Explorer satellites have made important discoveries: Earth's magnetosphere and the shape of its gravity field ; the solar wind ; properties of micrometeoroids raining down on the Earth ; much about ultraviolet, cosmic, and X-rays from the solar system and universe beyond ; ionospheric physics ; Solar plasma ; solar energetic particles ; and atmospheric physics.

Solar heating and tidal oscillations in the lower ionosphere move plasma up and across the magnetic field lines.

Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere ( photosphere, chromosphere, and corona ), when the medium plasma is heated to tens of millions of kelvins and electrons, protons, and heavier ions are accelerated to near the speed of light.

While it is widely agreed that plasma physics is essential to many astrophysical phenomena in the early universe and is still important today to phenomena up to the scale of the Solar system, plasma cosmology continues this extrapolation to the universe on the largest observable scales.

Other things in the Solar System that are beyond the Earth's magnetosphere in which plasma plays a central role are the heliospheric current sheet and the interplanetary medium.

Theories in astrophysical plasma in the Solar system are a fundamental part of plasma cosmology.

The six experiments that make up the IEH payload are ( 1 ) Solar Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker ( SEH ) payload which obtained EUV and FUV fluxes that are required when studying the Earth's upper atmosphere ; ( 2 ) Ultraviolet Spectrograph Telescope for Astronomical Research ( UVSTAR ) payload designed to measure EUV fluxes which can be used to form images of extended plasma sources ( ex.

Solar rotation is able to vary with latitude because the Sun is composed of a gaseous plasma.

* Solar flare, an eruption of plasma from the surface of the sun

It is characterized by a low plasma density and a variable, non-dipolar magnetic field strongly influenced by the Solar wind.

Some of these elements, notably thorium ( atomic number 90 ) and uranium ( atomic number 92 ), have one or more isotopes with half-lives long enough to survive as remnants of the explosive stellar nucleosynthesis that produced the heavy elements before the formation of our Solar System.

According to these models, the number of collisions early in the Solar System's history was so great that most comets were destroyed before they reached the Oort cloud.

In the charted regions of the Solar System, these effects are negligible compared to the gravity of the Sun.

The effect of these added interactions on the stability of the Solar System is very small, but at first it was not known whether they might add up over longer periods to significantly change the orbital parameters and lead to a completely different configuration, or whether some other stabilising effects might maintain the configuration of the orbits of the planets.

Because these changes occur very rapidly they define an upper limit on the volume of a quasar ; quasars are not much larger than the Solar System.

Solar thermal power stations operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of these is the 354 MW SEGS power plant in the Mojave Desert.

To explain why these stars exerted no net gravitational pull on the Solar System, Isaac Newton suggested that the stars were equally distributed in every direction, an idea prompted by the theologian Richard Bentley.

Recent observations from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ( SOHO ) using sound waves traveling below the Sun's photosphere ( local helioseismology ) have been used to develop a three-dimensional image of the internal structure below sunspots ; these observations show that there is a powerful downdraft underneath each sunspot, forming a rotating vortex that concentrates the magnetic field.

It is believed that these may provide clues to the origin of the Solar System.

The vessel's exhaust would contain radioactive isotopes, but these would be rapidly dispersed after traveling only a short distance ; the exhaust would also be travelling at high speed ( in Zubrin's scenario, faster than Solar escape velocity, allowing it to eventually leave the Solar System ).

When these most important problems of the theory were solved, and a firm foundation for further work built, Milanković finished a book which was published in 1920, by the Gauthier-Villars in Paris under the title " Théorie mathématique des phénomènes thermiques produits par la radiation solaire " ( Mathematical Theory of Heat Phenomena Produced by Solar Radiation ).

This is because the determination of the relative mass of another planet in the Solar System or of a binary star in units of solar masses does not depend on these poorly known constants.

In the current Solar System, these small bodies are usually also classified by dynamics and composition, and may have subsequently evolved

Moreover, Cavallo subjected payments covered by these exchange rate guarantees to indexation, and this latter stipulation was dropped by his successor, Julio González del Solar.

Solar cycles still occur during these grand solar maximum periods but the intensity of those cycles are more intense.

In our Solar system, these planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars

During this period he operated under the assumption that meteorites are left-over materials from the creation of the Solar System, and thus by measuring the age of one of these rocks the age of the Earth would be revealed.

Both of these planets are in more eccentric orbits than any of the planets in the Solar System ( including Pluto ).

