Planets

[kwicky]

Why are all planets that circle the sun almost shaped like a ball when meteorites are just like a gigantic rock?

[Loosehead]

Gravity, the more matter the more tendency to form a sphere. The asteroids etc are just not big enough to pull into a sphere.
cue the pendants, "Oblate spheroid, mountains, yada yada yada......"

[kwicky]

Sorry I meant asteroids

[mibn2cweus]

Expounding on the yada yada . . .

Within an equal scale of size, metre for metre, much of the surface features of many planets are as irregular as that of asteroids.

[Gef]

mibn, the question was not about surface features.

The planets formed from gaseous and molten material and the effects of spinning and gravity fromed them into "spheres". Some of the planets (eg. Jupiter and Saturn) are still just balls of gas.

The asteroids were probably formed from material that had already solidified and so retained their irregular shape.

[mibn2cweus]

Gef, I was under the impression that Loosehead had answered that aspect of the question and was only attempting to add some perspective to the apparent difference in shape between a large planet and a small asteroid.

Mt Everest is larger than most asteroids yet has a distinctly non-spherical shape when viewed up close. In the context of its overall size, the Earth is impressively spherical in shape yet in many places no more spherical than an asteroid were it possible to make a side by side comparison.

My apologies to anyone I may have lead astray. As penance for my pedantry I offer this link to:
Why are planets round?

[kwicky]

I think I can understand that if you put enough cubes together you could make it into any shape you wanted. For example if you zoom into any picture or photograph on your computer screen when you get down to the pixel level the picture is made up of rectangles.
So if you were to examine a planet's surface the jagged bits would not be noticeable from afar. But they comprise a fraction of the sphere and the only conclusion you can come to is that the earth is round.

[mibn2cweus]

rojash, looks like I blew it again!