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Major bodies of the Solar System

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.)

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Did you know ...

Ion Biberi

... that Romanian author Ion Biberi (pictured) rejected Marxism at the risk of unemployment, consoling himself that "man eats 20 times more than what he needs"?
... that since being founded in December 2021, the German initiative Freiheitsfonds has paid for the release of around 850 people imprisoned for fare evasion?
... that in 2023, NFL player Tristin McCollum's team played against a team featuring his twin brother?
... that the Benin Moat was built by the Edo people over several centuries, starting from around AD 800 and continuing until 1460?
... that Lavinia Valbonesi, the first lady–designate of Ecuador, is a nutritionist who owns a fitness center in Tampa, Florida, and a healthy-dining location in Guayaquil?
... that in Fancies Versus Fads, G. K. Chesterton "knocks all our preconceived notions in the scrap heap, and then tells us that there is no scrap heap"?
... that Tommy Villiers, the guitarist for "Feel It", has been a member of five different bands?
... that U.S. Marines eat crayons?

In the news

Kalle Rovanperä

In motorsport, Kalle Rovanperä (pictured) and Jonne Halttunen win the World Rally Championship.
Hurricane Otis makes landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, leaving at least 39 people dead.
In the United States, 18 people are killed in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
The Sakharov Prize is awarded to Mahsa Amini and the Iranian Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

On this day

October 29: Republic Day in Turkey (1923)

Marmaray train

1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Wauhatchie, one of the few night battles of the war, concluded with the Union Army opening a supply line to troops in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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.
1986 – British prime minister Margaret Thatcher officially opened the M25, one of Britain's busiest motorways.
1991 – Galileo became the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid when it made a flyby of 951 Gaspra.
2013 – The first phase of the Marmaray project opened with an undersea rail tunnel (train pictured) across the Bosphorus strait.

George Abbot (b. 1562)
Dirck Coornhert (d. 1590)
Diana Serra Cary (b. 1918)
Jimmy Savile (d. 2011)

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Today's featured picture

Louis Blanc (29 October 1811 – 6 December 1882) was a French politician and historian. He advocated for socialist reforms without revolution first, and called for the creation of job guarantees for the urban poor. Blanc coined the phrase "right to work", and his political and social ideas greatly contributed to the development of socialism in France. This photograph of Blanc was taken in 1848 by the French photographer Étienne Carjat.

Photograph credit: Étienne Carjat; restored by JLPC

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