• Question: how big is the solar system.

    Asked by anon-28534 to Emma, Jimmy, Janet, Niall on 20 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Niall Crawford

      Niall Crawford answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      It will change, depending on the orbit of pluto, but it is still huge, much bigger than we can picture. Usually its recorded as 3.7 billion miles (3,700,000,000)

    • Photo: James Holloway

      James Holloway answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      It depends where you count the end of it. If you count it as far out as pluto, then billions of miles. But there is another way to define our solar system.

      Our sun blows out a constant stream of particles in all directions. This is called the solar wind. The solar wind blows back the gas and dust you get in deep space, creating a ‘bubble’ around the sun and planets. This bubble is called the heliosphere.

      We sent out a probe called Voyager 1 over 35 years ago, and ever since it has been travelling away from earth deeper into space. It is still working and sending us data after all that time.

      According to the readings it is just starting to reach the edge of the heliosphere now, at a whopping distance of over 10 billion miles.

      So that means the solar system is over 20 billion miles from one edge of the heliosphere to the other.

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