1.
Constellation
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A constellation is formally defined as a region of the celestial sphere, with boundaries laid down by the International Astronomical Union. The constellation areas mostly had their origins in Western-traditional patterns of stars from which the constellations take their names, in 1922, the International Astronomical Union officially recognized the 88 modern constellations, which cover the entire sky. They began as the 48 classical Greek constellations laid down by Ptolemy in the Almagest, Constellations in the far southern sky are late 16th- and mid 18th-century constructions. 12 of the 88 constellations compose the zodiac signs, though the positions of the constellations only loosely match the dates assigned to them in astrology. The term constellation can refer to the stars within the boundaries of that constellation. Notable groupings of stars that do not form a constellation are called asterisms, when astronomers say something is “in” a given constellation they mean it is within those official boundaries. Any given point in a coordinate system can unambiguously be assigned to a single constellation. Many astronomical naming systems give the constellation in which an object is found along with a designation in order to convey a rough idea in which part of the sky it is located. For example, the Flamsteed designation for bright stars consists of a number, the word constellation seems to come from the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō, which can be translated as set of stars, and came into use in English during the 14th century. It also denotes 88 named groups of stars in the shape of stellar-patterns, the Ancient Greek word for constellation was ἄστρον. Colloquial usage does not draw a distinction between constellation in the sense of an asterism and constellation in the sense of an area surrounding an asterism. The modern system of constellations used in astronomy employs the latter concept, the term circumpolar constellation is used for any constellation that, from a particular latitude on Earth, never sets below the horizon. From the North Pole or South Pole, all constellations south or north of the equator are circumpolar constellations. In the equatorial or temperate latitudes, the term equatorial constellation has sometimes been used for constellations that lie to the opposite the circumpolar constellations. They generally include all constellations that intersect the celestial equator or part of the zodiac, usually the only thing the stars in a constellation have in common is that they appear near each other in the sky when viewed from the Earth. In galactic space, the stars of a constellation usually lie at a variety of distances, since stars also travel on their own orbits through the Milky Way, the star patterns of the constellations change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, their familiar outlines will become unrecognisable, the terms chosen for the constellation themselves, together with the appearance of a constellation, may reveal where and when its constellation makers lived. The earliest direct evidence for the constellations comes from inscribed stones and it seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC
2.
Lyra
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It is one of 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra was often represented on maps as a vulture or an eagle carrying a lyre. Beginning at the north, Lyra is bordered by Draco, Hercules, Vulpecula, Lyra is visible from the northern hemisphere from spring through autumn, and nearly overhead, in temperate latitudes, during the summer months. From the southern hemisphere, it is low in the northern sky during the winter months. Vega, Lyras brightest star is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, Beta Lyrae is the prototype of a class of stars known as Beta Lyrae variables. These binary stars are so close to other that they become egg-shaped. Epsilon Lyrae, known informally as the Double Double, is a multiple star system. Lyra also hosts the Ring Nebula, the second-discovered and best-known planetary nebula, in Greek mythology, Lyra represents the lyre of Orpheus. Made by Hermes from a shell, given to Apollo as a bargain. Orpheuss music was said to be so great that even objects such as trees, streams. Joining Jason and the Argonauts, his music was able to quell the voices of the dangerous Sirens, at one point, Orpheus married Eurydice, a nymph. While fleeing from an attack by Aristaeus, she stepped on a snake that bit her, to reclaim her, Orpheus entered the Underworld, where the music from his lyre charmed Hades. Hades relented and let Orpheus bring Eurydice back, on the condition that he never look back until outside. Unfortunately, near the end, Orpheus faltered and looked back. Orpheus spent the rest of his life strumming his lyre while wandering aimlessly through the land, there are two competing myths relating to the death of Orpheus. According to Eratosthenes, Orpheus failed to make a sacrifice to Dionysus due to his regard for Apollo as the supreme deity instead. Dionysus then sent his followers to rip Orpheus apart, ovid tells a rather different story, saying that women, in retribution for Orpheuss rejection of marriage offers, ganged up and threw stones and spears. At first, his music charmed them as well, but eventually their numbers and clamor overwhelmed his music, both myths then state that his lyre was placed in the sky by the muses
3.
