I am home to the Sun and the retinue of celestial objects gravitationally bound to it: the eight planets, their 162 known moons, three currently identified dwarf planets and their four known moons, and thousands of small bodies. Small bodies including asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and interplanetary dust.
The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun; a main star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. The Sun's large mass gives it an interior density high enough to sustain nuclear fusion, releasing enormous amounts of energy, most of which is radiated into space in the form of electromagnetic radiation including visible light. Jupiter and Saturn are the Sun's two largest orbiting bodies and account for more than 90% of the system's remaining mass.
From 1930 to 2006, Pluto, the largest known Kuiper belt object, was considered the Solar System's ninth planet. However, in 2006 the International Astronomical Union created an official definition of the term "planet". Under this definition, Pluto is reclassified as a dwarf planet, and there are now only eight planets in the Solar System :(. In addition to Pluto, the IAU currently recognizes two other dwarf planets: Ceres (Old symbol of Ceres), the largest object in the asteroid belt, and Eris, which lies beyond the Kuiper belt in a region called the scattered disc. Of the known dwarf planets, only Ceres has no moons.
For many years, the Solar System was the only known example of planets in orbit around a star. The discovery in recent years of many extrasolar planets has led to the term "solar system" being applied generically to all the newly discovered systems. Technically, however, it should strictly refer to MY system only, as the word "solar" is derived from the Sun's Latin name, Sol. Other such systems are usually referred to by the names of their parent star...