What is a planet?
@article{Soter2007WhatIA, title={What is a planet?}, author={S. Soter}, journal={Scientific American}, year={2007}, volume={296 1}, pages={ 34-41 } }
A planet is an end product of disk accretion around a primary star or substar. I quantify this definition by the degree to which a body dominates the other masses that share its orbital zone. Theoretical and observational measures of dynamical dominance reveal gaps of 4-5 orders of magnitude separating the eight planets of our solar system from the populations of asteroids and comets. The proposed definition dispenses with upper and lower mass limits for a planet. It reflects the tendency of… CONTINUE READING
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