We have a special feeling towards the other planets surrounding our sun. Maybe it's all the science fiction stories about visiting the Moon, Mars and other planets. But we like to think of those planets that make up what we call “the solar system”. who do what our planet does, but do it very differently. The planets of our solar system have taken on personalities and mythical appeal in our literature and our arts. It is easy to find artists who convey their vision of the planets that make up our society of planets close to our sun. The names of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all come from our cultural past being deities of Greek and Roman mythology. But the solar system is not made up only of these planets. The solar system is indeed a very busy place. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In 2006, there was quite a bit of controversy when scholars and astronomers agreed to downgrade Pluto and remove its status as a planet. So you have to ask yourself, what makes something a planet and what happened to Pluto? It didn't just go away, so it must still be out there. A planet, by scientific definition, is any object orbiting a sun, which has formed into some sort of round object is a planet as long as it has eliminated any other objects orbiting it. By wiping it out, that doesn't mean it destroyed all space debris etc. For example, our planet did not “sweep away” the moon but captured it in its own orbit, so we classify it as a planet. It's a relief, huh? There are many objects floating in our solar system besides the planets we know about. It is an interesting trivia that in addition to the planets there are 165 moons orbiting those nine planets. Some of these moons are so advanced that some scientists suspect they could have supported life at some point. In addition to regular planets and moons, there are dwarf planets, asteroid belts, and routine comet visits that create a lot of traffic in our cosmic corner of the universe. The two known dwarf planets that exist on the outer edge of our solar system are Eries and Ceres. So when Pluto's status was changed to be removed from the list of planets, it simply joined these two bodies as dwarf planets but still a solid citizen of the community of celestial bodies around our sun. In addition to these larger bodies, there is an asteroid belt that exists between Mars and Jupiter where most of the asteroids we see in our night sky come from. There is another belt of large objects further away called the Kuiper belt as well as a "bubble" in space called the heliopause and there is a suspected additional belt outside the known solar system called the Oort belt which we think is the origin of many large asteroid and comet objects that frequent our solar system and come into orbit around our sun. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay When you think about how powerful and out of control this process is, it is astonishing to step back and see the beauty of the organization of our solar system today. The more details you learn about the history of our solar system, the more fun you will have exploring the planets with your telescope. That discovery is part of the fun of astronomy.