The solar system also contains over a million rocky fragments of at least 1km in diameter called asteroids as well as millions more with smaller diameters. Many of these asteroids are an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

A comet is a loose collection of ice, dust, and small rocky particles that, in contrast to an asteroid, has an extended atmosphere surrounding the center. When passing close to the Sun, this atmosphere warms and begins to release gases forming a visible coma or tail.

Tides are caused by the gravitational interaction of Earth and the Moon.

The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) but is informally known as a yellow dwarf star. Composed of 73% hydrogen and 25% helium, the hot plasma that makes up the Sun reaches 9,900°F (5,505°C) at the surface. It formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago and makes up 99.86% of the mass in the solar system.