Sentences with phrase «shapes planetary bodies»

Such discoveries will let us better pin down the lunar impact rate and also better characterize the most common process that shapes planetary bodies across the Solar System.»

irregularly shaped planetary body, ranging from 6 meters (20 feet) to 933 kilometers (580 miles) in diameter, orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

Not exact matches

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.

Rocky bodies may become synestias several times before settling into a permanent planet shape, say planetary scientists Simon Lock of Harvard University and Sarah Stewart of the University of California, Davis.

The approach to modeling planetary bodies used in this study is a promising tool to study these worlds if we can measure their shape and gravity field, according to Mikael Beuthe.

The heat that appears to be shaping Pluto may be coming from the decay of radioactive material normally found in planetary bodies, the scientists said.

In the fifteenth century, as intellectuals began to reconsider our planet's shape and position in the Universe, the word «Earth» first came to be used in reference to the planetary body we know it as today and the term considered comparable to Mars, Venus, Saturn, and the other spheres of space.