Title: Objects in the Solar System
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2Objects in the Solar System
- Sun
- Planets
- Asteroids
- Meteoroids
- Comets
- Dwarf planets
3Solar System
Distance from Earth to Sun
93,000,000 miles 8 light-minutes
Size of Solar System 5.5 light-hours
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5The Sun
- 99.8 of the mass of our solar system
- Three fourths of the suns mass is Hydrogen
- One fourth is Helium
- Light and heat escapes from the core and reaches
Earth-our source of energy - 5 billion years left
6Astronomical UnitSpeed of light
- 1 AU93,000,000 miles or 150,000,000km
- Thats the distance between the Sun and the
Earth. - The speed of light is 300,000 km/sec or 186,000
miles per second. - A light year is the distance light travels in one
year. - Almost 10 trillion km or 6 trillion miles
7Suns Atmosphere
- Photosphere
- 6000 0C
- The surface, What we see (almost) everyday
- Chromosphere
- 10,000 0C (not dense)
- UV production
- Corona
- 1 Million 0C (not dense)
- X-rays, flares
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9Suns interior
- Core
- 15 Million Celsius
- Energy Furnace
- Radiative Zone
- Region of tightly packed gas
- Energy transferred as electromagnetic
- radiation
- Convection Zone
- Energy Boils out to the Surface
10Sunspots
- Cooler regions (4000 K) of the surface
- Look darker than the Surface
- Sometimes there are
- lots of sunspots-active sun
- Sometimes not many sunspots
- not active
- Sunspots appear on an 11-year cycle
11Prominences
- Reddish loops of gas that link sunspots
- Stick out over the edge of the sun
- 10000 degrees Celsius
12Solar flares
- When the prominences connect they release
- large amounts of energy
- Increases the solar wind from the corona
- Can cause magnetic storm in the Earths upper
atmosphere
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14Sun-Earth Connection
- Solar weather affects us on Earth
- Flares produce lots of x-rays (dangerous to
humans and technology) - beautiful--produce northern lights
- harmful-can really screw up communications
satellites and our technology
- Flares can also eject
- ionized particles into space
- (coronal mass ejections)
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16Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star ...
17How I Wonder What You Are
- Astronomers classify stars by their color, size,
and brightness. Other properties of stars are
chemical composition and mass. - Color and Temperature a stars color indicates
the temperature of its surface. - The hottest stars appear blue
- The cooler stars appear red
- The spectrum of color in a star is from blues to
greens to yellows and reds.
18Space is filled with all the matter that is
necessary to make stars.
19- Stars begin with slow accumulation of gas
- and dust.
- Gravitational attraction of Clumps
- attracts more material.
- Contraction causes Temperature and
- Pressure to slowly increase.
20- Constant Battle Between Gravity and Pressure
- Gravity wants to make the star smaller
- Pressure wants to make the star bigger
21- Massive stars
- burn a succession
- of elements.
- Iron is the most
- stable element
- and cannot be
- fused further.
- Instead of
- releasing energy,
- it uses energy.
22Nuclear fusion
- At 15 million degrees Celsius in the
- center of the star, fusion ignites !
- 4 (1H) --gt 4He 2 e 2 neutrinos energy
- Where does the energy come from ?
- Mass of four 1H gt Mass of one 4He
23Life of Stars
24The Bubble Nebula Here you can see the old dust
and gas being blown away by the heat of the new
star. Image from the Liverpool Telescope
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27What is a Galaxy?
- a massive
- collection of
- stars, gas, and
- dust kept together
- by gravity
28Spiral Galaxy
Spiral galaxies have arms emanating from a
bright central nucleus.
29Elliptical Galaxies
Elliptical galaxies lack spiral arms and dust.
Galaxies contain stars that are generally
identified as being old.
30Irregular galaxies
- Irregular galaxies lack any
- specific form and contain
- young stars, gas and dust.
31Colors of Galaxies
- Combined colors of its stars.
- Young stars -blue appearance
- Older galaxies will appear redder.
