Title: Chapter 7 The Outer Planets
1Chapter 7 The Outer Planets
2What do you think?
- Is Jupiter a failed star or almost a star?
- What is Jupiters Great Red Spot?
- Does Jupiter have continents and oceans?
- Are the rings of Saturn solid ribbons?
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6Besides being the largest planet, Jupiter is
probably best known for its Great Red Spot - a
hurricane-like storms that has been observed ever
since the invention of the telescope.
7Jupiters rotation helps create colorful global
weather patterns
8Jupiters rotation helps create colorful global
weather patterns
9Jupiters Chemistry
- 86 hydrogen
- 13 helium
- 1 stuff
- methane CH4
- ammonia NH3
- water vapor H2O
10The light zones are regions of hotter, rising
gas, while the dark belts are regions of cooler,
descending gas.
11Jupiters interior has three distinct regions
- Upper atmosphere of clouds and gas
- Middle layer of liquid metallic hydrogen
- Small rocky protoplanet core
12Pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments
collided with Jupiter in 1994
13Jupiter is orbited by four large moons and tens
of small ones
14Ios surface is sculpted by volcanic activity
15Ios surface is sculpted by volcanic activity
16Europa may harbor liquid water below its surface
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18Ganymede is larger that Mercury
19Callisto wears the scars of a huge asteroid impact
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24Saturns banded surface and layered interior are
similar to those of Jupiter
25Saturns spectacular rings are composed of
fragments of ice and ice-coated rock
26Moons Pandora and Prometheus act as shepherd
moons and keep the F ring to a band about 100km
wide because of gravitational effects.
27Dust spokes in Saturns rings
28Titan is Saturns largest moon
29Titan has a thick, opaque atmosphere rich in
nitrogen, methane and other hydrocarbons
(including ethane, acetylene, ethylene, and
propane)
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31Uranus sports a hazy atmosphere with few clouds
A system of rings and satellites revolves around
Uranus
32Uranus odd moon Miranda
33Uranus tilt gives it very exaggerated seasons
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36Uranus and Neptune have similar interiors
37Neptunes Rings
38Neptunes largest moon, Tritan, was probably
captured by Neptunes gravity
39And then, there is one planet unlike any of the
others ..
40Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh by
comparing photographs taken a few days apart.
41Pluto and its moon, Charon, are about the same
size
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44What did you think?
- Is Jupiter a failed star or almost a star?
- Jupiter has 75 times too little mass to shine as
a star. - What is Jupiters Great Red Spot?
- The Great Red Spot is a long-lived hurricanelike
storm. - Does Jupiter have continents and oceans?
- Jupiter is completely enveloped in a sea of
liquid hydrogen and helium - Are the rings of Saturn solid ribbons?
- Saturns rings are all composed of thin, closely
spaced ringlets consisting of particles of ice
and ice-coated rocks. If they were solid
ribbons, Saturns gravitational tidal force would
tear them apart.
45Self-Check
- 1 Name and describe the visible features in the
Jovian atmosphere. - 2 Sketch and label the major elements of the
ring system of Saturn and describe its
composition. - 3 Compare and contrast the atmospheres of
Jupiter and Saturn. - 4 Compare and contrast the internal structures
of Jupiter and Saturn with that of Uranus and
Neptune. - 5 Compare and contrast the ring systems of the
outer planets. - 6 Compare and contrast the atmospheric features
of Uranus and Neptune. - 7 Describe the geologic activity observed on Io
and explain the probable origin of this activity. - 8 Compare and contrast the inner and outer
Galilean satellites in terms of internal
structure and surface features. - 9 List the gases that compose Titans atmosphere
and discuss the possibility of the existence of
life forms there. - 10 Compare and contrast the Voyager 2
observations of Triton with those of Titan in
terms of atmospheric composition and surface
features identified. - 11 Describe the physical properties of Pluto in
the context of planetary classification.