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Well, you do learn something every day: I'd thought that the closest star to our solar system was Alpha Centauri, but apparently it is actually Proxima Centauri. Wordwind, two sites I checked listed the closest star to our planet as the sun, so yes, you're right (not that I doubted it).
And, a system of planets orbiting a star is a solar system.
Just not our solar system.
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Neptune's rotational axis is reasonably near-horizonal: that is, it lies much closer to the plane of the planet's orbit than is the case with any other planet of our system.
Also, it uniquely rotates "in the wrong direction", when compared with the other planets.
A distinction as to Sirius -- it is the brightest star in our sky (apart from the very occasional supernova), but not the most luminous. That is, others cast off more light, but Sirius appears brightest to us because it is far closer to us than those more-luminous stars (and is far more luminous than the closer stars). In technical terms, it has the greatest magnitude but not the greatest absolute magnitude.
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another bit of astronomical trivia, this time word-related:
Which of the major bodies in the (our) solar system have names that are not taken from classical greek or roman mythology? (I say "major bodies" to exclude asteroids -- which are so numerous that we've long since abandoned classical names -- and comets. Let's take "major" to mean larger than the largest asteroid, Ceres.)
The obvious answers are "earth; moon; sun". There are at least two others.
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Ariel and Oberon are both bigger than Ceres, which is 950 km or so. These two moons of Uranus, like many others orbiting that planet, came from Shakespeare.
edited later
Umbriel and Titania are also larger than Ceres. Titania comes from Titan, so that probably doesn't count. Umbriel is from Rape of the Lock, I think.
TEd
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correct. (I'd forgotten Oberon)
The pairing of Ariel and Unbriel (light and dark) is rather neat, is it not? Help me out, TEd: aren't they moons of the same planet, which were discovered and named together as a pair? (too lazy to LIU)
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