Solar System

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Solar System

• Sun
• All other objects orbiting the sun

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Objects Orbiting the Sun

• Planets (8 or 9)
• Meteors, Comets, Asteroids, Dwarf Planets

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Orbiting Objects

• Counter clockwise around the sun
• Elliptical orbits (pg. 542)

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ORBITAL ECCENTRICITY

• Eccentricity is a measure of how an orbit
  deviates from circular.
• Neptune, Venus, and Earth least eccentric orbits
• Pluto and Mercury most eccentric orbits

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Meteoroids

• fragments of rock or ice that orbit the sun
• can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as
  a boulder

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Meteor

• light seen when a meteoroid passes through
  earths atmosphere
• Falling Star

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Meteorite

• part of a meteoroid that reaches the earths
  surface

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Comet

• rock, dust, ice and gas
• large elongated orbit
• invisible except when near the sun

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Halleys Comet (76 yrs)
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Asteroids

• small rocky objects that orbit sun, usually in a
  band

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Apophis
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Asteroid Belt

• divides inner and outer planets (between Mars and
  Jupiter)
• range in diameter from 3km to 700 km

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Dwarf Planets

• any object that orbits the sun, is not a
  satellite and is nearly round
• 3, including Pluto (12 possible)

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Planets

• primary body orbiting the sun (spin on axis)
• must dominate the mass of its orbital zone (no
  competitors)

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Planets

• closer than stars
• dont give off their own light (reflect light)

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Go
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Inner Planets

• Mercury
• Venus
• Earth
• Mars

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Inner Planets

• made of rocky material
• called the rocky planets

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Outer Planets

• Jupiter
• Saturn
• Uranus
• Neptune

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Outer Planets

• made of gas
• called the gas giants

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Mercury

• Fastest of the 8 planets
• has short years and really long days
• has no atmosphere

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Mercury

• 15 Mercuries would fit inside earth
• made almost entirely of metal with a rocky surface

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Mercury

• Mariner 10
• mapped surface of Mercury in 1974
• craters cover the entire surface of the planet

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Mercury
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Venus

• sometimes called the Jewel of the Sky or
  Earths Twin
• Venus is the same size as Earth

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Venus

• covered by thick clouds that hold in heat
  (hottest planet)
• clouds reflect light so it appears bright in our
  sky

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Venus

• Venera 13 (1982)
• revealed a flat, dry landscape that had volcanoes
  in the past
• Spins backwards

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Venus
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Earth

• only planet in the solar system with large
  amounts of liquid water
• and land that moves on top of denser rock below

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Earth

• center has large amounts of moving liquid iron
• creates strong magnetic field

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Earth

• spins on an axis
• day/night, seasons
• Only planet to sustain life
• has one moon

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Moon

• largest moon in the solar system
• always keeps one side facing earth
• Phases pg. 549
• Eclipse pg. 549

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Moon

• Rises in the east 50 minutes later each day
• Tides rise 50 minutes later each day

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Moon

• tides change every 6 hours and 12.5 minutes
• tide is high and low 2x per day

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Moon

• Caused by lunar gravity on the ocean
• Highest and lowest tides correspond to new and
  full moons (due to added gravity of the sun)

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Mars

• First planet inside the asteroid belt
• 7 Mars would fit inside Earth

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Mars

• Red in color from rusty iron dust on surface
• Red Planet
• Cold and dry, has polar ice caps (dry ice CO2)

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Mars

• Viking and Mariner 9
• Rocky surface, no water
• largest volcano in the solar system is on Mars
• Olympus Mons

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Asteroid Belt

• divides inner and outer planets (between Mars and
  Jupiter)
• range in diameter from 3km to 700 km

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Jupiter

• largest planet
• more than 1,000 earths would fit inside Jupiter
• First planet outside the asteroid belt

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Jupiter

• big gas ball- large amounts of methane gas and
  ammonia
• clouds are red, white, orange and brown
  (constantly swirling to make new patterns)

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Jupiter

• Red spot similar to a hurricane on Earth but
  much bigger
• This storm has been raging for over 300 years and
  is about 2 Earth diameters wide

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Jupiter

• 60 moons
• huge gravitational pull
• most of its moons were captured rather than
  forming with Jupiter

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Jupiter

• In May of 2002 discovery of 11 new moons
• As of March, 2003, Jupiter had 52 confirmed
  satellites.

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Jupiter

• In April, 2003, 8 more moons were confirmed for a
  total of 60 moons with the possibility of more as
  the search continues.

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Jupiter

• Pioneer, voyager and Galileo flew by
• No evidence of solid surface (may have a solid
  core)

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Saturn

• 865 million miles from sun
• about 800 earths would fit inside Saturn
• has rings

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Saturn

• Galileo fist saw rings of Saturn in 1610
• He thought it had ears
• Voyager 1 2 (1980 1981)

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Saturn

• rings are billions of icy particles that orbit
  Saturn in a thin, broad sheet about 40,000 miles
  wide but only 60 ft thick

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Saturn

• made of gases (helium, hydrogen, methane and
  ammonia)
• no solid surface
• winds at equator blow at speeds greater than
  1,000 miles per hour

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Saturn

• more than 20 moons orbit Saturn
• Titan is the largest, its larger than Mercury
  with an atmosphere thicker than earths
• scientist want to explore for signs of life

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Uranus

• 1,723 million miles from sun
• more than 60 earths would fit inside Uranus
• axis is nearly sideways
• gives it a strange orbit

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Uranus

• 1977 two astronomers discovered that it had rings

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Uranus

• Blue - caused by methane gas in upper atmosphere
• Absorbs red wavelengths and reflects blue
• dark and light sides similar temperature

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Uranus

• Voyager I flyby
• covered by a greenish-blue haze
• No clouds or other features

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Neptune

• 2,698 million miles from sun
• more than 60 earths would fit inside Neptune

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Neptune

• Axis tipped like Uranus but not as much
• Very high winds recorded (fastest winds in the
  solar system,1,200 miles per hour)

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Neptune

• Beautiful blue color
• warm gases near its windy surface regularly rise
  to the upper atmosphere

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Neptune

• Methane freezes to make white clouds
• The Scooter one especially large, fast moving
  cloud of methane ice crystal

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Neptune

• 1989 voyager saw a dark spot the size of earth
  that was a raging storm
• In 1994, Hubble pictures showed that the storm
  had faded away
• has faint rings discovered in 1989

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Neptune

• moon is Triton (not titan)
• rocky and may contain water
• has a thin atmosphere
• explored for signs of life

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Pluto

• 3,548 million miles from sun
• one day 6 earth days
• more than 200 Pluto's would fit inside Earth

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Pluto

• Orbits in a different plane than other planet
• orbit is more oval
• passes inside Neptune's orbit but will never
  crash
• sometimes is closer to sun than Neptune

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Pluto

• mixture of rock and ice
• dark, cold and very small
• Pluto is less than one-fifth the size of Earth
• smaller than earths moon more like an asteroid

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Pluto

• very little is know about it or its moon Charon
• pictures from Hubble reveal polar ice cap, may be
  similar to Triton (Neptune's moon)

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Pluto

• The smallest planet in our solar system and also
  the farthest away from us, remains basically a
  mystery.
• only planet not visited by a spacecraft

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