PLANETARY SCIENCE

'Planetary science', also known as 'planetology' and closely related to 'planetary astronomy', is the science of planets, or planetary systems, and the solar system. Incorporating an interdisciplinary approach, planetary science draws from diverse sciences and may be considered a part of the Earth sciences, or more logically, as its parent field. Research tends to be done by a combination of astronomy, space exploration (particularly robotic spacecraft missions), and comparative, experimental and meteorite work based on Earth. There is also an important theoretical component and considerable use of computer simulation. Astrogeology is a major component of planetary sciences.
Planetary science studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, their composition, dynamics and history.

Contents

Terminology

Basic Concepts

See also

External links

Terminology

When the discipline concerns itself with a celestial body in particular, a specialized term is used, as shown in the table below (only ''heliology'', ''geology'', ''selenology'', and ''areology'' are currently in common use):
::

Body	Planetary science	Source of root
Sun	heliology	Greek ''Helios''
Mercury	hermeology	Greek ''Hermes''
Venus	cytherology	Greek ''Cytherea''
Earth	geology	Greek ''Gaia''
( Moon	selenology	Greek ''Selene'' )
Mars	areology	Greek ''Ares''
Ceres	demeterology	Greek ''Demeter''
Jupiter	zenology	Greek ''Zeus''
Saturn	kronology	Greek ''Cronus''
Uranus	uranology	Greek/Latin ''Uranus''
Neptune	poseidology	Greek ''Poseidon''
Pluto	hadeology	Greek ''Hades''
Eris	eridology	Greek ''Eris

Basic Concepts

★ Asteroid

★ Brown dwarfs

★ Celestial mechanics

★ Comets

★ Earthquake

★ Equatorial bulge

★ Extrasolar planets

★ Gas giant

★ Geophysics

★ Icy moons

★ Kuiper belt

★ Magnetosphere

★ Planet

★ Planetary differentiation

★ Planetary system

★ the Pluto debate

★ Precession

★ Space weather

★ Space weathering

★ Star system

★ Sun

★ Synchronous rotation

★ Terrestrial planets

See also

★ Astrogeology

★ Planetary habitability

★ Europlanet

External links

★ Lunar and Planetary Science E. Grayzeck, D. R. Williams

★ NASA Mars Exploration Home

★ NASA Cassini Mission to Saturn

★ NASA DAWN Mission to the Asteroid Belt

★ NASA MESSENGER Mission to Mercury

★ European Space Agency

★ Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona

★ Planetary Sciences at UCLA