Stellar evolution
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Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. The table shows the lifetimes of stars as a function of their masses, all stars are born from collapsing clouds of gas and dust, often called nebulae or molecular clouds. Over the course of millions of years, these protostars settle down into a state of equilibrium, nuclear fusion powers a star for most of its life. Initially the energy is generated by the fusion of hydrogen atoms at the core of the main-sequence star, later, as the preponderance of atoms at the core becomes helium, stars like the Sun begin to fuse hydrogen along a spherical shell surrounding the core. This process causes the star to gradually grow in size, passing through the subgiant stage until it reaches the red giant phase. Once a star like the Sun has exhausted its fuel, its core collapses into a dense white dwarf. Stars with around ten or more times the mass of the Sun can explode in a supernova as their inert iron cores collapse into a dense neutron star or black hole. Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a star, as most stellar changes occur too slowly to be detected. Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how stars evolve by observing numerous stars at various points in their lifetime, in June 2015, astronomers reported evidence for Population III stars in the Cosmos Redshift 7 galaxy at z =6.60. Stellar evolution starts with the collapse of a giant molecular cloud. Typical giant molecular clouds are roughly 100 light-years across and contain up to 6,000,000 solar masses, as it collapses, a giant molecular cloud breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. In each of these fragments, the collapsing gas releases gravitational potential energy as heat, as its temperature and pressure increase, a fragment condenses into a rotating sphere of superhot gas known as a protostar. A protostar continues to grow by accretion of gas and dust from the molecular cloud, further development is determined by its mass. Protostars are encompassed in dust, and are more readily visible at infrared wavelengths. Observations from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have been important for unveiling numerous Galactic protostars. Protostars with masses less than roughly 0.08 M☉ never reach high enough for nuclear fusion of hydrogen to begin. These are known as brown dwarfs, the International Astronomical Union defines brown dwarfs as stars massive enough to fuse deuterium at some point in their lives. Objects smaller than 13 MJ are classified as sub-brown dwarfs, both types, deuterium-burning and not, shine dimly and die away slowly, cooling gradually over hundreds of millions of years
4.
Aperture
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In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of a system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. The aperture determines how collimated the admitted rays are, which is of importance for the appearance at the image plane. If an aperture is narrow, then highly collimated rays are admitted, a wide aperture admits uncollimated rays, resulting in a sharp focus only for rays coming from a certain distance. This means that a wide aperture results in an image that is sharp for things at the correct distance, the aperture also determines how many of the incoming rays are actually admitted and thus how much light reaches the image plane. In the human eye, the pupil is the aperture, an optical system typically has many openings or structures that limit the ray bundles. In general, these structures are called stops, and the stop is the stop that primarily determines the ray cone angle. In some contexts, especially in photography and astronomy, aperture refers to the diameter of the aperture stop rather than the stop or the opening itself. For example, in a telescope, the stop is typically the edges of the objective lens or mirror. One then speaks of a telescope as having, for example, note that the aperture stop is not necessarily the smallest stop in the system. Magnification and demagnification by lenses and other elements can cause a large stop to be the aperture stop for the system. In astrophotography, the aperture may be given as a measure or as the dimensionless ratio between that measure and the focal length. In other photography, it is given as a ratio. Sometimes stops and diaphragms are called apertures, even when they are not the stop of the system. The word aperture is used in other contexts to indicate a system which blocks off light outside a certain region. In astronomy, for example, a photometric aperture around a star usually corresponds to a window around the image of a star within which the light intensity is assumed. The aperture stop is an important element in most optical designs and its most obvious feature is that it limits the amount of light that can reach the image/film plane. This can be unavoidable, as in a telescope where one wants to collect as much light as possible, or deliberate
5.
