular, and also nearly in the same plane.
However, all representations of the solar system by maps and planetariums must give an erroneous view either of the magnitudes or distances of its various members. If the earth, for instance, be denoted by a ball half an inch in diameter, the diameter of the sun, according to the same scale (16,000 miles to the inch), will be between four and five feet; that of the earth's orbit, about 1000 feet; while that of Neptune's orbit will be nearly six miles. To give an accurate representation of the solar system a
The distances between the different members of our planetary system, vast as they may seem, sink into insignificance when compared with the intervals which separate us from the so-called fixed stars. Alpha Centauri, the nearest of those twinkling luminaries, is 7000 times more distant than Neptune from the sun. Even light itself, which moves 185,000 miles in a second, is more than three years in traversing the mighty interval.
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