- Some galaxies have both red and blue appearance.
32Our galaxy is the Milky Way.
- Our solar system is in a spiral arm called the
Orion Arm, - and is about two-thirds of the way from the
center of - our galaxy .
- In a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, the stars,
gas, and dust are - organized into a "bulge," a "disk" containing
- "spiral arms," and a "halo."
33- Bulge- The bulge is a
- round structure
- made primarily
- of old stars, gas, and dust.
- Disk- The disk is a flattened region that
surrounds the bulge in a spiral galaxy. - It contains mostly young stars, gas, and dust,
which are concentrated in spiral arms. Some old
stars are also present.
34- Spiral Arms- The spiral arms are curved
extensions - beginning at the bulge of a spiral galaxy,
- giving it a "pinwheel" appearance.
- Halo- The halo primarily contains individual old
stars - and clusters of old stars ("globular clusters").
-
35The Hidden Lives of Galaxies
36Planets
- To be a planet
- an object must orbit a star.
- If it orbits something else, like another
planet, it is a moon instead. - the object must be big enough that gravity makes
it into a sphere.
http//www.teachersdomain.org/resource/hew06.sci.e
ss.eiu.planetdefine/
37- Terrestrial Planets are small, dense, rocky
- worlds with less atmosphere than the other type
- of planet. Craters, no rings, very few moons,
- very small. (Densities between 3.3-5.5 g/cm3)
- Mercury
- Venus
- Earth
- Mars
38Gas planets
- Jovian Planets are large, gaseous,
- low density worlds. Thick gaseous mostly
- hydrogen atmospheres, rings, lots of moons,
- and very large in comparison to terrestrial
planets. - (Densities are 1.75 g/cm3 or lower!)
- Jupiter
- Saturn
- Neptune
- Uranus
39Mercury
- Mariner 10 reached Mercury on March 29, 1974,
passing over the planet at 705 kilometers (438
miles) above the surface. - On September 21, 1974, a second encounter with
Mercury occurred at an altitude of about 47,000
kilometers (29,200 miles). - Photographs of the sunlit side of the planet and
the south polar region were taken. - The last Mercury encounter, at an altitude of 327
kilometers (203 miles), occurred on March 16,
1975. - The photographs of the planet showed a cratered,
Moon-like surface and a faint atmosphere of
mostly helium, resulting from solar wind
bombardment.
40MESSENGER SPACECRAFT
- Launched in August 2004, the Mercury Surface,
Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging
spacecraft, known as MESSENGER, conducted a third
and final flyby of Mercury in September 2009. - The probe completed a critical maneuver using
the planet's gravity to remain on - course to enter into orbit around
- Mercury next year.
- The final flyby has revealed the first
- observations
- of ion emissions in Mercury's exosphere,
- or thin atmosphere new information
- about the
- planet's magnetic substorms
- and evidence of younger
- volcanic activity than previously recorded.
41Venus
- Mariner 10 flew past Venus on February 5, 1974,
at a distance of 4,200 kilometers (2,610 miles). - Over 4,000 photos of Venus showed a nearly round
planet surrounded in smooth cloud layers. - Venus exhibited a slow rotational period of 243
days - Venuss atmosphere was composed mostly of carbon
dioxide.
42- Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets
- Thick atmosphere that is 78 nitrogen and 21
oxygen - Right surface temperature and liquid water
- Photosynthesis necessary for the regeneration of
oxygen - Water vapor and carbon dioxide create a small
green house effect - Liquid water helps control atmospheric carbon
dioxide-carbon dioxide - dissolves in water
http//html.clickondetroit.com/sh/idi/weather/seas
ons/seasons-fall.swf Jeopardy http//www.quia.com/
cb/133803.html
43Reasons for the seasons
44Mars
- The first spacecraft to visit Mars was Mariner 4
in 1965. - Several others followed including Mars 2, the
first spacecraft to land on Mars and - the two Viking landers in 1976.
