All images: NASA
Our solar system includes the Sun, eight planets, five officially named dwarf planets, and hundreds of moons, and thousands of asteroids and comets. It is located in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy.
According to NASA, so far, we've only known about life on Earth but the American space agency is searching for life on other worlds in our solar system and beyond.
Our solar system extends much farther than the planets that orbit the Sun. Since our Universe is constantly expanding, it becomes very difficult to ascertain the size of our solar system. However, a rough estimate shows that the solar system has a diameter of 30 trillion kilometres.
Our solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust. The cloud collapsed, possibly due to the shockwave of a nearby exploding star, called a supernova.