(Astronomi) (noun) a minute planet; a body which could come together with many others under gravitation to form a planet
one of many small solid celestial bodies thought to have existed at an early stage in the development of the solar system
One of a class of hypothetical bodies that joined to form the planets after condensing from dust and gas early in the history of the solar system. According to the nebular hypothesis, a rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas underwent gravitational contraction, eventually forming a solar nebula comprising a disk of matter with a central hub. As the disk contracted further, clumps of dust left behind in its midplane coalesced successively into bodies the size of pebbles and boulders and then into planetesimals up to several hundred miles across. These then combined under the force of gravity to form protoplanets, precursors of the current planets
Large object that is part of the process in the formation of a planet When an objects diameter is approximately a kilometer we can consider it a planetesimal