Noun

1. The Solar System; the Sun and all the objects in orbit around it.
2. Any collection of heavenly bodies including a star or binary star, and any lighter stars, brown dwarfs, planets, and other objects in orbit.
   • 1980, Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,

     The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.

   • 1992, J. Laskar, page 31 in, Sylvio Ferraz-Mello (editor), "Chaos, resonance, and collective dynamical phenomena in the solar system", International Astronomical Union Symposium,

     I would like to stress out that the meaning of unstable for our solar system is very different than for another solar system.

   • 2001, Stuart Ross Taylor, Solar system evolution: a new perspective, 2nd edition, page xiii

     Every satellite has turned out to differ in some significant feature from its neighbor: "the sense of novelty would probably not have been greater if we had explored a different solar system".

Usage notes

• Usually used specifically to refer to our own solar system, in which case it is used with the and often capitalised (as the Solar System). Other solar systems are then known as star systems or planetary systems to distinguish them from the Sun's solar system.