The Sun - our special Star.

The Sun—this hot, bright ball of plasma dominates the daytime sky, and is by far the most massive object in our solar system. It provides heat and light to earth. Scientists have long argued about whether or not the Earth has some special characteristics that led to the evolution of life. Rather than guess what properties a Star should have to enable life, the researchers decided to compare the Sun – which already hosts a life-bearing planet – to other Stars. The researchers found that the Sun’s mass is the most anomalous of its properties; the Sun is more massive than 95 % of stars. The Sun’s orbit around the centre of the Galaxy is also more circular than the orbits of 93 %of its peers. But when analysing the 11 properties together, the Sun shows up as a Star selected at random, rather than one selected for some life-enhancing property

Is Earth Special?

We humans like to think we're special, but astronomically speaking we're not. We're not at the center of our Solar System for one, and nowhere near the center of our Galaxy and certainly not by a million trillion light years are we at the center of the Universe. Even our poor old Sun doesn't register as the size of a mere full stop in the vastness of the Universe.

But before despair sets in on us all, now there's great news for the human psyche from Scientists trying to explain Solar System formation. As far as Solar Systems go, we have thought ours was just average and that all Solar Systems were like ours. But in looking at the 400 plus extra-solar planets that have been discovered and the systems they are in, none so far are anything like our home Solar System... hurrah.

In fact, Scientists at Northwestern University say, we may be special after all...very special.
In a study using computer simulations, researchers ran more than a hundred simulations, and the results show that the average planetary system's origin was full of violence and drama but that the formation of something like our Solar System required conditions to be "just right" and quite special indeed.

What is the Solar System?

The Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our Sun. In addition to planets, the Solar System also consists of moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, dust and gas.
Everything in the Solar System orbits or revolves around the Sun. The Sun contains around 98% of all the material in the Solar System. The larger an object is, the more gravity it has, and because the Sun is so huge, it's powerful gravity attracts all the other objects in the Solar System towards it. At the same time these objects (ie. the Earth, Mars, Saturn, Moons, Asteroids etc) tries to fly away from the Sun, outward into the emptiness of outer space. The result of the planets trying to fly away, at the same time that the Sun is trying to pull them inward is that they become trapped half-way in between. Balanced between flying towards the Sun, and escaping into space, they spend eternity orbiting around their parent star.

 

How did the Solar System form?

Scientists believe that the Solar system evolved from a giant cloud of dust and gas. They believe that this dust and gas began to collapse under the weight of its own gravity. As it did so, the matter began moving in a giant circle, much like water in a sink moves around the center of the drain hole. The matter nearest to the center moved faster than the matter on the outside.
At the spinning center a small Star began to form. This Star grew larger and larger, and as it grew it collected more and more of the dust and gas.

Further away from the Star that was forming were small clumps of dust and gas that were also collapsing. The Star in the center eventually ignited forming our Sun, while the smaller island clumps became the planets, moons, asteroids etc.

Once ignited, the Sun's powerful solar winds began to blow. these winds, which are made up of atomic particles being blown outward away from the Sun, slowly pushed the remaining gas and dust out of the Solar System.

Are there other Earth like Planets ?

Astronomers have already discovered many extra-solar planets (planets beyond our Solar System) that orbit their own Star. It was not until 1995 that the first extra-solar planet was confirmed, because technology was not advanced enough to detect these distant planets.
At first astronomers could only find huge gas planets (like Jupiter).. However in recent years they have found planets similar to Neptune. And some astronomers even believe that they have found Earth-like planets, though the technology to determine whether there is life on these planets is still ongoing.

Who named our planet EARTH?

The true answer is that we don't know. All the other planets are named after Greek or Roman Gods. For example Saturn was named after the Roman God of agriculture.
Some 'experts' say 'EARTH' is derived from both English and German words. 'eor (the) e/ertha' and 'erde' which respectively means 'ground'. In the Bible it says; In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. and: 'God called the dry land Earth and the gathering of the waters he called seas.
So who knows?
If you do, please let me know.

