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Everything about Planet

Large, round non-stellar astronomical object

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. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the term: the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a young protostar orbited by a protoplanetary disk. Planets grow in this disk by the gradual accumulation of material driven by gravity, a process called accretion. Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: PlanetA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet EarthInfluential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: The War of the WorldsThe most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planetCited 9,810 times
  5. Go sideways: Definition of planetA closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: Solar SystemA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

Noun Each of the seven major bodies which move relative to the fixed stars in the night sky—the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Noun Any body that orbits the Sun, including the asteroids (as minor planets) and sometimes the moons of those bodies (as satellite planets)

Noun A body which is massive enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium (generally resulting in being an ellipsoid) but not enough to attain nuclear fusion and, in IAU usage, which directly orbits a star (or multiple star) and dominates the region of its orbit; specifically, in the case of the Solar system, the eight major bodies of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Noun construed with the or this: The Earth.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Formation
  2. Planets in the Solar System
  3. Exoplanets
  4. Attributes
  5. History and etymology
  6. Mythology and naming

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics