* Recent discoveries regarding the development of the solar system
 Data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which explored Kuiper Belt object
Ultima Thule earlier this week, is yielding scientific discoveries daily. Among the
findings made by the mission science team in the past day are:
 Initial data analysis has found no evidence of rings or satellites larger than one
mile in diameter orbiting Ultima Thule.
 Data analysis has also not yet found any evidence of an atmosphere.
 The color of Ultima Thule matches the color of similar worlds in the Kuiper
Belt, as determined by telescopic measurements.
 The two lobes of Ultima Thule — the first Kuiper Belt contact binary visited
— are nearly identical in color. This matches what we know about binary systems
which haven't come into contact with each other, but rather orbit around a shared
point of gravity.
"The first exploration of a small Kuiper Belt object and the most distant exploration
of any world in history is now history, but almost all of the data analysis lies in the
future," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
 The newly discovered Kepler-90i—a sizzling hot, rocky planet orbiting its star
once every 14.4 days—was found using computers that "learned" to find planets
in data from NASA's Kepler space telescope. Kepler finds distant planets beyond
the solar system, or exoplanets, by detecting the minuscule change in brightness
when a planet transits (crosses in front of) a star.
 The mystery of ninth planet, existing on the icy out edges of the solar system, has
perplexed scientists for a long time. In fact, in 2017, NASA officially claimed
that it is harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet Nine.
Once again, the existence of the ninth planet, which is likely a world “10 times the
mass of
Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune,” is back in the
limelight – thanks to top astronomers. Astronomers have claimed there's
overwhelming evidence pointing towards this planet's existence. But no telescope has
been able to capture it till date.
* Famous personalities that contributed on the discovery of the solar system
 When most people believed the world was flat, the notable Greek mathematician,
astronomer and geographer Eratosthenes (276–195 B.C.) used the sun to
measure the size of the round Earth. His measurement of 24,660 miles (39,690
kilometers) was only 211 miles (340 km) off the true measurement.
 In ancient Greece, astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy (A.D. 90–
168) set up a model of the solar system in which the sun, stars, and other planets
revolved around Earth. Known as the Ptolemaic system, it remained in place for
hundreds of years, though it turned out to be flat wrong. According to NASA,
"Ptolemy represents the epitome of knowledge of Grecian astronomy."
 Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi(903–986), known as Azophi to
Westerners, made the first known observation of a group of stars outside of the
Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy.
 In 16th century Poland, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) proposed
a model of the solar system that involved the Earth revolving around the sun. The
model wasn't completely correct, as astronomers of the time struggled with the
backwards path Mars sometimes took, but it eventually changed the way many
scientists viewed the solar system.
 Using detailed measurements of the path of planets kept by Danish astronomer
Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) determined that planets traveled
around the sun not in circles but in ellipses. In so doing, he calculated three laws
involving the motions of planets that astronomers still use in calculations today.
However, closed minds put Kepler's work at risk.
 American astronomer William K. Hartmann (born 1939) put forth the most
widely accepted theory on the formation of the moon in 1975. He proposed that,
after a collision with a large body scooped, debris from the Earth coalesced into
the moon.
 Stephen Hawking (born 1942) has made many significant insights into the field
of cosmology. He proposed that, as the universe has a beginning, it will likely
also end. He also suggested that it has no boundary or border. Despite being
viewed as one of the most brilliant minds since Einstein, many of Hawking's
books and lectures are steered toward the general public as he seeks to educate
people about the universe they live in.
* How many times does the planet revolve/ circulate?
A year is defined as the time it takes a planet to complete one revolution of the
Sun, for Earth this is just over 365 days. This is also known as the orbital period.
Unsurprisingly the the length of each planet’s year correlates with its distance from
the Sun as seen in the graph above. The precise amount of time in Earth days it takes
for each planet to complete its orbit can be seen below.
Mercury: 87.97 days (0.2 years)
Venus : 224.70 days (0.6 years)
Earth: 365.26 days(1 year)
Mars: 686.98 days(1.9 years)
Jupiter: 4,332.82 days (11.9 years)
Saturn: 10,755.70 days (29.5 years)
Uranus: 30,687.15 days (84 years)
Neptune: 60,190.03 days (164.8 years)
* What is the planet that has extreme storm?
By the time you reach gas giant Saturn and its beautiful rings, you are really far
from the Sun – about 900 million miles. That's almost twice as far out as Jupiter. That
distance comes with a freezing average temperature of about -285℉.
The most familiar weather in the solar system is actually on Saturn's largest
moon, Titan. Scientists believe that Titan experiences seasons, has clouds that rain and
has an atmosphere made largely of nitrogen, just like ours.
Unfortunately, rather than a water cycle, Titan cycles a chemical called methane.
The rain that falls from the clouds is methane, and it falls into lakes, rivers and seas of
methane. And Titan is far too cold for human tourists.
One of the most distinctive features in the solar system is the Great Red Spot of
Jupiter. A giant storm that swirls through the atmosphere of the planet, it was first
observed by astronomer Jean-Dominique Cassini in 1655 and has been raging
continuously ever since. However, imaging from the Pioneer, Cassini and Galileo
spacecraft, as well as the Hubble telescope, has shown scientists that the GRS is not
the only storm out there.
* Nazca Lines in Peru
The Nazca Lines are a group of very large geoglyphs formed by depressions or
shallow incisions made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were
created between 500 BC and 500 AD.