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
Outer Planet Flagship Mission Outer Planet Flagship Mission The Outer Planet Flagship Mission is a type of NASA program to research larger size missions to the outer solar system, and some examples of this type of mission are Galileo or Cassini-Huygens. In 2013 after encounter some technical issues and funding in the early 2010s, development was paused although overall research continued. One issue is the other big NASA missions such as in astrophysics and another is availability of RTG's One proposal was a joint mission between NASA and ESA to send a probe to study the icy satellites of the outer Solar System. There