Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to The "planet" problem

re: The "planet" problem

It is human nature to classify things.

In our Solar System we have six types of worlds

1. Rocky terrestrial worlds (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, IO and Maybe Callisto and Ganymede.)
2. Icy terrestrial worlds. (Europa, Titan, Triton, Pluto and some gas giant moons. Perhaps Chiron and Charon could be in this class
3. Gas Giants (Gaseous worlds)
4. Between terrestrial and Gas Giants (Uranus and Neptune)
5. Small lumpy rocky worlds, the Asteroids, small moons of Mars and some of Jupiter’s small moons.
6. Small lumpy icy worlds, the KBO’s, comets and Oort cloud objects. You could put some of Jupiter’s

This classification groups worlds together in size and similar composition.

When you look at the Solar System, worlds closer to the sun tend to be rocky and they get icier as you move out from the Sun. So composition, rock verses volatiles, tend to change as you move away from the Sun. This is also true of Jupiter’s large moons. Ganymede, Callisto, IO and Europa are very planet like in the traditional sense.

I prefer this method (Composition and size) of classifying worlds, over classifying them by whether they orbit the Sun, a planet or have interplanetary orbits.

Top 16 worlds in our Solar System by size (From memory, so I might be off)

Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Earth
Venus
Mars
Ganymede
Mercury
Titan
Callisto
IO
Moon
Europa
Pluto
Triton

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