Solar System 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 designates those planets that are closer to the Sun than Earth is (i.e. Mercury and Venus). Asteroids except for the largest, Ceres, are classified as small Solar System bodies and are composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals, with some ice. They range from a few metres to hundreds of kilometres in size. Asteroids smaller than one meter are usually called meteoroids and micrometeoroids (grain-sized), depending on different, somewhat arbitrary definitions. The asteroid
Numerical model of the Solar System and only practical on an electronic computer. As such only the latter was used in former times. Strictly speaking not much less calculation intensive, but it was possible to start with some simple approximations and then to add perturbations, as much as needed to reach the wanted accuracy. In essence this mathematical simulation of the Solar System is a form of the "N-body problem". The symbol N represents the number of bodies, which can grow quite large if one includes 1 sun, 8 planets, dozens of moons and countless planetoids, comets and so forth. However the influence of the sun