Solar System - Outer Solar System

Outer Solar System

The outer region of the Solar System is home to the gas giants and their large moons. Many short-period comets, including the centaurs, also orbit in this region. Due to their greater distance from the Sun, the solid objects in the outer Solar System contain a higher proportion of volatiles such as water, ammonia and methane, than the rocky denizens of the inner Solar System, as the colder temperatures allow these compounds to remain solid.

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Famous quotes containing the words solar system, outer, solar and/or system:

    Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.
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    I know, it must have been my imagination, but it makes me realize how desperately alone the Earth is. Hanging in space like a speck of food floating in the ocean. Sooner or later to be swallowed up by some creature floating by.... Time will tell, Dr. Mason. We can only wait and wonder. Wonder how, wonder when.
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    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)