- Mars Pathfinder landed successfully on Mars on
1997 July 4. - In 2004 the Mars Expedition Rovers "Spirit" and
"Opportunity" landed on Mars sending back
geologic data and many pictures they are still
operating after more than five - years on Mars.
- .
45- Spirit, Opportunity, and other NASA
- Mars missions have found evidence of wet Martian
- environments billions of years ago that were
possibly - favorable for life.
- The Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008
- and observations by orbiters since 2002 have
identified - buried layers of water ice at high and middle
latitudes - and frozen water in polar ice caps.
46http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mars/
- In 2008, Phoenix landed in the northern plains to
search for water. - Launched Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix landed May 25,
2008, farther north than any previous spacecraft
to land on the Martian surface. - The lander dug, scooped, baked, sniffed and
tasted the Martian soil. - Verified the presence of water-ice in the Martian
subsurface, which NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter
first detected remotely in 2002.
47Mars
- Phoenix's cameras also captured more than 25,000
pictures . - Three Mars orbiters Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express are still
operating - No communication has been received from Spirit
since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010).
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter picture-white dot is
Phoenix
48Curiosity Bound for Mars
- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, sealed
inside its payload atop the United Launch
Alliance Atlas V rocket, - The mission lifted off at 1002 a.m. EST Nov. 26,
beginning an eight-month interplanetary cruise to
Mars. ?? - The spacecraft's components include a car-sized
rover, Curiosity, which has 10 science
instruments designed to search for signs of life,
including methane, and to help determine if this
gas is from a biological or geological source. ??
- Image credit United Launch Alliance from
NASA.gov
49Snake River Mars
50NASA's Opportunity rover found this meteorite on
Mars. It is about the size of a basketball.
51A search for a planet between Mars and Jupiter
led to the discovery of asteroids
ASTEROIDS
- Astronomers first discovered the asteroids while
searching for a missing planet - Thousands of asteroids with diameters ranging
from a few kilometers up to 1000 kilometers orbit
within the asteroid belt between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter
52Jupiters gravity helped shape the asteroid belt
- The asteroids are the relics of
planetesimalsthat failed to accrete into a
full-sized planet, thanks to the effects of
Jupiter and other Mars-sized objects
53- Some asteroids, called near-Earth objects,
- move in elliptical orbits that cross the orbits
of Mars and Earth - If such an asteroid strikes the Earth,
- it forms an impact crater whose diameter depends
- on both the mass and the speed of the asteroid
54- Asteroids are found outside the asteroid belt and
have - struck the Earth.
- An asteroid may have struck the Earth 65 million
years ago, possibly causing the extinction of the
dinosaurs and many other species.
55 Comet Kohoutek
A comet is a chunk of ice with imbedded rock
fragments that generally moves in a highly
elliptical orbit about the Sun.
56Comets originate either from a belt beyond
Plutoor from a vast cloud in near interstellar
space
- The Oort cloud contains billions of comet nuclei
in a - spherical distribution that extends out to 50,000
AU from the Sun - Intermediate period and long-period comets are
thought to - originate in the Oort cloud
- As yet no objects in the Oort cloud have been
detected directly
57- Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, from Cape
Canaveral, - Florida aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket.
- On September 5, Voyager 1 launched, also from
- Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket.
- Between them, Voyager 1 and 2 explored all
- the giant planets of our outer solar system,
Jupiter, Saturn, - Uranus and Neptune 48 of their moons
- and the unique system of rings and magnetic
fields those planets possess.
58- Voyager 2 was at a distance of 13.7 billion
kilometers ( 92 AU). - Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed
of about 3.6 AU per year.?Voyager 2 is escaping
the solar system at a speed of about 3.3 Au per
year.
59- Jupiter has a ring just like Saturn and Uranus.
- The Planet has over 60 known satellites (moons)
but most of them are extremely small and faint. - Jupiter is covered by an ocean of hydrogen with a
sludge-like consistency. - Unlike other planets, Jupiter sends out a strong
radio radiation that can be detected on Earth. - In 1994, pieces of a comet called shoemaker-Levy
9 broke apart and crashed into Jupiter. This left
patches in Jupiter's atmosphere that lasted for
many months.
60- Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar
System. - Ancient Astronomers named Jupiter after the king
of the Roman Gods. - Jupiter is the 5th closest planet to our sun.
- The atmosphere of Jupiter consists of about 84
percent Hydrogen and about 15 percent helium,
with small amounts of acetylene, ammonia, ethane,
methane, phosphine, and water vapor. - If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh
264 pounds on Jupiter. - The mass of Jupiter is 70 of the total mass of
all the other planets in our Solar System. - Jupiter's volume is large enough to contain 1,300
planets the size of Earth. - Jupiter rotates faster than any planet in the
Solar System.It rotates so quickly that the days
are only 10 hours long. - But it takes 12 Earth years for Jupiter to
complete an orbit around the sun.
61Jupiter
- Pioneer 10,
- Pioneer-Saturn,
- Voyager 1
- Voyager 2
- Ulysses
- Galileo.
- The great red spot on Jupiter is a storm that has
been - going on for over 300 years.
- You can fit 100 Earths into Jupiter's great red
spot.
62Galilean Satellites
- Galileos observation in 1610 of Jupiters four
large moons orbiting provided evidence against
the Earth-centered universe of his day. - The four moons are called the Galilean
satellites in honor of Galileo. - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
- Fifty-nine other moons have been discovered
orbiting Jupiter.
- Jupiter has the biggest moon in the Solar System,
Ganymede. - It is even bigger than Mercury and Pluto.
63Ganymedea moon of Jupiter
- Astronomers used photographs taken by the
Voyagers to make the first detailed maps of the
Galilean satellites. - The Voyagers also found sulfur volcanoes on Io
- discovered lightning in Jupiter's clouds,
- mapped flow patterns in the cloud bands.
Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, has craters and
cracks on its surface. Asteroids and comets that
hit Ganymede made the craters. The cracks are due
to expansion and contraction of the surface.
Image credit NASA
64Europa
- Europa is of particular interest to astronomers
because of what is below its ice crust a deep
ocean of liquid water, 100 kilometers deep, that
is frozen on the surface.
65- Callisto's surface is extremely heavily cratered
and ancient - The very few small craters on Callisto indicate a
small degree of current surface activity.
66- Saturn is the second largest planet.
- Saturn has seven thin, flat rings around it.
Saturn's diameter is almost ten times that of
Earth. - The planet can be seen from Earth with the
unaided eye, but its rings cannot.
67- Saturn was the farthest planet from the earth
that the ancient astronomers knew about. - They named Saturn after the Roman God of
agriculture. - 100 pound object on Earth would weight 116 pounds
on Saturn. - Saturn has the lowest density of all the planets
in the solar system. It is so light that it could
actually float on water if there was an ocean big
enough to hold it. - It takes about 29.46 Earth years for Saturn to
orbit around our sun.
68- Saturn's rings are made up of billions of pieces
of rocks and dust. - Saturn has over 30 known Satellites, but many of
them are small and faint. - Saturn has no solid surface. It is a giant ball
of gas, but it does have a solid inner core. - The temperature difference between the poles and
the equator is very small on Saturn. - The atmosphere of Saturn comprises mostly of
Hydrogen and Helium. - Galileo was the first astronomer to observe
Saturn's rings.He could not see the rings clearly
with his small telescope and thought they were
large Satellites.
69- While the other three gas planets in the solar
system -- Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune -- have
rings orbiting around them, Saturn's are by far
the largest and most spectacular. With a
thickness of about one kilometer (3,200 feet) or
less, they span up to 282,000 km (175,000 miles),
about three quarters of the distance between the
Earth and its Moon.
70Titan
- Titan is the only moon in our solar system with
an atmosphere. - Atmosphere is made up of Methane and Nitrogen.
- Titan is also larger than the planet Mercury.
- Huygens probe was able to explore the moon on
Jan. 14, 2005.
These three views of Titan from the Cassini
spacecraft on April 16, 2005 using different
wavelengths of light. Cassini's cameras have
filters that reveal features above and below
Titan's atmosphere.
71Saturn
- The Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997 with
the European Space Agency's Huygens probe to
study Saturn and its rings and satellites,
captured this natural color image as it
approached the planet. - Seven major rings encircle Saturn
- 2004. Image credit NASA/JPL/Space Science
Institute
72- The probe was equipped with six instruments to
study Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It landed on
Titan's surface on Jan. 14, 2005, and returned
spectacular results. - Meanwhile, Cassini's 12 instruments have returned
a daily stream of data from Saturn's system since
arriving at Saturn in 2004. - Among the most important targets of the mission
are the moons Titan and Enceladus, as well as
some of Saturnís other icy moons.
73The composite image was made from 65 individual
observations by Cassini's visual and infrared
mapping spectrometer on Nov. 1, 2008. The
observations were each six minutes long.
glow of auroras streaking out
Credit NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University
of Leicester
74Uranus
Enchanced photo from Voyager 2
75- Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun.
- It is the only planet whose name came from a
figure in - Greek mythology as opposed to Roman mythology.
- It spins on its side.
- Blue color is due to the methane gas that
reflects blue light. - Uranus has no interior heat.
- Along with methane, hydrogen and helium are
present - Has rings made of dark dust probably caused by
its moons collisions. - Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system.
- Uranus has 27 known satellites.
76Neptune
- This picture of Neptune was taken by Voyager 2 on
August 20, 1989. - One of the great cloud features- the Great Dark
Spot can be seen toward the center of the image.
77- Neptune became the farthest planet from the sun.
- Neptune's diameter is about 30,200 miles or
almost 4 times the Earth's diameter. - The planet was named after the Roman sea God.
- it took the space probe Voyager 2, 12 years to
reach it. - Neptune is the stormiest planet. The winds there
can blow up to 1,240 miles per hour, that is
three times as fast as Earth's Hurricanes. - The planet has a system of thin dark rings but
they are incomplete rings and are best described
as arcs.
78- Neptune is a sea blue color due to the methane
gas in its atmosphere. - Neptune once had a great dark spot similar to
Jupiter.\ - Neptune only receives 1/900 of the solar energy
that reaches Earth. - Neptune has 8 known moons.
- Neptune is 30 times farther from the sun as is
the Earth. - It goes around the sun once every 165 Earth
Years. - The atmosphere is made up of Hydrogen, Helium and
Methane.Neptune has a rocky core.
79Pluto
- Neptune has its own heat source, it emits a
quantity of energy 2.7 times greater than it
receives. - A view of Pluto and Charon was taken by the
Hubble Space Telescope. - Charon, which is slightly smaller than the
planet. - Because Pluto has not yet been visited by any
spacecraft, it remains a mysterious planet. - New Horizons Mission due July 2015 to explore
Plutos atmosphere - Due to its great distance from the sun, Pluto's
surface is believed to reach temperatures as low
as -2408C (-4008F). - From Pluto's surface, the Sun appears as only a
very bright star. (Courtesy NASA)
80- Atmosphere of CO, methane and Nitrogen.
- Has an eccentric orbit around sun
- 1/15 the gravity of Earth
- Very little light reaches Pluto
- Surface is ancient compared to Earth-
- Earths plate tectonics changes its surface
- while Pluto doesnt appear to have those changes.
- 2006 classified as a dwarf planet along with the
discovery - of similar body called Eris
- and the reclassification of Ceres
- As a dwarf planet-largest asteroid.
81Meteoroids
- Small rocks in space are called meteoroids
- If a meteoroid enters the Earths atmosphere, it
produces a fiery trail called a meteor - falling shooting star bits of rock and metal
- bursting into vibrant light as they drastically
heat because of the friction created between them
and the Earths atmosphere.
The Allende Meteorite
82- tiny specks of dust, sand grain size, small
pebbles NOT large. - If part of the object survives the fall, the
fragment that reaches the Earths surface is
called a meteorite