WEBVTT

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Is our solar system unique?

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Here we are on the small, water
covered, rocky planet orbiting

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a medium sized yellow star.

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We're one of eight planets all
different from one another.

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The ones close to our sun
are small and made of rock.

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The ones farther out are
huge and made of gas.

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Orbiting the sun with them are
many other smaller objects.

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Comets, asteroids,
lots of moons,

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planetary rings, things we
used to think were planets,

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vast fields of planet
sized ice chunks,

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and tiny specks of dust,
all of these things

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make up our solar system.

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And for a long time we thought
that's how all solar systems

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would look, but back in the
'90s we started to find out

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that wasn't true.

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Astronomers found giant gas
planets so close to their stars

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that their atmospheres
boil away into space.

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They found planets orbiting
double star systems.

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They found super-earths 10
times our own planet's mass.

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Why are these planetary
systems so different?

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Is our little solar
system a cosmic oddball?

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To find out we need to know
more about how planets form.

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And to do that, we need NASA's
James Webb Space Telescope.

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