Tiny, solid pieces of rock and metal that collect in a planetary nebula and eventually accumulate to form a planet.
A small object that orbits the Sun. Planetesimals are thought to have formed when the Solar System itself formed, and they were perhaps the building blocks from which the planets were built.
A small (diameter up to several hundred kilometers) solar-system body of the type that first condensed from the solar nebula. Planetesimals are thought to have been the principal bodies that combined to form the planets.
A small object, as implied by the suffix -esimal, which is fated to become part of a planet. Presumed to be intermediate in size between microscopic bits of dust and ice, and planets themselves.
small solid celestial bodies at an early stages of solar system
Term given to objects in the early solar system that had reached the size of small moons, at which point their gravitational fields were strong enough to begin to influence their neighbors.
a small object made of rock and ice that was left over when the planets formed
A rocky and/or icy body, a few to several tens of kilometers in size, that was produced in the solar nebula.
One of the family of asteroid-sized bodies that first condensed out of the disk of the solar nebula and later collided to form the planets.
a small body that has formed in a protostellar/protoplanetary disk, through coagulation and sticking of dust grains in the disk. Accretion and coagulation of planetesimal can lead to the formation of larger, more massive bodies and, ultimately, it is believed, the formation of a protoplanet.
A solar-system body of the order of a kilmetre in size.
one of many small solid bodies that may have existed at an early stage in the development of the solar system
In the formative stages of the solar system, a clump of matter massive enough to attract one another gravitationally rather than meeting simply by chance.
A small body formed in the early solar system by accretion of dust and ice (if present) near the central plane of the solar nebula.
One of the small bodies that formed from the solar nebula and eventually grew into proto-planets.
Planetesimals are solid objects thought to exist in protoplanetary disks and in debris disks.
