The atmosphere is an important transitional material zone between the solid planetary surface and the higher rare ionizing and radiation belts. Not all of the planets have atmospheres, because its existence depends on the mass of the planet. Besides the four giant planets, Earth, Venus, and Mars have atmospheres, and Saturn's moon Titan also has one.

The rotation of the planet affects its body shape, too. More expressed effects of rotation can be seen on the atmospheric streams. The cloudy system in the atmosphere exhibits well these affects by its striped features. Even amateur telescopes show the stripe system of Jupiter and Saturn. Such belts has the name in the terrestrial circulation: Hadley-cells.

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Comparative planetary science

The bodies of the Solar System gradually formed and reached their recent state we observe today. These bodies started in their evolution in different initial conditions, considering their composition and mass, solar distance and other parameters. Therefore it is important to follow and describe the evolutionary path of these individual objects and the comparison of them. The comparative planetology is a discipline of various celestial planetary "laboratories", the planets and other bodies themselves. Many decades of future space probe investigations are necessary to make detailed evolutionary history of planetary bodies and comparative work may help to interpolate some of the hiatus in the known evolutionary histories. For example lunar history has helped us to see the first 3 aeons of the Solar System events which were mostly destroyed on Earth.

Planetary science studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, their composition, dynamics and history.

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Terminology

When the discipline concerns itself with a celestial body in particular, a specialized term is used, as shown in the table below (only heliology, geology, selenology, and areology are currently in common use):

Body	Planetary science	Source of root
Sun	heliology	Greek Helios
Mercury	hermeology	Greek Hermes
Venus	cytherology	Greek Aphrodite
Earth	geology	Greek Gaia
( Moon	selenology	Greek Selene )
Mars	areology	Greek Ares
Ceres	demeterology	Greek Demeter
Jupiter	zenology	Greek Zeus
Saturn	kronology	Greek Cronus
Uranus	uranology	Greek/Latin Uranus
Neptune	poseidology	Greek Poseidon
Pluto	hadeology	Greek Hades
Eris	eridology	Greek Eris

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Basic Concepts

• Asteroid
• Brown dwarfs
• Celestial mechanics
• Comets
• Earthquake
• Equatorial bulge
• Extrasolar planets
• Gas giant
• Geophysics
• Icy moons
• Kuiper belt
• Magnetosphere
• Planet
• Planetary differentiation
• Planetary system
• The Pluto debate
• Precession
• Space weather
• Space weathering
• Star system
• Sun
• Synchronous rotation
• Terrestrial planets

v • d • e General subfields within astronomy and astrophysics Cosmology · Extragalactic astronomy · Galactic astronomy · Star formation · Stellar astronomy · Planetary science · Astrometry · Astrochemistry · Astrobiology

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References

• Basilevsky, A. T.,& J. W. Head (1995): Regional and global stratigraphy of Venus: a preliminary assessment and implications for the geological history of Venus Planetary and Space Science 43/12, pp. 1523-1553
• Basilevsky, A. T.,& J. W. Head (1998): The geologic history of Venus: A stratigraphic view JGR-Planets Vol. 103 , No. E4 , p. 8531
• Basilevsky, A. T.,& J. W. Head (2002): Venus: Timing and rates of geologic activity Geology; November 2002; v. 30; no. 11; p. 1015–1018;
• Frey, H. V., E. L. Frey, W. K. Hartmann & K. L. T. Tanaka (2003): Evidence for buried "Pre-Noachian" crust pre-dating the oldest observed surface units on Mars Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIV 1848
• Gradstein, F. M., James G. Ogg, Alan G. Smith, Wouter Bleeker & Lucas J. Lourens (2004): A new Geologic Time Scale, with special reference to Precambrian and Neogene Episodes, Vol. 27, no. 2.
• Hansen V. L. & Young D. A. (2007): Venus's evolution: A synthesis. Special Paper 419: Convergent Margin Terranes and Associated Regions: A Tribute to W.G. Ernst: Vol. 419, No. 0 pp. 255–273.
• Hartmann, W. K. & Neukum, G. (2001): Cratering Chronology and the Evolution of Mars. Space Science Reviews, 96, 165–194.
• Hartman, W. K. (2005): Moons and Planets. 5th Edition. Thomson Brooks/Cole.
• Head J. W. & Basilevsky, A. T (1999): A model for the geological history of Venus from stratigraphic relationship: comparison geophysical mechanisms LPSC XXX #1390
• Mutch T.A., Arvidson R., Head J., Jones K.,& Saunders S. (1977): The Geology of Mars Princeton University Press
• Offield, T. W. & Pohn, H. A. (1970): Lunar crater morphology and relative-age determiantion of lunar geologic units U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper No. 700-C. pp. C153-C169. Washington;
• Phillips, R. J., R. F. Raubertas, R. E. Arvidson, I. C. Sarkar, R. R. Herrick, N. Izenberg, and R. E. Grimm (1992): Impact craters and Venus resurfacing history, J. Geophys. Res., 97, 15,923-15,948
• Scott, D. H. & Carr, M. H. (1977): The New Geologic Map of Mars (1:25 Million Scale). Technical report.
• Scott, D. H. & Tanaka, K. L. (1986): Geological Map of the Western Equatorial Region of Mars (1:15,000,000), USGS.
• Shoemaker, E.M., & Hackman, R.J., (1962):, Stratigraphic basis for a lunar time scale, in *Kopal, Zdenek, and Mikhailov, Z.K., eds., (1960): The Moon - Intern. Astronom. Union Symposium 14, Leningrad, 1960, Proc.: New York, Academic Press, p. 289- 300.
• Spudis, P.D. & J.E. Guest, (1988):. Stratigraphy and geologic history of Mercury, in Mercury, F. Vilas, C.R. Chapman, and M.S. Matthews, eds., Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 118-164.
• Spudis, P. D.& Strobell, M. E. (1984): New Identification of Ancient Multi-Ring Basins on Mercury and Implications for Geologic Evolution. LPSC XV, P. 814-815
• Spudis, P. (2001): The geological history of mercury. Mercury: Space Environment, Surface, and Interior, LPJ Conference, #8029.
• Tanaka K. L. (ed.) (1994): The Venus Geologic Mappers’ Handbook. Second Edition. Open–File Report 94-438 NASA. Tanaka K. L. 2001: The Stratigraphy of Mars LPSC 22, #1695
• Tanaka K. L. & J. A. Skinner (2003): Mars: Updating geologic mapping approaches and the formal stratigraphic scheme. Sixth International Conference on Mars #3129
• Wagner R. J., U. Wolf, & G. Neukum (2002): Time-stratigraphy and impact cratering chronology of Mercury. Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIII 1575
• Wilhelms D. E. (1970): Summary of Lunar Stratigraphy - Telescopic Observations. U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Papers No. 599-F., Washington;
• Wilhelms D. (1987): Geologic History of the Moon, US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1348, http://ser.sese.asu.edu/GHM/
• Wilhelms D. E.& McCauley J. F. (1971): Geologic Map of the Near Side of the Moon. USGS Maps No. I-703, Washington;

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See also

• Astrogeology
• Planetary habitability
• Europlanet

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External links

• E. Grayzeck, D. R. Williams (2006-05-11). Lunar and Planetary Science (English). NASA. Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
• NASA Mars Exploration Home
• NASA Cassini Mission to Saturn
• NASA DAWN Mission to the Asteroid Belt
• NASA MESSENGER Mission to Mercury
• European Space Agency
• Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona
• Planetary Sciences at UCLA
• Planetary Science Research Discoveries

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