Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Planet
The International Astronomical Union defines "planet" as a celestial body that, within the Solar System that is in orbit around the Sun; has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape; and has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit; or within another system, it is in orbit around a star or stellar remnants; has a mass below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium; and is above the minimum mass/size requirement for planetary status in the Solar System.
Note: The above text is excerpted from the Wikipedia article "Planet", which has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Related Stories
1
2
Space & Time News
May 9, 2024
May 8, 2024 — Researchers may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar ...
May 6, 2024 — Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored as much water as Earth. Today, almost all of it has disappeared. A new study may help to explain ...
May 1, 2024 — A research team using the ChemCam instrument onboard NASA's Curiosity rover discovered higher-than-usual amounts of manganese in lakebed rocks within Gale Crater on Mars, which indicates that the sediments were formed in a river, delta, or near the ...
Apr. 30, 2024 — Researchers have successfully used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 ...
Latest Headlines
updated 12:56 pm ET
May 9, 2024 — Astrophysicists discovered that an exoplanet is covered with so many active volcanoes that seen from a distance it would take on a fiery, glowing-red ...
May 9, 2024 — A recent study has discovered a novel method for detecting the first-generations stars, known as Population III (Pop III) stars, which have never been directly detected. These potential discoveries ...
May 8, 2024 — After starting science operations in February, Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) studied the monster black hole at the center of galaxy NGC ...
May 6, 2024 — Astronomers observed the elusive starlight surrounding some of the earliest quasars in the universe. The findings may shed light on how the earliest supermassive black holes became so massive despite ...
May 6, 2024 — Bright, starry spiral arms surround an active galactic center in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 ...
May 6, 2024 — New discoveries about Jupiter could lead to a better understanding of Earth's own space environment and influence a long-running scientific debate about the solar system's largest ...
Apr. 29, 2024 — Computer simulations by astronomers support the idea that dark matter -- matter that no one has yet directly detected but which many physicists think must be there to explain several aspects of the ...
May 2, 2024 — Recent reports of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope finding signs of life on a distant planet understandably sparked excitement. A new study challenges this finding, but also outlines how the ...
May 1, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a potential 'cosmic glitch' in the universe's gravity, explaining its strange behavior on a cosmic ...
Apr. 30, 2024 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These ...