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Relative Size of Sun and Planets
Solar System - Outline Relative Size of Sun and Planets Sun contains 99.9% of the mass of the solar system
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3.5 Billion to One Scale Model
Mars Earth Venus Mercury
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3.5 Billion to One Scale Model
Uranus Saturn Neptune Jupiter Pluto Mars
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3.5 Billion to One Scale Model
Sun Nearest Star Proxima Centauri
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Q. 24: Why Isn’t Pluto a Planet?
The Planets August 24, 2006: IAU defines a planet Goes around a star Is big enough to be round Is much bigger than all other things in its neighborhood combined Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos A dwarf planet satisfies 1 and 2, but not 3 Pluto A small solar system body satisfies only 1 Q. 24: Why Isn’t Pluto a Planet?
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The Planets – Relative Sizes
Jupiter contains most of the mass of the planets
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The Planets – Categorizing
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Terrestrial Planets Rock and metal, some atmosphere Few moons Bigger than Moon, Smaller than Earth Gas giants Metal, rock, ice, thick atmosphere Lots of moons! Bigger than Earth Rings!
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The Terrestrial Planets
Mercury Mars Earth and Moon Venus
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Mercury Covered in craters Looks like the Moon
No large dark areas (maria)
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Venus Featureless ball, covered in clouds (in visible) Tan color
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Earth and Moon Water Clouds Craters Dark maria
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Mars Reddish tint Interesting surface Polar caps
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Jovian Planets / Gas Giants
Uranus Jupiter Neptune Saturn Earth (for comparison)
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Jupiter Striped appearance Complicated clouds/storms
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Jupiter’s Biggest Moons
Europa Cracked, Icy Surface Io Mottled, Colorful appearance Ganymede Icy Surface, Dark and Light Regions Callisto
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Saturn Very dramatic rings
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Orange featureless ball
Saturn’s Moons Enceladus Iapetus Dark and light regions Titan Orange featureless ball
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Uranus and Miranda Miranda Unusual markings Uranus
Almost featureless blue-green ball
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Neptune and Triton Triton Complicated, Varied Terrain Neptune
Blueish ball with small white clouds
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The Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud
Eris and Dysnomia Pluto and Charon
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Do you need a description?
Comets Comet Halley Do you need a description?
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The Asteroid Belt 1 Ceres 4 Vesta 461 Gaspra
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Formation of the Solar System
Outline Molecular Clouds Contraction - spin Protostar and Protoplanetary Disk Condensation Planetismals Planets Primary atmospheres Stellar winds vs. atmospheres Secondary atmospheres Cratering
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Q. 25: Effects of Contraction of Molecular Clouds
Huge, cool, relatively dense clouds of gas and dust Gravity causes them to begin to contract Clumps begin forming – destined to become stellar systems They inevitably have some rotation Composition 98% hydrogen (H2) and helium (He) 1.4% hydrogen containing molecules Water (H20), Methane (CH4), Ammonia (NH3) Collectively known as “ices” 0.6% rock and metal Q. 25: Effects of Contraction of Molecular Clouds
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Molecular Clouds – Eagle Nebula
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Molecular Clouds
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Molecular Clouds – Keyhole and Orion
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Molecular Clouds
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Molecular Clouds – Horsehead Nebula
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Gravity and Contraction
Much of the gas is pulled to the center, where it is stopped by rising pressure Gravity vs. pressure = sphere A protostar The rest is stopped by rotation Gravity vs. rotation = disk The protoplanetary disk
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Protostar / Protoplanetary Disk Grows
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Protoplanetary Disks
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Protoplanetary Disks
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Protoplanetary Disk – Artist’s Rendition
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Condensation As the cloud shrunk molecules started finding each other
If cold enough, they could stick together Proto-Sun created heat – hotter for the inner regions Most of the region was cool enough to have rock and metal begin to form dust grains Vaporizes only around K Beyond the “frost line” there were ices mixed in Ices vaporize around 150 K Beyond a few AU it was cool enough to form ices Nowhere cold enough for hydrogen or helium to condense
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