Even if we able to minimize the effect of instrumental and atmospherical components ( e. g. using a spacecraft ), there are still several astrophysical components contributing to the sky background: these could be sets of point sources like faint asteroids, Galactic stars and far away galaxies, as well as diffuse sources like dust in the Solar System, in the Milky Way, and in the intergalactic space.

The named agents of the Deathlords in the world of the living are the Abyssal Exalted, also known as Deathknights ; these antagonists are dark reflections of the Solar Exalted and are presented as being their equal in power.

Solar cells made with these devices have the potential to provide low-cost, ultra-lightweight, and flexible cells with a wide range of applications.

A tenet of these views holds that vast amounts of energy originating from dimensions we cannot perceive are available at latitudes 19. 5 ° both south and north on the Sun and every planet in the Solar System.

The primary manufacturer of these devices is BigBelly Solar.

Solar shade structures were recently on outdoor play areas that shields participants from the direct sunlight and keeps them cooler.

Billing itself as " America's First Solar Village ," Soldiers Grove was the first community in the United States to mandate the use of solar heating in commercial structures.

The term has also been used to refer to other structures used for experimental purposes, such as the Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment ( STACEE ), which is being used to study Cherenkov radiation, and the Weizmann Institute solar power tower.

However, the term has also been used loosely to describe similar structures on a number of planets in the Solar System, including Mars, Venus, and on a number of moons.

* Envision Solar, a company manufacturing solar shading structures based in San Diego, USA

An equivalent definition is the radius of an unperturbed circular Newtonian orbit about the Sun of a particle having infinitesimal mass, moving with an angular frequency of radians per day ; or that length such that, when used to describe the positions of the objects in the Solar System, the heliocentric gravitational constant ( the product GM < sub >☉</ sub >) is equal to ()< sup > 2 </ sup > AU < sup > 3 </ sup >/ d < sup > 2 </ sup >.

" As such, the meter is undefined for the purposes of measuring distances within the Solar System.

Note: because Solar System bodies are never perfect diffuse reflectors, astronomers use empirically derived relationships to predict apparent magnitudes when accuracy is required.

The abundance of elements in the Solar System is in keeping with their origin from nucleosynthesis in the Big Bang and a number of progenitor supernova stars.

* The Study of Climate on Alien Worlds ; Characterizing atmospheres beyond our Solar System is now within our reach Kevin Heng July-August 2012 American Scientist

In most common usage, the term is used for the approximately circular depression in the surface of a planet, moon or other solid body in the Solar System, formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller body with the surface.

The series is set in the year 2071, when the entire Solar System has been made accessible through reliable hyperspace gates.

From the CMB data it is seen that our local group of galaxies ( the galactic cluster that includes the Solar System's Milky Way Galaxy ) appears to be moving at 627 ± 22 km / s relative to the reference frame of the CMB ( also called the CMB rest frame, or the frame of reference in which there is no motion through the CMB ) in the direction of galactic longitude l

Mars has the largest volcano in the Solar System called Olympus Mons, which is more than three times the height of Mount Everest, with a diameter of 520 km ( 323 miles ).

One series concerns the rogue and adventurer, Northwest Smith, and his wanderings through the Solar System ; the other is a short fantasy series about Jirel of Joiry ( one of the first female protagonists in sword-and-sorcery fiction ).

Also, the Earth does not actually orbit the Sun, but the Solar System barycenter, therefore an alternate definition of the ecliptic is the mean plane of the orbit of Earth-Moon barycenter around the Solar System barycenter.

*** Solar thermal energy ( the sun as the heat source ): solar parabolic troughs and solar power towers concentrate sunlight to heat a heat transfer fluid, which is then used to produce steam.

Solar updraft towers use wind that is artificially produced inside the chimney by heating it with sunlight, and are more properly seen as forms of solar thermal energy.

An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System.

In the Solar System, Mars, Venus, and the moon Titan also exhibit greenhouse effects ; that on Venus is particularly large, due to its atmosphere, which consists mainly of dense carbon dioxide Titan has an anti-greenhouse effect, in that its atmosphere absorbs solar radiation but is relatively transparent to infrared radiation.

It is difficult to use this method for journeys in the inner part of the Solar System, although it is possible to use other nearby planets such as Venus or even the Moon as slingshots in journeys to the outer planets.

The Sun cannot be used in a gravitational slingshot because it is stationary compared to rest of the Solar System, which orbits the Sun.

Oxygen is a common constituent of the moon's crust, and is probably abundant in most other bodies in the Solar System.