Interiors and Surfaces of Terrestrial Planets and Major Satellites

To reliably advance in studies of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, a solid understanding of our own planetary neighborhood is needed beforehand. This chapter provides a general overview of the internal structure, composition, surface features, and geologic units of the four terrestrial planets of the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The Earth’s Moon is included as part of a large Earth-Moon system. This chapter also revises the current knowledge of the surfaces and interiors of six most representative major satellites orbiting the giant gas planets of the solar system: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto (Jupiter), Titan (Saturn), and Triton (Neptune).