Among NASA's spacecraft Cassini's color photos of Saturn's storms, rings and moons was a thunderstorm persisting in the atmosphere that researchers named the Dragon Storm. The storm sends out bursts of radio energy and has periodic flare-ups.

Tit-bit-of-info
Saturn has at bleat 30 moons in tow and is without doubt the most beautiful planet to view through a telescope. One theory on how it got it's rings is that the rings are remnants of a destroyed moon of Saturn. The second theory is that the rings are left over from the original nebular material from which Saturn formed.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist.
As director of the Hayden Planetarium, Prof. Tyson bucked traditional thinking to keep Pluto from being referred to as the ninth planet in exhibits at the center. The Professor has explained that he wanted to look at commonalities between objects, grouping the terrestrial planets together and the gas giants together, and put Pluto with other solar system objects, to get away from simply counting the planets.
He has stated on various U.S. shows and on the BBC's Horizon Programe that this decision has resulted in large amounts of hate mail, much of it from children. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.) confirmed this assessment by changing Pluto to the "dwarf planet" classification.

The Moon

Pummeled and scarred, from 4.5 billion years of relentless and violent space impacts, the Moon is our constant companion in space, and our planets only natural satellite.
In astronomical measurements it is a mere 238,897 miles away, and disputably the same age as the Earth. It has mountains, and is riddled with craters.
It’s only about 27% of the Earth’s size, and has only 60% of Earth’s density. The Moon is covered in craters from asteroid and comet impacts, most from early in the formation of the Solar System billions of years ago. The Earth has received just as many impacts from space, more in fact because of it’s bigger size, but time and the ever changing evolution of our planet has erased most of the visual evidence.

No one will ever truly know how the Moon and Earth system came into being.  Many believe that the Earth formed first and the Moon was either captured or blasted off from the Earth by the impact of a passing planet the size of Mars.  If the latter had happened, either the Earth as we know it would never have come into being, since it would have ended up somewhere else in the Solar System, or, the incoming planet mass could have replaced the original planet mass and itself became Earth, with the original planet mass speeding off to be absorbed by one of the bigger gas planets. Maybe it is a sheer co-incidence that the Earth just happens to have the perfect size Moon with a perfect sized mass for life as we observe it to establish itself on our home planet.

The Moon prevents Earth’s poles from bobbing up and down, which would destabilise the tilt of our planet and cause great changes in the weather making the evolution of complex life difficult or impossible

Our Earth would spin much faster without the orbiting Moon, we'd have a shorter day, and wind patterns would likely be stronger and longer lived.

The Moon affects the oceanic tides and the depth of the Oceans which affects the currents such as the gulf stream and the el nino current that affect our weather.

Where would we be without Moonlight which has had an influence on the evolution of animals and man making night vision easier.

The Moon has been a stabilizing factor for the axis of rotation of the Earth. Mars has wobbled quite dramatically on its axis over time due to the gravitational influence of all the other planets in the Solar System. Because of this obliquity change, the ice that is now at the poles on Mars would sometimes drift to the equator. But the Moon has helped stabilized our planet so that its axis of rotation stays in the same direction. For this reason, we had much less climatic change than if the Earth had been alone. And this has changed the way life evolved on Earth, allowing for the emergence of more complex multi-cellular organisms compared to a planet where drastic climatic change would allow only small, robust organisms to survive.

The recent discovery that the Moon holds water is quite a surprise and a huge boost to the staggeringly slow Moon base programme, which all astronomy lovers eagerly anticipate. It seems that the Moon releases its secrets reluctantly and it is certain that future explorations will surprise and enthrall those lucky enough to be around when mankind finally has its first true-blue Moon base.

Check out the size of our Solar System as indicated below, and be prepared to be humbled...wow.

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration