why are planets and satellite round while asteroids irregular?

Answer 1

Oh Boy! got it right. The larger asteroids are also basically spherical. This is ultimately due to the fact that they have enough mass for the gravity to force them into this shape. Of course, there are irregularities, but they are fairly small except for the bulges caused by rotation. The smaller asteroids don't have enough mass for the gravity to have much effect.

Answer 2

Planets and satellites (the natural ones anyway) are not round. They are irregular. Just not as irregular as smaller asteroids and meteoroids.
The mass of most planets have mashed them into shape over millions of years. But planetary tectonics drive things like mountains up while gravity is trying to pull them down. It's a constant struggle between the two forces.

Answer 3

The size of planets and satellites is such that their own gravitational field creates the spherical shape. The more massive the body the more gravity it will exert on itself and the more spherical it will be, all else being equal. The liquid nature of large planets mantel also helps to make a planet more spherical. Rotation does tend to disturb this phenomenonon. For example, the distance around the earths equator is slightly larger than the diameter that includes the poles. This phenomen increases as rotational speed increases.

On the other hand, generally asteroids don't have enough internal gravity to become spherical and they don't have a 'liquid center' either.

Answer 4

Everest is 8,850 m high. So the surface of the Earth is hardly what one could call flat and regular.

The process of particles bumping into each other and sticking to form asteroids and planets is random and so of course forms irregularities (in a planet the size of the Earth with a molten core there are, of course, lost of other things making the surface irregular).

But asteroids have a size from a few m to 933 km (the largest known asteroid). The Earth by contrast is about 12,750 km across. So the irregularities (like Everest) on the surface of the Earth are small compared to its size while those on an asteroid are large compared to its size.

Answer 5

hi
the fact that these planets are formed by the bingbang,they were blown into the space with a very high velocity which we never had expierenced in this course the planets due to high density and friction travelled all the way into the space and they didnot settle there as the sun didnot allow this.
the sun or the then core of the bignbang had very high magnitic fields which attracted these planets to a greater extent and what ever was left over on the top layers of these blocks of pieces just flewn back in to the core and these planets were arranged in to a perfect allignment in the space where they were balanced by the interplanetary and the sun and the planetary source magnetic fields and thus the system must have come in to balance after a very long time and the interplanetary balance was brought about by their constant spin which took away most of the rough surface area of these planet blocks
ABOUT SUN
the sun as i said was the core source of the bigbang and this due to constant heat output has turned into a round ball shaped planetary source .

and one more thing there arealso round asteroids which might even support our life in the future

Answer 6

The planets formed as spinning masses while still hot enough to be somewhat liquid ... centrifugal force made them end up round. The asteroid belt was, most likely, formed when a planet size object between Mars and Jupiter broke up for some reason after it's crust had cooled.

Answer 7

Asteroids are irregular because they don't have enough mass to be compressed to spheroids by gravity.

The heavier the body is, the stronger is the gravity and the closer to sphere the body will be. That is for similar composition of the bodies. Of course it is much easier to shape some water or gas to a round bubble, than a piece of rock.

Answer 8

Planets spin at a regular rate paired with the suns gravitational pull. Asteroids done spin at a constant speed or have enough of a revolution around a sun to make their shape round.

Answer 9

Planets and satellites spin and are large enough to have a gravitational pull which helps to shape them. Most planets are not perfectly round, and are rather widest at their equator.

Answer 10

it is because some asteroids being singular solid bodies of rock while other asteroids are composed of many smaller asteroids orbiting in proximity as a rubble pile.