The solar system THE OUTER PLANETS Topic # 2 Term #2 The Local System

Our journey continues… A tour of the outer planets… We now turn our attention to the planets that are beyond Mars. We are now entering the Outer Solar system. Before we can get to the first of the outer planets, we must look at what is found between…

The waist line of the solar system… Looking at the Asteroid Belt… Between Mars and the outer planets, there exists a belt of small rocky objects. This area is known as the Asteroid Belt. Asteroids are small rocky objects that orbit the sun. We will come back to this topic later…

Jupiter… The king of the planets, a monster or a failed star The 5 th planet from the sun. It is the largest planet in the solar system. A day on Jupiter is 9 h, 54 min. long One year on Jupiter is 11 years, 313 days. It takes sun light 43.3 minutes to reach the planet.

Jupiter… A look at the planet’s features… Jupiter’s atmosphere is mostly made of H and He. The outer part of the atmosphere is made of layered clouds of water, methane, and ammonia. The colors of the clouds are due to organics in the gases. Pressure on Jupiter are so great that it changes H gas into a liquid metallic state!

Jupiter… A look at the planet’s features… Unlike most planets, Jupiter give off more energy than it receives from the sun. Could Jupiter of been a failed star? It is made of the same material as a star but, it needs to be at least 8 times larger and much more matter is needed to begin the process of star formation.

Jupiter… A look at the planet’s features… Jupiter is big, how big? 1000 Earths could fit inside of it! On Jupiter the is The Great Red Spot, it is a continuous storm that is twice the size of Earth! This Great Red Spot can be seen easily with a good telescope!

Jupiter… A look at the planet’s rings and moons… Jupiter has a very thin ring system that is just a few miles thick. They are about 5000 miles wide and are made of debris from left over moon collisions. Jupiter’s gravity captured the material in its orbit. Jupiter has 63 know satellites, 3 of the most popular being, Io, Europa and Callisto