Geology of solar terrestrial planets Earth, and Mars) have substantial atmospheres; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features such as rift valleys and volcanoes. The term "inner planet" should not be confused with "inferior planet", which refers to any planet that is closer to the Sun than the observer's planet is, but usually refers to Mercury and Venus. The Solar System is believed to have formed according to the nebular hypothesis, first proposed in 1755 by Immanuel Kant and independently formulated by Pierre-Simon Laplace. This theory holds that 4.6 billion years ago the Solar System formed from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular
Terraforming of Venus intervention for the purpose of building colossal mountains on Venus to serve as islands of colonization in the skies of Venus. Since Venus only has a fraction of the water on earth (less than half the earth's water content in the atmosphere, and none on the surface), water would have to be introduced either by the aforementioned method of introduction of hydrogen, or from some other extraplanetary source. Paul Birch suggests the possibility of colliding Venus with one of the ice moons from the outer solar systems, thereby bringing in all the water needed for terraformation in one go. This