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Some technologies provide short-term energy storage, while others can endure for much longer. Bulk energy storage is currently dominated by hydroelectric dams, both conventional as well as pumped. Grid energy storage is a collection of methods used for energy storage on a large scale within an electrical power grid.
Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) systems store energy in a magnetic field created by the flow of direct current in a superconducting coil that has been cooled to a temperature below its superconducting critical temperature. A typical SMES system includes a superconducting coil, power conditioning system and refrigerator.
Latent heat can also be stored in technical phase change materials (PCMs). These can be encapsulated in wall and ceiling panels, to moderate room temperatures. Liquid hydrocarbon fuels are the most commonly used forms of energy storage for use in transportation, followed by a growing use of Battery Electric Vehicles and Hybrid Electric Vehicles.
Hydropower, a mechanical energy storage method, is the most widely adopted mechanical energy storage, and has been in use for centuries. Large hydropower dams have been energy storage sites for more than one hundred years.
Short answer: The Solar System is a disc shape, 244 astronomical units wide (244 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth, or about 36.6 billion km). Long answer: There is some disagreement over exactly where the edge of the Solar System is, so there are disagreements over its size.
Our Solar System extends much, much farther than where the planets are. The furthest dwarf planet, Eris, orbits within just a fraction of the larger Solar System. The Kuiper Belt, where we find a Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea, extends from 30 astronomical units all the way out to 50 AU, or 7.5 billion kilometers. And we're just getting started.
On this scale, the Sun, by far the largest thing in our solar system, is only a ball about two-thirds of an inch (17 millimeters) in diameter sitting on the goal line — that's about the width of a U.S. dime coin. Considering a typical honeybee is about half an inch long, the fans are going to need telescopes to see the action.
Our solar system's largest planet is an average distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers) from the Sun. That's 5.2 AU. Jupiter is the largest of the planets, spanning nearly 1.75 millimeters in diameter on our football field scale. Jupiter's diameter is about equal to the thickness of a U.S quarter in our shrunken solar system.
