Plan for this week The jovian planets 5 major moons Comets, asteroids, and Earth impacts
The jovian planets
All very large All rotate very fast All made mostly of gaseous material
Jupiter
The Great Red Spot
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Data for the jovian planets
Jovian interiors At the center, a dense core of rock, metal, and hydrogen compounds Around the core is gaseous molecules Jupiter and Saturn Mostly hydrogen Includes states of matter not found on Earth Uranus and Neptune Water, methane, hydrogen
The jovian moons Some of the jovian moons are far more interesting than the planets themselves There are more than 90 total They come in all sizes
Small jovian moons
Medium sized jovian moons
Large jovian moons
The jovian moons The largest moons in the solar system are: 1.Ganymede(Jupiter) 2.Titan(Saturn) 3.Callisto(Jupiter) 4.Io(Jupiter) 5.‘The Moon’(Earth) 6.Europa(Jupiter) 7.Triton(Neptune)
The Galilean moons
The four largest moons of Jupiter Discovered by Galileo in the early 1600s Very important historically Proved that everything does not go around the Earth Got Galileo in a lot of trouble!
The Galilean moons Io The closest one to Jupiter Size: Larger than Pluto Smaller than Mercury Experiences very strong tidal forces
Tidal forces Jupiter (Other moons) Io
The Galilean moons Io is the most geologically active place in the solar system! Volcanoes continuously erupting Not a single impact crater on its surface
Io
The Galilean moons Europa The next moon out from Jupiter Size: Larger than Pluto Smaller than the Moon or Mercury Also experiences tidal forces Surface is entirely covered with ice May have a water ocean under the ice A possible place for life?
Europa
The Galilean moons Ganymede The largest moon in the solar system Larger than Pluto and Mercury! (That’s all you need to know about it…)
Ganymede
The Galilean moons Callisto The fourth one (just for completeness)
Callisto
Saturn’s moons Titan Size: The 2 nd largest moon in the solar system Larger than both Pluto and Mercury The only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere Mostly nitrogen (like Earth!) Atmospheric pressure = 1.5 x Earth’s Wouldn’t need a space suit! (cold though…)
Titan
Pluto The most distant planet - if it’s a planet! Distance: AU (40 average) Orbit = 248 years Rotation = 6.4 Earth-days Has one moon: Charon About half the size of Pluto
Pluto & Charon
Planetary rings All jovian planets have ring systems All are made of small pieces of debris Probably unformed moons, or moons that were broken apart by the planet’s gravity
Saturn’s rings Small chunks of ice (mostly) Incredibly thin A single sheet of paper 3 football fields across! Made of many ‘ringlets’
Asteroids Chunks of rock and metal Mostly in the asteroid belt - but not all of ‘em! Earth crossing asteroids Have orbits that bring them near Earth’s orbit
Comets Chunks of ice, rock, & metal (‘dirty snowballs’) Today in two locations: The Kuiper belt Beyond Neptune’s orbit ~ AU out In the disk of the solar system The Oort cloud A sphere way, way beyond Neptune ~ 50,000 AU out
A comet nucleus
Comets If a comet ‘falls’ towards the Sun: It begins to sublimate (solid --> gas) Develops a tail This tail always points away from the Sun
The Sun