The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the
objects that orbit it. There are eight planets, numerous dwarf planets,
the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the Kuiper belt, and the
scattered disc beyond Neptune's orbit. The Solar System was formed
4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of an
interstellar molecular cloud, which formed the Sun and a protoplanetary
disk that coalesced into other objects. Many celestial bodies have
natural satellites orbiting them, and all giant planets and a few
smaller bodies are encircled by planetary rings. Many small-body
populations, including comets, centaurs, and interplanetary dust clouds,
freely travel between the Solar System's regions. The solar wind, a
stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a
heliosphere region. The Oort cloud may extend roughly a thousand times
farther than the heliosphere. (This article is part of a featured
topic: Solar System.).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/Solar_System>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1960:
A C-46 airliner carrying the Cal Poly Mustangs football team
crashed during takeoff from Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, U.S.,
resulting in 22 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Polytechnic_State_University_football_team_plane_crash>
1986:
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher officially opened the
M25, one of Britain's busiest motorways.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M25_motorway>
1991:
Galileo became the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid when
it made a flyby of 951 Gaspra.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/951_Gaspra>
2013:
The first phase of the Marmaray project opened with an undersea
rail tunnel (train pictured) across the Bosphorus strait.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaray>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
asterisk:
1. (dated) A small star; also (by extension), something resembling or
shaped like a star.
2. The star-shaped symbol *, which is used in printing and writing for
various purposes, including to refer a reader to a note at the bottom of
a page or in a margin, and to indicate the omission of letters or words;
a star.
3. Something resembling or shaped like an asterisk symbol.
4. (figuratively) Something which is of little importance or which is
marginal; a footnote.
5. (US, sports, figuratively) A blemish in an otherwise outstanding
achievement.
6. (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism) An instrument with radiating
arms resembling a star which is placed over the diskos (or paten) used
during the Eucharist to prevent the veil covering the chalice and diskos
from touching the host on the diskos.
7. (transitive) To mark or replace (text, etc.) with an asterisk symbol
(*; noun sense 1.1); to star.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asterisk>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is
that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if
they had seen what the realization of their choices involved.
--Alfred Jules Ayer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Jules_Ayer>
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