History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses full of hydrogen and helium gas and exchange of angular momentum between giant planets and the particles in the protoplanetary disc. The detailed features of the planets are another problem. The solar nebula hypothesis predicts that all planets will form exactly in the ecliptic plane. Instead, the orbits of the classical planets have various (but small) inclinations with respect to the ecliptic. Furthermore, for the gas giants it is predicted that their rotations and moon systems will also not be inclined with respect to the ecliptic plane. However, most gas giants have substantial axial tilts with respect to the ecliptic,
Planetary mass Planetary mass Planetary mass is a measure of the mass of a planet-like object. Within the Solar System, planets are usually measured in the astronomical system of units, where the unit of mass is the solar mass (), the mass of the Sun. In the study of extrasolar planets, the unit of measure is typically the mass of Jupiter () for large gas giant planets, and the mass of Earth () for smaller rocky terrestrial planets. The mass of a planet within the Solar System is an adjusted parameter in the preparation of ephemerides. There are three variations of how