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The Solar System came from a giant spinning cloud of dust and gas. The dust and gas began to collapse under the weight of its own gravity and spinning faster into a thin disc. At the center of this spinning cloud, a star began to form.  Its size grew larger as it pulled in the surrounding gas and dust. 

Further out in the cloud, dust clumped together to form molten rocks.  Four clumps gained enough mass (or inertia) to keep them from falling into the sun.  These were the terrestrial seeds for planet Earth, Mercury, Venus, and Mars.  Their revolutions (orbits) were set by the clouds rotation.   Nuclear fusion ignited in the sun’s core.  A star was born creating the first light in the solar system.  The blast of this nuclear furnace still goes on as solar winds.  These solar winds cleared out debris and moved the asteroids into the asteroid belt just beyond Mar’s orbit.  This ring of asteroids is made up of thousands of objects too small to be considered planets. Some are more than 100 miles across. A few have their own moons (correctly called natural satellites).
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The four inner planets were left in the safe zone too big to be blown into the asteroid belt.  However, gasses were blown past the asteroid belt, eventually slowing and spiraling into giant gas planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  

At first, the terrestrial planets were very similar with solid surfaces, heavy cores and thick mantels.   However, today Mercury and Mars are geologically dead, frozen solid with almost no atmosphere.   Venus and Earth are twins in size.  Both have an active mantle, dense core, a solid crust.  Their volcanoes continually replenish the atmosphere with gasses like carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen.  However Venus’s atmosphere has turned evil with out-of-control temperatures and pressure.

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Mercury’s interior is rock solid. Mercury looks like the moon because it is heavily cratered and has no atmosphere which both are results of a solid interior.  The volcanic activity which produce atmospheres and repairs craters in the crust has been shut down.  Gasses cannot replenish the atmosphere.  The original atmosphere has been blown off into space by solar winds.   Mercury does not have a magnetic force field because the inner core does not spin in hot liquid anymore.

Venus is Earths birth twin formed from the same dust and debris, however Venus evolved into an evil twin.  Machines as well as life cannot survive the high pressure and temperature of its atmosphere.  In fact even asteroids and meteors almost never survive.  Clouds made of acid completely covers the upper atmosphere making it impossible to see its surface.  Light barely penetrates the thick smog -as Venus never has a sunny day.  Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system because of its greenhouse gasses.  Venus’s atmosphere is 98% carbon dioxide. Its water vapor, and nitrogen gasses are leaked into space leaving behind heavy carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas). Venus has no magnetic protection so solar winds are constantly plucking out nitrogen elements and water compounds.  Venus’s magnetic force field was lost when its rotation slowed down. Venus is trapped in a giant pressure cooker because of this run-away-greenhouse effect.   

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Earth’s inner core is solid, but around it is a liquid outer core, around that is the thick mantle and finally around that is the super thin crust.  Earth’s magnetic field and wandering magnetic pole is produce by the solid inner core sloshing about the liquid of the outer core.  The magnetic force field blocks the solar winds from pulling water vapor and nitrogen into space.  Through condensation and precipitation water falls to earth as liquid and fills the ocean.  The oceans lockups carbon dioxide leaving an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen. Later producer break the bonds carbon dioxide and release the element oxygen through photosynthesis.  Today carbon dioxide is less than 1% making earth a comfortable greenhouse with a water.

Like Mercury, Mars is frozen solid and therefore lost its magnetic field and volcanic activity.  Solar winds has eroded the atmosphere to its current thins state.   The pressure is 1% of Earth’s atmosphere which is 1 % of Venus’s atmosphere.  It is believed that Mars once had an active core, magnetic field, and thicker and warmer atmosphere.  The evident of ancient rivers beds and oceans are only possible through the water cycle.  Erosion is the movement of sediments like sand, silt or clay.  Meandering rivers form deltas by depositing sediments in oceans.   Formations like these are seen on Mar’s surface.
  1. Our solar system is made up of the sun and everything that travels around it. This includes eight planets and their natural satellites such as Earth's moon; dwarf planets such as Pluto and Ceres; asteroids; comets and meteoroids. Eyes on the Solar System:
    Explore our galactic neighborhood in 3D. Image credit: NASA
  2. The sun is the center of our solar system. It contains almost all of the mass in our solar system and exerts a tremendous gravitational pull on planets and other bodies.
  3. Our solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
  4. The four planets closest to the sun -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars -- are called the terrestrial planets because they have solid, rocky surfaces.
  5. Two of the outer planets beyond the orbit of Mars -- Jupiter and Saturn -- are known as gas giants; the more distant Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants.
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