Cosmos Portal

 

The Universe: Planetary Systems

Planetary Systems includes topics such as Extrasolar and Solar planets and Planetology. A planetary system consists of the various non-stellar objects orbiting a star such as planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and cosmic dust. The Sun and its planetary system, which includes Earth, is known as the Solar System. Planetary systems are generally believed to form as part of the same process which results in star formation. Accepted theories today argue that a protoplanetary disk forms by gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud and then evolves into a planetary system by collisions and gravitational capture.

 

  • Featured Article

    Kepler Mission

    Importance of Planet Detection The "Kepler Mission: A search for Habitable Planets" is NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets around other stars. The centuries-old...

  • Featured Blog Post

    Detecting Extrasolar Planets

    The first detection of extrasolar planets was announced in 1995 by two competing groups. One was headed by Geoff Marcy, then at San Francisco State University, the other by Michel Mayor at the Geneva...

Latest News

In All the Universe, Just 10 Percent of Solar Systems Are Like Ours

WASHINGTON, DC (Jan. 5, 2010) – In their quest to find solar systems analogous to ours, astronomers have determined how common our solar system is. They’ve concluded that about 15...