This is our PowerPoint about the Topography, Terrain, and Weather of Planets and Moons! We have a guaranteed total runtime of ten minutes, and we feature data about all 8 planets! We demonstrate full knowledge of all our planets, so if we left anything out, we would be happy to give you an answer to best of our vocabulary, or if we don’t know the answer off the top of our heads, we would be glad to research the answer for you and either email you your answer or tell you at school the next day. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

Introduction

By Toby & Jeffrey

Topography, Terrain, and Weather of Planets and Moons

Facts• Diameter: 4,878 km.

• Temp: really really hot, ?

• Orbit: 57,910,000 km, 88 days to an orbit

• Rotation time: 58.6 Earth days

• Mass: 3.30e23 kg.

• Moons: 0

Atmosphere• Almost none

• Constantly being blown away by solar wind

• Gases constantly being added, this is why there is any atmosphere at all

• Small amounts of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen

• Tiny amounts of sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium

Water• Potential ice

Mercury

Magnetic Fields• Very weak

Gravity, Orbiting, and Centripetal Forces• Escape velocity: 4.3 km/s

• Gravity: 3.7 m/s2

• Average orbital velocity: 47.87 km/s

• Orbital eccentricity: 0.2056

Materials, States of matter, and densities• Density: 5.427 (water = 1)

• State of matter: Solid

Discovery and Exploration• Prehistoric

Mercury (continued)

Gravity, Orbiting, and Centripetal Forces

• Average orbital velocity: 35 km/s

Discovery and investigation

• Prehistory

• Probe brings back Venusian radiation, starts the apocalypse in Night of the Living Dead.

Facts

• Diameter: 12,100 km.

• Temp: 900+/-50F at surface

• Rotation: 243 Earth days

• Orbit: 225 Earth days

Venus

Atmosphere• Hot and thick

• 96% carbon dioxide

• 3.5% nitrogen

• Less than 1% carbon monoxide, argon, sulfur dioxide, water vapor

• Greenhouse effect made surface & lower atmosphere uber hot

Water• Possibly had water in the past

• No water now, maybe due to greenhouse effect

Magnetic Fields• No magnetic field, or it is so weak it has avoided detection

• Probably because spins slowly

Materials, States of Matter, and Densities • Density: 5.423 (water = 1)

• State of matter: Solid

Venus (continued)

• 1.52 AU from the Sun

• Mass – 6.4219 e 23 kg

• The first spacecraft to visit Mars is Mainer 4 in 1965. This spaceship was the first one to visit

• First to land on Mars was the Mars 2

• Its temperature is 218 K, -55 C, -67 F average

• The temperature can range from 140 K(-133C, -209F) to 300 K (27C, 80F)

• Smaller than the Earth, surface area same as the Earth’s surface land area

Atmosphere

• Less than 1% of the earth’s atmosphere

• Doesn’t Protect against suns radiation

Mars

Topography

• Has polar ice caps that contain frozen water and carbon dioxide

• Carbon dioxide ice sublimates in the summer (changes from solid to gas)

• Tallest Mountain in the Solar System at 27 km high, 3x taller than mount Everest.

• It is 88583 feet tall

• Gravity is 38% of the Earths at 3.711 m/s2

• Mainly made of rocvk, metallic core

• Density is 3.93 g/cm3 3.94 g/cm3 (grams per cubic centimeter

Mars (continued)

Jupiter

Jupiter (continued)

Saturn

Gas giant

Size – 74,898 miles across

Year – 10,747 earth days

Temperature -292 F

Gravity- 0.9 times the earth

Satellites/moons – at least 60

First spacecraft visit – Pioneer 11, 1979

9.54 Au from the sun

Mass – 5.68e26 kg

Second largest planet

Sixth from the sun

75% hydrogen and 25% helium

Interior 12,000 K (core)

Saturn

Radiates more energy out than received from the sun

Gravity 9 m/s2

Average orbital velocity 9.69 km/s

Length of day – 10.656 hours

Density – 68.7% of water’s Density

Escape velocity – 35.5 km/s (speed that is must go to escape the gravitational well)

Least dense of all planets

Core composed of Liquid rock, then liquid hydrogen in the next layer. Hydrogen under high pressure changes nature to being able to conduct electricity and that is what generates the Saturn’s magnetic field

Saturn has the Giant white spot, and scientists don’t have much info on it but they think it is similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Winds and storms unusually generated by Saturn’s internal heat instead of heat from the sun

Saturn receives 1% of the heat Earth receives from the sun

Saturn (continued)

Facts• Diameter: 51,500 km

• Temp: -197.15 C

• Orbit: 84 Earth years

• Mass: 8.6849e25 kg.

• Moons: 27

• Rotation: 17.24 hrs. Spins backwards

Atmosphere• “Surface” covered by striped pattern of winds

• Methane completely hides winds

• 82.5% hydrogen

• 15.2% helium

• 2.3% methane

• Trace amounts of hydrogen deuteride

Water• Huge amounts, all in an ocean of water, hydrogen, and helium

Uranus

Magnetic fields• Fairly strong

• Unique conical field

Gravity, Orbiting, and Centripetal Forces• Escape velocity: 21.3 km/s

• Gravity: 8.7 m/s2

• Average orbital velocity: 6.81 km/s

• Orbital eccentricity: 0.0457

Materials, States of Matter, and Densities • State of matter: Gas

• Density: 1.27 (water = 1)

Discovery & exploration• William Herschel, March 13, 1781, probably with a telescope

Uranus (continued)

Eighth planet from the sun

Smaller in Diameter but larger in mass than Uranus

30.06 AU from the sun ( 4,504,000,000 km )

Mass 1.0247e26 kg

It is a gas planet

Only one spacecraft has visited it and it was the voyager 2 in August, 1989

Uranus’s composition (what Uranus is made of) is similar to Uranus in the way that it is various ices and rocks with about 15% Hydrogen and a little bit of helium.

13 known moons and has 4 rings

Winds have been measured up to 1,200 miles per hour on the surface

It also has some high altitude clouds

Strongest winds on any planet were measured on Neptune

Neptune

Four rings are narrow and faint

Rings made of dust particles thought to have made by small meteorites colliding with Neptune’s moons

Neptune (continued)

Researchers: Jeffrey and Toby

Pain Bringer (Teacher): Shayé

Techie: Toby

Credits