the solar system

Among otherwise well-educated people, it is common to hear the terms Solar System, Galaxy, and Universe ############# For instance, you might hear "Jupiter is the biggest planet in the Galaxy," or the question, "How many stars are there in our solar system?" These may seem silly to those who know a bit about the subject, but even knowledgeable people are not really sure what constitutes the solar system, what objects are part of it and what objects are not--in short, what constitutes the boundary between our solar system and the rest of the galaxy. This lecture will hopefully give you a feeling for what is part of the solar system and what is not, and will also give you some idea of the size scale of the solar system. As the name implies, the solar system has something to do with the Sun, or Sol. (Incidentally, the words Sun, Moon, Earth, Mars, etc., should be capitalized since they are proper names.) The Sun dominates and controls the solar system.