Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The inner Solar System is the region comprising the terrestrial planets and the asteroids. [ 89 ] Composed mainly of silicates and metals, [ 90 ] the objects of the inner Solar System are relatively close to the Sun; the radius of this entire region is less than the distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
A terrestrial planet, telluric planet, or rocky planet, is a planet that is composed primarily of silicate, rocks or metals. Within the Solar System, the terrestrial planets accepted by the IAU are the inner planets closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Among astronomers who use the geophysical definition of a planet, two or three ...
The eight planets of the Solar System with size to scale (up to down, left to right): Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune (outer planets), Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury (inner planets) A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. [1]
The outer planets' orbits are chaotic over longer timescales, with a Lyapunov time in the range of 2–230 million years. [105] In all cases, this means that the position of a planet along its orbit ultimately becomes impossible to predict with any certainty (so, for example, the timing of winter and summer becomes uncertain).
In this situation, the latter planet is said to be superior to the former. In the reference frame of the Earth, in which the terms were originally used, the inferior planets are Mercury and Venus, while the superior planets are Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Dwarf planets like Ceres or Pluto and most asteroids are 'superior' in the ...
Inferior planets: Planets whose orbits lie within the orbit of Earth. [nb 1] Inner planet: A planet in the Solar System that have orbits smaller than the asteroid belt. [nb 2] Outer planet: A planet in the Solar System beyond the asteroid belt, and hence refers to the gas giants. Pulsar planet: A planet that orbits a pulsar or a rapidly ...
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Solar System: Solar System – gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being ...
The internal structure of the outer planets. A planetary core consists of the innermost layers of a planet. [1] Cores may be entirely liquid, or a mixture of solid and liquid layers as is the case in the Earth. [2] In the Solar System, core sizes range from about 20% (the Moon) to 85% of a planet's radius (Mercury).