THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The Solar System consists of: Planets Moons Asteroids Comets

PLANETS A planet is a large, round heavenly body that orbits a star and shines with light reflected from the star. We know of eight planets that orbit the sun in our solar system. Since 1992, astronomers have also discovered many planets orbiting other stars. World book

What are the eight planets? HINT: My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nuts Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune

MERCURY   The smallest planet in the solar system and the one nearest to the sun. Its orbit about the sun takes 88 days to complete, at a mean distance of almost 36,000,000 miles. Mercury goes around the sun about four times while the earth is going around once. World Book

VENUS  Venus is the sixth largest planet in the solar system and the second in distance from the sun. Venus is the brightest planet in the solar system and the one that comes closest to the earth. World Book

EARTH Age: At least 4 1/2 billion years Mass: 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 (6.6 sextillion) tons (6.0 sextillion metric tons). Surface features: Highest land—Mount Everest, 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) above sea level. Lowest land—shore of Dead Sea, about 1,310 feet (399 meters) below sea). Temperature: Highest, 136 °F (58 °C) at Al Aziziyah, Libya. Lowest, -128.6 °F (-89.6 °C) at Vostok Station in Antarctica. Average surface temperature, 59 °F (15 °C). Chemical makeup of the earth's crust (in percent of the crust's weight): oxygen 46.6, silicon 27.7, aluminum 8.1, iron 5.0, calcium 3.6, sodium 2.8, potassium 2.6, magnesium 2.0, and other elements totaling 1.6.

MARS The Mars Odyssey probe, shown in this illustration orbiting Mars, found evidence of water ice beneath the surface of Mars in 2002. The probe, launched in 2001, also analyzed the chemical composition of the planet's surface. World Book

MARS It is the fourth planet from the sun. It is sometimes referred to as the “Red Planet” It has a diameter of 6,794 km. It has a very thin atmosphere mostly made of carbon dioxide.

What is this planet called?

Jupiter Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Its diameter is 88,846 miles (142,984 kilometers), more than 11 times that of Earth, and about one-tenth that of the sun. It would take more than 1,000 Earths to fill up the volume of the giant planet. When viewed from Earth, Jupiter appears brighter than most stars. It is usually the second brightest planet—after Venus.

SATURN

SATURN It is the sixth planet from the sun It is the least dense of all the planets. It has a diameter of 120,536 km. It radiates more energy into space than it receives from the sun.

URANUS one of the larger planets in the solar system and the seventh in distance from the sun.

URANUS It is the seventh planet from the sun. It was the first planet discovered in modern times. It has a diameter of 51,118 km. It is composed primarily of rocks and various ices.

Latin , related to nebula cloud, mist NEPTUNE  Latin , related to nebula cloud, mist In Neptune's outermost ring, 39,000 miles (63,000 kilometers) from the planet, material mysteriously clumps into three bright, dense arcs. NASA

NEPTUNE It is the eighth planet from the sun. It has a diameter of 49,532 km. It is mostly composed of various ices. It is blue because of its absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere.

What Happened to Pluto???

PLUTO Is Pluto a planet? Once known as the smallest, coldest, and most distant planet from the Sun, Pluto has a dual identity, not to mention being enshrouded in controversy since its discovery in 1930.

Pluto ???? On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally downgraded Pluto from an official planet to a dwarf planet. According to the new rules a planet meets three criteria: it must orbit the Sun, it must be big enough for gravity to squash it into a round ball, it must have cleared other things out of the way in its orbital neighborhood.

The latter measure knocks out Pluto!

AND MUCH MUCH MORE…….

Asteroids What is an Asteroid? Small rocky bodies that have been compared to “flying mountains” Ceres is the largest (@ 1000 km in diameter) and first to be discovered Asteroids show up as streaks on photos.

Asteroid Facts About 100 have a diameter over 100 km Some reflect light well, others are black as coal Asteroids tumble as they orbit the sun

Examples of Asteroids Asteroid Belt

Asteroid Belt The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter

Comets Pieces of rocky and metallic materials held together by frozen gases, such as water, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide.

Halley’s Comet In 1704 Sir Edmond Halley hypothesized that the comets of 1456, 1532, 1607, 1682 were the same object. He calculated a 75.7 year orbit and predicted that it would return in 1758. Halley died; but comet returned.

Halley’s Comet will return in 2061.

Comets are dirty ice balls! Nucleus - rock & ices (mostly H2O and CO2 [dry ice], some methane CH4 & ammonia NH3) Coma is gaseous. As comet approaches Sun ices sublime, change from solid to gas, dust grains loosen and move away Tails - solar wind (steady stream of solar particles) pushes gas away; dust continues to orbit Sun

Meteors longer streaks are called meteor trails Meteor showers come at Meteors are bright streaks of light in the sky longer streaks are called meteor trails Meteor showers come at certain times of the year from the same known parts of the sky

matter burning up in the atmosphere. An The cause of meteors is meteoroids, grains of matter burning up in the atmosphere. An estimated 1000 tons falls on the Earth daily Material comes from asteroid collisions and comet tails

The projectile that exploded on impact and produced Meteor Crater was equivalent to the energy of 1000 Hiroshima bombs. 20 megatons! Most famous crater is ‘Meteor Crater’ near Flagstaff in Arizona. More than 1 km in diameter and 180 m deep, it resulted from a meteorite about 45 m across Dinosaur extinction is believed to have been caused by a meteor @ 10 km across?