1. A Tour of Our Neighborhood.
Taking a closer look at what is REALLY out there in our solar system.

2. Outline A quick reminder of the planets Moons of the solar system
Dwarf planets and their moons
Asteroids
Main Belt Asteroids
Near Earth Asteroids
Trojan Asteroids
Centaurs
Meteoroids/meteors/meteorites
Trans-Neptunian Objects
Comets
How do we know?

3. When most people think of the solar system this is what they think of
When most people think of the solar system this is what they think of. The sun and 8 planets, plus Pluto, which you’re probably aware is no longer a planet, but a dwarf planet.

4. In reality though the solar system looks more like this. WHOA
In reality though the solar system looks more like this. WHOA! Look at all that stuff! Now don’t worry, don’t try and memorize this this picture, this is what this talk will be about. Showing you what exactly is out there in the solar system.

5. The Planets Lets start with what we know. The planets.
So here are the inner planets, aka the terrestrial planets. They are smaller and rocky and similar to Earth.
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
You can also add in some facts about each of these planets.

6. Next is the outer planets, aka the gas giants
Next is the outer planets, aka the gas giants. They are called this because they are MUCH bigger then the inner planets and are mostly made of Gas. Jupiter and Saturn are mostly hydrogen and helium while Uranus and Neptune start to have other gases like ammonia and methane in them.
Again you can put in some other facts about the gas planets.

7. The Moons
So continuing on a theme of what we know lets look at moons. Now this picture here should look familiar. It is Earth’s moon. (insert facts about Earth’s Moon). But Earth isn’t the only planet to have a moon. Many of the other planets of the solar system also have moons.
Mercury and Venus do not have any moons, so we’ll continue outwards from Earth.

8. Mars’ Moons Jupiter’s Moons
Mars has two moons. Phobos (left) and Deimos (right). They are special because it is thought that they are asteroids that were captured and are now stuck as moons around Mars, since their surface and their composition is similar to the asteroids. There is a problem with this theory though. Mars is smaller then Earth and it would be very difficult for Mars to capture asteroids and make them into the moons we see today. Noone is fully sure on how Mars got its moons.
Jupiter being the biggest planet has LOTS of moons. 63 at last count. There are 4 moons in particular that are special. They are shown in the picture above and are called the Galilean moons because they were first seen by Galileo.
Io (top) is interesting because it has active volcanoes all over its surface. If you take a powerful telescope and look at Io you can even see plums from the volcanoes erupting.
Europa (next down) is special because we think there is an ocean of liquid water under the icy surface. This would make it another place along with Earth that would have liquid water, and with it a possibility for life.
Ganymede and Callisto (3rd and bottom) are the biggest two moons and are a mix of rock and ice.
Jupiter’s Moons

9. Saturn’s Moons
Saturn, like Jupiter has many many moons. In the picture above (top left) You can see the rings of Saturn with several of it’s moons in the picture (the small dots are moons not stars).
Two special moons are Titan and Enceledus.
Titan (yellow-ish moon) is the biggest moon of Saturn and is interesting because it has an atmosphere (that’s why it looks fuzzy in the picture.) What’s special about this atmosphere is that it is made up of a lot of Nitrogen. The only other place we see a lot of nitrogen in it’s atmosphere is here on Earth. So scientists want to study Titan futher to understand it better and see if it is similar to Earth.
Enceledus (bottom grey moon picture) is a smaller moon, but is special for another reason. On the southern part of the planet (just off the bottom right of the picture) there are big long cracks in the surface of the moon, and every so often liquid water sprays out of these cracks, similar to a geyser. Scientists are still unsure what is causing this, but even so we’ve found another place in the solar system where liquid water can be found.

10. Uranus’ Moons Neptune’s Moon Triton
Uranus and Neptune being large gas planets have many moons, though not quite as many as Jupiter and Saturn.
Uranus’s moons are mostly ice/rock mixes. One in particular, Miranda is interesting because it looks like it was smashed apart and then squished back together. Much like a ball of play-doh. No one is sure what could have happened to the moon to create this look.
Neptune’s biggest moon is named Triton (not to be confused with Titan). (It is actually a sphere, but the picture above only shows a part of the moon, like how we see phases of our moon.) Triton is interesting because it also has volcanoes. But instead of lava and melted rock, it’s so cold out there that it’s ice that melts and flows out. The black smudge on the lower right part of the moon is an active cryo-volcano (ice volcano). Also, when Triton was first discovered scientists wanted to learn as much as they could about it because it was thought that Triton is very similar to Pluto. Because Pluto is SO far away we can’t see its surface, let alone learn much about it. But we have some good pictures of Triton so we can get an idea of what Pluto must be like from that.
Neptune’s Moon Triton

11. Moon Counts as of 2010:
Mercury – 0
Venus – 0
Earth – 1
Mars – 2
Jupiter – 63
Saturn – 60
Uranus – 27
Neptune - 13

12. Pluto and the Dwarf Planets
Definition of a dwarf planet:
is in orbit around the Sun
has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape
has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit
is not a satellite
So, we’ve looked at the planets and their moons. But what about Dwarf planets? Where do they fit into all this? Well here is the new definition of what a dwarf planet is.