Venus
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Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It has the longest rotation period of any planet in the Solar System and it is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is the second-brightest natural object in the sky after the Moon, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus orbits within Earths orbit it is a planet and never appears to venture far from the Sun. Venus is a planet and is sometimes called Earths sister planet because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun. It is radically different from Earth in other respects and it has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is 92 times that of Earth. Venus is by far the hottest planet in the Solar System, with a surface temperature of 735 K. Venus is shrouded by an layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid. It may have had water oceans in the past, but these would have vaporized as the temperature rose due to a greenhouse effect. The water has probably photodissociated, and the hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field. Venuss surface is a dry desertscape interspersed with rocks and is periodically resurfaced by volcanism. As one of the brightest objects in the sky, Venus has been a fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed. It has been sacred to gods of many cultures, and has been a prime inspiration for writers and poets as the morning star. Venus was the first planet to have its motions plotted across the sky, as the closest planet to Earth, Venus has been a prime target for early interplanetary exploration. It was the first planet beyond Earth visited by a spacecraft, Venuss thick clouds render observation of its surface impossible in visible light, and the first detailed maps did not emerge until the arrival of the Magellan orbiter in 1991. Plans have been proposed for rovers or more missions. Venus is one of the four planets in the Solar System
6.
Kepler (spacecraft)
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Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7,2009 and these data are transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star. Kepler is part of NASAs Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions, the telescopes construction and initial operation were managed by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Ball Aerospace responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. The Ames Research Center is responsible for the system development, mission operations since December 2009. The initial planned lifetime was 3.5 years, but greater-than-expected noise in the data, then, on May 11,2013, a second reaction wheel failed, disabling the collection of science data and threatening the continuation of the mission. On August 15,2013, NASA announced that they had given up trying to fix the two failed reaction wheels and this meant the current mission needed to be modified, but it did not necessarily mean the end of planet hunting. NASA had asked the space science community to propose alternative mission plans potentially including an exoplanet search, on November 18,2013, the K2 Second Light proposal was reported. This would include utilizing the disabled Kepler in a way that could detect habitable planets around smaller, dimmer red dwarfs, on May 16,2014, NASA announced the approval of the K2 extension. As of January 2015, Kepler and its follow-up observations had found 1,013 confirmed exoplanets in about 440 star systems, four planets have been confirmed through Keplers K2 mission. It is estimated that 11 billion of these planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars, the nearest such planet may be 3.7 parsecs away, according to the scientists. On January 6,2015, NASA announced the 1, 000th confirmed exoplanet discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, on May 10,2016, NASA verified 1,284 new exoplanets found by Kepler, the single largest finding of planets to date. Since 1988, over 3,000 exoplanets have been confirmed by all detection methods, the spacecraft has a 115 deg2 field of view, roughly equivalent to the size of ones fist held at arms length. Of this,105 deg2 is of quality, with less than 11% vignetting. The photometer has a focus to provide excellent photometry, rather than sharp images. The mission goal is a combined differential photometric precision of 20 ppm for a m=12 Sun-like star for a 6. 5-hour integration, an Earth-size planet transit produces a brightness change of 84 ppm and lasts for thirteen hours when it crosses the midline of the star. The array is cooled by heat pipes connected to an external radiator, the CCDs are read out every six seconds and co-added on board for 58.89 seconds for short cadence targets, and 1765.5 seconds for long cadence targets. Due to the bandwidth requirements for the former, these are limited in number to 512 compared to 170,000 for long cadence. However, even though at launch Kepler had the highest data rate of any NASA mission, therefore, the science team has pre-selected the relevant pixels associated with each star of interest, amounting to about 6 percent of the pixels
7.
Exoplanet
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An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun. The first scientific detection of an exoplanet was in 1988, HARPS has discovered about a hundred exoplanets while the Kepler space telescope has found more than two thousand. Kepler has also detected a few thousand candidate planets, of which about 11% may be false positives, on average, there is at least one planet per star, with a percentage having multiple planets. About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars have an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone, the least massive planet known is Draugr, which is about twice the mass of the Moon. There are planets that are so near to their star that they take only a few hours to orbit, some are so far out that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to the star. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way, the nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, there is special interest in planets that orbit in a stars habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life. The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions, the convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union. For exoplanets orbiting a star, the designation is normally formed by taking the name or, more commonly, designation of its parent star. The first planet discovered in a system is given the designation b, if several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets, a limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Various detection claims made in the century were rejected by astronomers. The first scientific detection of an exoplanet began in 1988, However, the first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a star was made in 1995. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method, in the eighteenth century the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the General Scholium that concludes his Principia. Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century, some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Companys Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it highly probable that there was a body in this system
8.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
9.
