Terrestrial planet Terrestrial planet 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 terrestrial planets are the inner planets closest to the Sun, i.e. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The terms "terrestrial planet" and "telluric planet" are derived from Latin words for Earth ("Terra" and "Tellus"), as these planets are, in terms of structure, "Earth-like". Terrestrial planets have a solid planetary surface, making them substantially different from the larger giant planets, which are composed mostly of some combination of hydrogen, helium, and water existing in various
Sagan Planet Walk Sagan Planet Walk The Sciencenter's Sagan Planet Walk is a walkable scale model of the Solar System, located in Ithaca, New York. The model scales the entire Solar System—both planet size and distances between them—down to one five billionth of its actual size. Consisting of eleven obelisks situated along a path through the streets of downtown Ithaca, the Planet Walk leads from the Sun at Center Ithaca to Pluto at the Ithaca Sciencenter. The exhibition was originally created in 1997 in memory of Ithaca resident and Cornell Professor Carl Sagan. In 2012, the model was expanded to include a representation