Planetary science studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, their composition, dynamics and history.
When the discipline concerns itself with a celestial body in particular, a specialised term is used, as shown in the table below (only Heliology, Geology, Selenology, and Areology are currently in common use):
Planetaryscience, also known as planetology or planetaryastronomy, is the science of planets, or planetary systems, and the solar system.
Incorporating an interdisciplinary approach, planetaryscience draws from diverse sciences and may be considered a part of the Earthsciences, or more logically, as its parent field.
Planetaryscience studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, their composition, dynamics and history.
Planetarygeology is the study of surface and interior processes on solid objects in the solar system: planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, and rings.
Planetarygeology includes an assessment of the past state of the solar system, for example as preserved in the ancient, scarred surfaces of objects like the Moon and asteroids, or in the enigmatic polar layered deposits on Mars.
Geologic histories of planetary surfaces are often documented in the form of geologic maps (compiled at various scales dependent on the available data and detail to be illustrated) which portray the three-dimensional surface units that comprise a planetary surface and indicate their relative stratigraphic positions.
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