13. Pluto Eris Makemake Ceres Haumea
Here are the 5 current dwarf planets. Eris, Pluto and Ceres were the original 3, with Haumea (How-me-ah) and Makemake (mach-eh-mach-eh) being added to the list in 2008.
Haumea

14. Not all the dwarf planets are in the same location
Not all the dwarf planets are in the same location. Ceres is in the asteroid belt while all the others are out beyond Neptune.

15. Dwarf Planet Moons Eris and Dysnomia Haumea and Namaka & Hi’aka
Dwarf planets can also have moons. Here are the three dwarf planets and their moons.
Haumea and
Namaka & Hi’aka

16. Small Solar System Bodies
Asteroids
Trans-Neptunian Objects
Comets
So we’ve looked at the planets, and the dwarf planets and their moons. But there’s still lots of stuff still out there. Everything else is refered to as small solar system bodies and can be broken down into 3 catagories.

17. Asteroids
Asteroids are small rocky bodies that are usually very irregularly shaped that orbit the Sun.
Lets start with asteroids. (read text on slide.) Asteroids range in the size from cars to the size of mountains.

18. Region of the asteroids and the asteroid belt.

19. The Asteroid Belt
The asteroid belt close up. Each one of the white dots is an asteroid that we know about in the asteroid belt. Note the placement between Mars and Jupiter.

20. Near Earth Asteroids
But asteorids can also come into the inner solar system and can come close to earth. Those that come close to us are called Near Earth Asteroids. There are three groups. The Amours which are just outside the Earth’s orbit. The Atens which are mostly inside the Earth’s orbit, and the Apollos which cross the Earth’s orbit. If any of these objects are going to hit Earth it would most likely be an Apollo asteroid.

21. Trojan Asteroids
There is another kind of asteroid that gets stuck with a certain planet. The L4 and L5 lagrange points are stable points for objects. They are 60 degrees ahead of and behind a planet and it goes around the sun. If an asteroid gets too close to one of these points for a planet then it will get stuck there. The picture on the right shows green dots for the trojan asteroids of Jupiter. One side is known as the trojans which is where all trojan asteroids get their name from and the other group is known as the greeks. After the trojan war.
Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune all have trojan asteroids around them.

22. Centaurs
Moving out a little further we get to the Centaurs. Now asteroids exist from Juipter inwards, but if you find rocky or icy objects around the gas planets then they are called Centarus.

23. 2005 UN524
Here are images of two centarus that were discovered in the research done by Amanda Papadimos (now coordinator for CPSX.)
Centaurs are icy/rocky objects that come form the outer solar system. They orbit the sun in the area between Jupiter and Neptune but don’t have orbits that are connected to any of the gas planets they are near.
2004 VP112

24. Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites
Meteoroids are chunks of rock out in space. They are about the size of a boulder or smaller. Not quite big enough to be an asteroid, a new name is given to these objects.
Meteors are the flash of light that you see streaking across the sky as a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteorites is what’s left of the meteor when it hits the surface of the Earth. If you can pick it up it’s a meteorite.
Read text.

25. Small Solar System Bodies
Asteroids
Trans-Neptunian Objects
Comets
So we’ve covered asteroids. Now onto TNO’s.

26. Trans-Neptunian Objects
A Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) is any object with an orbit outside of Neptune’s orbit. There are 3 areas of TNO’s and they are the Kupier Belt, Scattered Disk and Oort Cloud.
See text on slide.

27. Picture showing the location and layout of the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.

29. Small Solar System Bodies
Asteroids
Trans-Neptunian Objects
Comets
And finally we move into comets.

30. Comets
A comet is a asteroid like object, but made up of ice and rock. It orbits the sun and will exhibit a coma and/or a tail which are from solar radiation heating up the comet.
They are about the same size as asteroids, only made mostly of ice.

31. What makes up a comet
Comet nucleus of Wild 2

32. Where do comets come from?
Most comets come from the Kuiper Belt with some also coming from the Oort Cloud. There are a few comets that come from near Jupiter, like Hayley's comet.

33. Small Solar System Bodies
Asteroids
Trans-Neptunian Objects
Comets
We’ve taken a look at it all.

34. How do we know about these?
The main way that most of these objects have been discovered is just by taking lots of pictures of the sky, lining up the images, and then looking for any moving objects.
By overlapping images of the sky that are take about an hour or so apart, the stars stay stationary, but anything in the solar system moves so that we can see it. Based on how fast it moves we can calculate how far away it is and try to figure out it’s orbit.

35. Trans-Neptunian Objects
Planets
Dwarf planets and their moons
Moons
Asteroids
Comets
Trans-Neptunian Objects

36. To end of here is a picture called Pale Blue Dot
To end of here is a picture called Pale Blue Dot. The small white dot inside the blue circle, that is the Earth. This image was taken by Voyager 1 as it left the solar system (already beyond Pluto.) our solar system is so big and vast and so filled with stuff, in the big picture we are nothing more then a small spec orbiting the sun.