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solar system

the sun together with all the planets and other bodies that revolve around it.
a similar system with celestial bodies revolving around a star other than the sun.
Origin of solar system
First recorded in 1695-1705 Unabridged
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Examples from the Web for solar system
Contemporary Examples
Historical Examples
  • Every swarm of meteors in the solar system was carefully plotted.

    Pirates of the Gorm Nat Schachner
  • I was smart enough to fool all the so-called brains of the solar system.

    Irresistible Weapon Horace Brown Fyfe
  • Almost, Mr. Smith forgot people and the solar system and what had been.

    Happy Ending Fredric Brown
  • Lee had a glimpse of the solar system, a mere bunch of lights.

    The World Beyond Raymond King Cummings
  • That's my horoscope, and after that the solar system may be ripe for picking.

    The Stark Munro Letters J. Stark Munro
British Dictionary definitions for solar system

solar system

the system containing the sun and the bodies held in its gravitational field, including the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), the dwarf planets (Eris, Pluto, and Ceres), the asteroids, and comets
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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solar system in Science
solar system  

  1. Often Solar System. The Sun together with the nine planets, their moons, and all other bodies that orbit it, including asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and Kuiper belt objects. The outer limit of the solar system is formed by the heliopause. See more at nebular hypothesis.

  2. A similar system surround another star. The Milky Way contains 12 stars known to have planets in orbit around them, though none is known to have as extensive or diverse a group of orbiting bodies as the Sun's system.

Our Living Language  : The solar system consists of much more than just the Sun and planets. It contains billions of other objects and extends far beyond the outermost planets. Several hundred thousand asteroids revolve around the Sun in orbits mainly between Mars and Jupiter. Countless smaller meteoroids, including cometary debris and fragments from the collision of larger bodies, are also present, some of which approach Earth's orbit closely enough to be known as near Earth objects. In addition, as many as a billion objects, most the size of a speck of dust, cross through our atmosphere as meteors or micrometeoroids each day, though the vast majority are invisible to observers on the ground. Astronomers have recorded more than 800 comets passing through the inner part of the solar system. Billions more lie in the area surrounding the solar system, in the disk of debris known as the Kuiper belt and in the swarm of comets known as the Oort cloud. All of these objects orbit the Sun at high speeds. Some orbits, like those of the planets near the Sun, are almost circular. Other orbits, like those of comets that make their way in among the planets, are stretched out into long ellipses. As in most scientific fields, new discoveries are constantly changing our understanding and definitions. The objects in the Kuiper belt, for example, were discovered in the 1990s. When the new planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History opened in 2000, many visitors were shocked to find that Pluto, long known as the ninth, outermost planet, had been demoted to a Kuiper belt object—causing considerable controversy.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
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solar system in Culture

solar system definition

The region of the universe near the sun that includes the sun, the nine known major planets and their moons or satellites, and objects such as asteroids and comets that travel in independent orbits. The major planets, in order of their average distance from the sun, are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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