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
History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses a solution to the angular momentum problem and does not explain lunar formation nor other very basic characteristics of the Solar System. The Weizsäcker model was modified in 1948 by Dutch theoretical physicist Dirk Ter Haar, in that regular eddies were discarded and replaced by random turbulence which would lead to a very thick nebula where gravitational instability would not occur. He concluded the planets must have formed by accretion and explained the compositional difference (solid and liquid planets) as due to the temperature difference between the inner and outer regions, the former being hotter and the latter being cooler,