Neptune
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Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is more massive than its near-twin Uranus. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at a distance of 30.1 astronomical units. It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol ♆, Neptune is not visible to the unaided eye and is the only planet in the Solar System found by mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. Unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led Alexis Bouvard to deduce that its orbit was subject to perturbation by an unknown planet. Neptune was subsequently observed with a telescope on 23 September 1846 by Johann Galle within a degree of the predicted by Urbain Le Verrier. Its largest moon, Triton, was discovered shortly thereafter, though none of the remaining known 14 moons were located telescopically until the 20th century. The planets distance from Earth gives it a small apparent size. Neptune was visited by Voyager 2, when it flew by the planet on 25 August 1989, the advent of the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics has recently allowed for additional detailed observations from afar. Neptunes composition can be compared and contrasted with the Solar Systems other giant planets, however, its interior, like that of Uranus, is primarily composed of ices and rock, which is why Uranus and Neptune are normally considered ice giants to emphasise this distinction. Traces of methane in the outermost regions in part account for the blue appearance. In contrast to the hazy, relatively featureless atmosphere of Uranus, Neptunes atmosphere has active, for example, at the time of the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989, the planets southern hemisphere had a Great Dark Spot comparable to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. These weather patterns are driven by the strongest sustained winds of any planet in the Solar System, because of its great distance from the Sun, Neptunes outer atmosphere is one of the coldest places in the Solar System, with temperatures at its cloud tops approaching 55 K. Temperatures at the centre are approximately 5,400 K. Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system. On both occasions, Galileo seems to have mistaken Neptune for a star when it appeared close—in conjunction—to Jupiter in the night sky, hence. At his first observation in December 1612, Neptune was almost stationary in the sky because it had just turned retrograde that day and this apparent backward motion is created when Earths orbit takes it past an outer planet. Because Neptune was only beginning its yearly cycle, the motion of the planet was far too slight to be detected with Galileos small telescope
10.
Mass
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In physics, mass is a property of a physical body. It is the measure of a resistance to acceleration when a net force is applied. It also determines the strength of its gravitational attraction to other bodies. The basic SI unit of mass is the kilogram, Mass is not the same as weight, even though mass is often determined by measuring the objects weight using a spring scale, rather than comparing it directly with known masses. An object on the Moon would weigh less than it does on Earth because of the lower gravity and this is because weight is a force, while mass is the property that determines the strength of this force. In Newtonian physics, mass can be generalized as the amount of matter in an object, however, at very high speeds, special relativity postulates that energy is an additional source of mass. Thus, any body having mass has an equivalent amount of energy. In addition, matter is a defined term in science. There are several distinct phenomena which can be used to measure mass, active gravitational mass measures the gravitational force exerted by an object. Passive gravitational mass measures the force exerted on an object in a known gravitational field. The mass of an object determines its acceleration in the presence of an applied force, according to Newtons second law of motion, if a body of fixed mass m is subjected to a single force F, its acceleration a is given by F/m. A bodys mass also determines the degree to which it generates or is affected by a gravitational field and this is sometimes referred to as gravitational mass. The standard International System of Units unit of mass is the kilogram, the kilogram is 1000 grams, first defined in 1795 as one cubic decimeter of water at the melting point of ice. Then in 1889, the kilogram was redefined as the mass of the prototype kilogram. As of January 2013, there are proposals for redefining the kilogram yet again. In this context, the mass has units of eV/c2, the electronvolt and its multiples, such as the MeV, are commonly used in particle physics. The atomic mass unit is 1/12 of the mass of a carbon-12 atom, the atomic mass unit is convenient for expressing the masses of atoms and molecules. Outside the SI system, other units of mass include, the slug is an Imperial unit of mass, the pound is a unit of both mass and force, used mainly in the United States
11.
