2. Our Solar System

3. Our solar system is made up of:  Sun  Eight planets  3 or more dwarf-planets (Pluto, Ceres, Eris, etc)  Their moons  Asteroids  Comets

4. Inner Planets The inner four rocky planets at the center of the solar system are:  Mercury  Venus  Earth  Mars

5. Mercury  Planet nearest the sun  Smallest planet  Covered with craters  Has no moons or rings  About size of Earth’s moon

6. Venus  Sister planet to Earth, spins opposite way.  Has no moons or rings  Hot, thick atmosphere (CO 2 and H 2 SO 4 ), had an ocean but was boiled off.  Brightest object in sky besides sun and moon (looks like bright star – 1 st star seen at summer night, usually.)  Covered with craters, volcanoes, and mountains has surface temp of 480 0 C

7. Earth  Third planet from sun  Only planet known to have life and liquid water.  Atmosphere composed of Nitrogen (78%), Oxygen (21%), and other gases (1%).

8. Mars  Fourth planet from sun  Appears as bright reddish color in the night sky  Surface features huge dust storms, methane gas might mean volcanoes or bacteria underground.  Has 2 moons: Phobos and Deimos  Gravity 1/3 of earth – 7 months travel.  22 o C in summer, – 140 o C in winter

9. Ceres  Huge gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter led to the proposal there might be another planet there.  Dwarf Planet Ceres was discovered in 1801. (A huge asteroid)  Unmanned craft to arrive there in 2015.

10. Outer Planets The outer planets composed of gas are :  Jupiter  Saturn  Uranus  Neptune

11. Jupiter  Largest planet in solar system, can hold 1000 Earths!  Brightest planet in sky  60+ moons, 5 visible from Earth  Strong magnetic field  Giant red spot  Rings have 3 parts: Halo Ring, Main Ring, Gossamer Ring

12. Moons of Jupiter  Europa – white, ice with giant ocean underneath that contains more water than all the water in our oceans.

13. Moons of Jupiter  Io – yellow, 1400 o C, hot spots that are a black goo. Volcano – Prometheus.

14. Moons of Jupiter  Ganymede- brown/green – largest moon the size of Mercury

15. Saturn  6 th planet from sun  Beautiful set of rings of rock and ice.  31 moons  Largest moon, Titan.  Enceladus, a moon of Saturn may have liquid water under the ice.  Easily visible in the night sky  Voyager explored Saturn and its rings.  Lightning storms last 10 hours and bolts are 1000x stronger than ours.

16. Moons of Saturn  Titan – has a nitrogen atmosphere (moon having an atmosphere is rare), we believe it has methane seas the size of Alberta since satellites have picked up a flat surface (flat indicates liquid).  It must be coming from an underground source to still be there and not be converted into a gas and lost to space.

17. Uranus  7 th planet from sun  Has a faint ring system  27 known moons  Covered with clouds  Uranus sits on its side with the north and south poles sticking out the sides.  Smallest gas giant: only 4x Earth size

18. Neptune  8 th planet from sun  Discovered through math  7 known moons  Triton largest moon  Great Dark Spot thought to be a hole, similar to the hole in the ozone layer on Earth – now gone! (Hubble confirmed this).

19. Kuiper Belt  Kuiper belt – beyond Neptune with 800 objects in it.  Pluto and Eris are two of the objects in it.

20. Dwarf Planets  Pluto, is a small solid icy pseudo-planet that is smaller than the Earth's Moon.  Eris was originally thought to be Planet 10 – has a moon (Dysnomia) as well.

21. Pluto  9 th large body from sun (usually)  Discovered in 1930.  Demoted from planet status, due to size and location, to a dwarf planet.  It also does not clear it’s own path and has an orbit that is eccentric.  Soon to be visited by spacecraft  Orbits very slowly  Moon, Charon, is very close to Pluto and about the same size.  2 other moons found in 2006.

22. Eris  aka 10th ‘planet’ discovered in 2005 because it was 25 o above 0K.  Determined its size by the intensity of heat coming from it.  Has a moon and Eris is slightly larger than Pluto but smaller than our moon.  Named after the Greek goddess of chaos and strife since Eris was the ‘planet’ that erupted the planet/dwarf planet debate.

23. Asteroids  Small bodies  Believed to be left over from the beginning of the solar system billions of years ago  100,000 asteroids lie in belt between Mars and Jupiter  Largest asteroids have been given names  Only ~20% are being motion- tracked.

24. Comets  Small icy bodies  Travel past the Sun  Give off gas and dust as they pass by  Halley and Halley-Bop are the most famous.

25. Comets Comets are dust and ice that move through the solar system on a specific orbit. As the comet nears the Sun, the sun melts its ice, releasing a tail of dust that always faces away from the sun due to the solar winds. Comets can be seen over several weeks to several months. View the comet Hale-Bopp: Right click and open hyperlink

26. Meteors Meteors are produced by comets. Most are the size of grains of sand and are not seen until they enter the earth’s atmosphere. The gases in our atmosphere rub against the high velocity meteor causing friction that causes the meteor to burn up. Most burn up before ever reaching the ground. They are usually only seen for a few seconds. Right click and open hyperlink

28. Meteor burning up as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere

29. Russian Comet 2013  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR 49rHKycpE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR 49rHKycpE  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0y CBuiOVS4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0y CBuiOVS4  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp mXyJrs7iU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp mXyJrs7iU