• Question: What are the terrestrial planets?

    Asked by justinaz to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 16 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Naomi Elster

      Naomi Elster answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      They are the planets which are mostly made up of rocks and metals which contain silicon. They are the four planets closest to the sun – namely Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and are called “terrestial” because they are similar to Earth in that they have a solid surface and an atmosphere.

    • Photo: Andrew Jackson

      Andrew Jackson answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      naomi beat me to this one!

    • Photo: Eileen Diskin

      Eileen Diskin answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      Yep, Naomi’s got it! There are actually different kinds of terrestrial planets, depending on what they’re made of.

      I think my favourite kind of terrestrial planets are the ‘carbon planets’ – which are also called ‘diamond planets’, because they’re made up of the same stuff as diamonds! (Not many of these have been found, though there are a few astronomers who have hypothesised that they do exist!).

      Last year, some astronomers found evidence for one of these – which they think could be almost entirely crystals! How cool would that be! Its too far away though to know for sure though, at least for now.

    • Photo: Aggelos Zacharopoulos

      Aggelos Zacharopoulos answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      @ justinaz
      Terrestrial planets are those that have similar compositions and structure as the earth. As Naomi said, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are called terrestrial as they have similicon based rocks and metals like earth and have a solid surface and an atmosphere.

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