Stellar classification
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In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the rainbow of colors interspersed with absorption lines, each line indicates an ion of a certain chemical element, with the line strength indicating the abundance of that ion. The relative abundance of the different ions varies with the temperature of the photosphere, the spectral class of a star is a short code summarizing the ionization state, giving an objective measure of the photospheres temperature and density. Most stars are classified under the Morgan–Keenan system using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. Each letter class is subdivided using a numeric digit with 0 being hottest and 9 being coolest. The sequence has been expanded with classes for other stars and star-like objects that do not fit in the system, such as class D for white dwarfs. In the MK system, a luminosity class is added to the class using Roman numerals. This is based on the width of absorption lines in the stars spectrum. The full spectral class for the Sun is then G2V, indicating a main-sequence star with a temperature around 5,800 K, the conventional color description takes into account only the peak of the stellar spectrum. This means that the assignment of colors of the spectrum can be misleading. There are no green, indigo, or violet stars, likewise, the brown dwarfs do not literally appear brown. The modern classification system is known as the Morgan–Keenan classification, each star is assigned a spectral class from the older Harvard spectral classification and a luminosity class using Roman numerals as explained below, forming the stars spectral type. The spectral classes O through M, as well as more specialized classes discussed later, are subdivided by Arabic numerals. For example, A0 denotes the hottest stars in the A class, fractional numbers are allowed, for example, the star Mu Normae is classified as O9.7. The Sun is classified as G2, the conventional color descriptions are traditional in astronomy, and represent colors relative to the mean color of an A-class star, which is considered to be white. The apparent color descriptions are what the observer would see if trying to describe the stars under a dark sky without aid to the eye, or with binoculars. However, most stars in the sky, except the brightest ones, red supergiants are cooler and redder than dwarfs of the same spectral type, and stars with particular spectral features such as carbon stars may be far redder than any black body. O-, B-, and A-type stars are called early type
12.
Terrestrial planet
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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 planets are the inner planets closest to the Sun, i. e. Mercury, Venus, Earth. The terms terrestrial planet and telluric planet are derived from Latin words for Earth, as these planets are, in terms of composition, Earth-like. All terrestrial planets may have the basic type of structure, such as a central metallic core, mostly iron. The Moon is similar, but has a smaller iron core. Io and Europa are also satellites that have internal structures similar to that of terrestrial planets, terrestrial planets can have canyons, craters, mountains, volcanoes, and other surface structures, depending on the presence of water and tectonic activity. The Solar System has four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth. Only one terrestrial planet, Earth, is known to have an active hydrosphere, during the formation of the Solar System, there were probably many more terrestrial planetesimals, but most merged with or were ejected by the four terrestrial planets. The Earths Moon has a density of 3.4 g·cm−3 and Jupiters satellites, Io,3.528 and Europa,3.013 g·cm−3, the uncompressed density of a terrestrial planet is the average density its materials would have at zero pressure. A greater uncompressed density indicates greater metal content, uncompressed density differs from the true average density because compression within planet cores increases their density, the average density depends on planet size as well as composition. The uncompressed density of terrestrial planets trends towards lower values as the distance from the Sun increases, the rocky minor planet Vesta orbiting outside of Mars is less dense than Mars still, at 3.4 g·cm−3. It is unknown whether extrasolar terrestrial planets in general will also follow this trend, most of the planets discovered outside the Solar System are giant planets, because they are more easily detectable. But since 2005, hundreds of terrestrial extrasolar planets have been found. Most of these are super-Earths, i. e. planets with masses between Earths and Neptunes, super-Earths may be gas planets or terrestrial, depending on their mass and other parameters. During the early 1990s, the first extrasolar planets were discovered orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12, with masses of 0.02,4.3 and it was later found to be a gas giant. In 2005, the first planets around stars that may be terrestrial were found, Gliese 876 d, has a mass 7 to 9 times that of Earth. It orbits the red dwarf Gliese 876,15 light years from Earth, oGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, about 5.5 times the mass of Earth, orbits a star about 21,000 light years away in the constellation Scorpius. From 2007 to 2010, three potential terrestrial planets were orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581
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