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Today's Featured Article
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor a stellar remnant. The Solar System has eight (pictured): four terrestrial planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars; and four giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The term "planet" at first included the Sun, Moon and the five naked-eye planets that move across the background of the stars; they were seen as having associations with the gods. Copernicus theorized the Earth was a planet and, like the others, orbited the Sun. "Planet" came to include many objects, such as moons, within and beyond the Solar System. The International Astronomical Union in 2006 defined a planet in the Solar System to have cleared its neighborhood of other bodies, and that extrasolar planets should orbit stars and not be large enough to support deuterium fusion. Many planetary scientists, though, still apply the word "planet" more broadly, including dwarf planets, planetary-mass moons, rogue planets and brown dwarfs. (Full article...)
In the News
- A fire in a residential building in Mangaf, south of Kuwait City, kills fifty people.
- A plane crash near Chikangawa, Malawi, kills nine people, including Vice President Saulos Chilima.
- In tennis, Iga Świątek wins the women's singles and Carlos Alcaraz wins the men's singles titles at the French Open (both pictured).
- In the Indian general election, the National Democratic Alliance, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is re-elected with a reduced majority.