Question

What percentage of the solar system's mass is found in the sun? How is this calculated?

Answer 1

Hint: The Solar System consists of the Sun which is surrounded by planets, asteroids, and comets in orbit. In the solar system, most planets have a moon in orbit around them.

Complete answer:
The sun consists of over 99.8% of the Solar system’s mass. The sun consists of most of the material in the solar system. The major part of the remaining mass will be in the planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
We can calculate the mass of the planets which have at least one moon, by observing the planet’s moons. If we can calculate the Orbital Period which represented by the letter P and the semi-major distance, a from the planet, and, thus we can calculate the mass of the planet represented by the letter M, by using Kepler’s third law by using the formula,
${P^2} = \dfrac{{4{\pi ^2}}}{{GM}}{a^3}$
Where P is the Orbital Period, M is the mass of the planet and G is the gravitational constant.
Thus the percentage of the solar system’s mass in the sun is 99.8% and we calculate it by using the above formula.

Note: 1. The solar system consists of all the objects that travel around the sun. Thus in the solar system, each object will be in motion and wants to move in a straight line. Thus the sun’s gravity pulls out of that straight line and in turn sets up the orbit of the planet.
2. The center of the solar system is the sun. All the planets will orbit around the sun as it is so big and the sun’s gravity will keep the planets from floating in different directions into space.