The Fate of the Solar System
Scientists believe that stars do not always remain the same. We believe our Sun and our solar system was formed by the collapse of a cloud of gas and dust in space 4.6 billion years ago. The Sun is now a middle aged star, with 9 planets and many other bodies near it in the solar system. In another 5 billion years, scientists think that the Sun will become much larger as energy from within makes the outer layers of the Sun expand, eventually becoming red giant. As this happens, most of the inner planets will be destroyed (including Earth). Eventually, after another 100 million years, the Sun will no longer be able to make energy, and will become a white dwarf, the size of a small planet.
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...moreThe solar system is made up of the Sun, // Call the planets count function defined in the document head print_planet_count('planets'); planets and // Call the planets count function defined in the document
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The Leonid meteor shower is one of several major meteor showers that occur on roughly the same date each year. The Leonids typically "peak" (are at their greatest level of activity) in mid to late November.
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