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Planets And the Difference between stars and planets
Planets
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals. According to The International Astronomical Union (IAU) a celestial body can be called planet when it (a) Is in orbit around the Sun or any star forming a solar system. (b) Has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium shape. (c) Has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. In order to understand further it would be necessary to observe our solar system where along with earth, several other planets are revolving around the sun which is a star hence forming their own orbits. Earlier it was assumed that planets appear to change location in the sky night from night, whereas stars seem not to move appreciably from one night to the next. So it was thought that noticeable change in location from one night to the next meant the object was a planet. However with the passage of time those measures were obsolete yet there are several differences between these two celestial bodies. Differences Between Planets and Stars The basic difference between a star and a planet is that a star emits light produced by a nuclear reaction in its core, whereas a planet only shines by reflected light. apart from that there are several other differences such as
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The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Lord AvaLon For This Useful Post: | ||
AFRMS (Thursday, June 11, 2009), ASP imran khan (Monday, August 16, 2010), supersonic dexter (Thursday, June 11, 2009) |
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