Planets from the FFG edition.
Planets are the main construct of Cosmic Encounter. Each player starts with his or her own system of five planets of his or her player color (four if playing a short game), with four of his or her ships on each. The goal of the game is to land ships and gain colonies on five planets in other players' systems.
In the current (FFG) edition, each planet is its own mini-board about 3 inches in diameter, with five printed in each player color. In previous editions, each system was represented by a board with five planets printed on it. In the Eon and Mayfair editions, these system boards were hexagon-shaped and were referred to in the rules as "system hexes" for this reason.