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
Five-planet Nice model in 2011 after numerical models indicated that this is more likely to reproduce the current Solar System. The following is a version of the five-planet Nice model that results in a late instability and reproduces a number of aspects of the current Solar System. The early Solar System may have evolved differently, however, with the instability occurring soon after the dissipation of the gas nebula, or with the giant planets beginning in another resonance chain. The Solar System ends its nebula phase with Jupiter, Saturn, and the three ice giants in a 3:2, 3:2, 2:1, 3:2 resonance chain with semi-major