PV Gap

Alfred Said:

Where could Ilook for information about the planes of different objects in orbit in our solar system? ?

We Answered:

http://www.nineplanets.org/
http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html

"The orbits of the planets are ellipses with the Sun at one focus, though all except Mercury are very nearly circular. The orbits of the planets are all more or less in the same plane (called the ecliptic and defined by the plane of the Earth's orbit). The ecliptic is inclined only 7 degrees from the plane of the Sun's equator."

http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Splanets.ht…

Annette Said:

The new planet outside our solar system?

We Answered:

I'm guessing you are talking about the new planet found orbiting the star Fomalhaut. It's a landmark discovery in that it's the first exoplanet (planet of another solar system) that we've taken a visible light picture of.

So far, over 300 exoplanets have been discovered, but these were found using inferences from the host star or were seen using infrared.

Fomalhaut is about 25 light years away, and can be seen in the southern half of the sky. The planet itself has been measured to be about 3 times Jupiter's mass, and orbits Fomalhaut from a distance of roughly 115 AU (1 AU = mean Earth-Sun distance).

Frank Said:

What is the average equatorial circumference of the termination shock zone of our solar system?

We Answered:

Voyager 2 reached the termination shock August 30, 2007, when it was 7.8 billion miles from the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the termination shock in December 2004, when it was 8.7 billion miles from the Sun.

I doubt that it is really appropriate to determine a mean size from two data, but there it is.