2. The Solar System: Layout & Two Families

Our solar system is the Sun plus everything its gravity holds: eight planets, their moons, and countless asteroids and comets. The planets all orbit the Sun in the same direction, in roughly the same flat plane.

The order from the Sun is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and they fall into two families:

• The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) are small, rocky, and closer together — also called terrestrial planets.
• The outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) are huge giants made of gas and ice, cold and far apart.

Between the two families, mostly between Mars and Jupiter, lies the asteroid belt — a zone of rocky leftovers from the solar system's formation.

⚠️ Common misconception: the diagrams are not to scale. The real distances are vast and the gaps between the outer planets are enormous compared with the crowded inner planets.

💡 Tip: a memory sentence for the order — 'My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Names' (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). Inner = small & rocky; outer = giant.