PLANET

Planet

A planet is an astronomical object orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.

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planet

Noun

  1. Each of the seven major bodies which move relative to the fixed stars in the night sky—the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
  2. A body which orbits the Sun directly and is massive enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium (effectively meaning a spheroid) and to dominate its orbit; specifically, the eight major bodies of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (Pluto was considered a planet until 2006 and has now been reclassified as a dwarf planet.)
  3. A large body which directly orbits any star (or star cluster) but which has not attained nuclear fusion.
  4. In phrases such as the planet, this planet, sometimes refers to the Earth.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: planet
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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