the solar system. size matters: radii of the planets
DESCRIPTION
Sun: Jupiter: Earth: Moon = 110:11:1:1/4TRANSCRIPT
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The Solar System
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Size matters: radii of the Planets
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Sun: Jupiter: Earth: Moon =110:11:1:1/4
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The Astronomical Unit
• A convenient unit of length for discussing the solar system is the Astronomical Unit (A.U.)
• One A.U. is the average distance between the Earth and Sun– About 1.5 108 km or 8 light-minutes
• Entire solar system is about 80 A.U. across
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The solar system is a disk, not a sphere
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The Terrestrial Planets• Small, dense and rocky
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
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The Jovian Planets
• Large, made out of gas, and low density
Jupiter
Uranus
Saturn
Neptune
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Asteroids, Comets and Meteors
Debris in the Solar System
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Asteroids
• Most asteroid orbits are situated between Mars and Jupiter
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Asteroid Discovery
• First (and largest) Asteroid Ceres discovered New Year’s 1801 by G. Piazzi, fitting exactly into Bode’s law: a=2.8 A.U.
• Today more than 100,000 asteroids known• Largest diameter 960 km, smallest: few km• Most of them are named • about 20 of them are visible with binoculars
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Most asteroids are very small
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Comets - Traveling Dirty Snowballs• Small icy bodies, “dirty snowballs”• Develops a “tail” as it approaches the Sun
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Comet Anatomy
• Tail may be up to 1 A.U. long• Ion tail points away from sun
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Shapes
Comet Giacobini-Zinner (1959)
• Ion tail 500,000 km long• Coma: 70,000 km across
Comet Hale-Bopp (1997)
• Tail 40° long as seen from earth
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Halley’s Comet – a typical Comet
• Highly eccentric orbit, inclined substantially
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Halley’s Comet – Now and then
• Halley’s Comet in 1910• Top: May 10, 30° tail• Bottom May 12, 40° tail • Halley’s Comet in 1986
• March 14, 1986
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Meteor Showers – caused by comets
Radiant DurationQuadrantids (QUA) Dec. 28-Jan. 7Lyrids (LYR) Apr. 16-25Eta Aquarids Apr. 21-May 12Beta Taurids June 30Delta Aquarids July 25-31Perseids (PER) Aug. 10-14Draconids Oct. 6-10Orionids (ORI) Oct. 15-29Taurids Oct.12- Dec 2Leonids (LEO) Nov. 14-20Geminids (GEM)Dec. 6-19
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Impact on Earth
• Most probably caused the extinction of the dinosaurs
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Impact Craters
• Quebec's Manicouagan Reservoir. Large meteorite landed about 200 million years ago. The lake, 45 miles in diameter, now fills the ring.
• Barringer Crater, AZ 0.8 mi diameter, 200 yd deep; produced by impact about 25,000 years ago
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Tunguska
• ~30 m body struck Siberia in 1908
• Energy equal to that of a 10 Megaton bomb!
• Detonation above ground; several craters
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2013: Siberia Again!
• 1000 people injured as 20m rock strikes • Explodes about 20km overhead• 16 hours before known non-fatal asteroid
encounter
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Frequency of Impact Events
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Formation of the Solar System• Features to explain:
– planets are far apart, not bunched together– orbits of planets are nearly circular – orbits of planets lie mostly in a single plane– directions of revolution of planets about Sun is the same, and is the same
as the direction of the Sun's rotation– directions of rotation of planets about their axes is also mostly in the
same direction as the Sun's (exceptions: Venus, Uranus, Pluto)– most moons revolve around their planets in the same direction as the
rotation of the planets– differentiation between inner (terrestrial) and outer (Jovian) planets– existence and properties of the asteroids– existence and properties of the comets
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Formation of the Solar System
• Condenses from a rotating cloud of gas and dust– Conservation of angular
momentum flattens it• Dust helps cool the
nebula and acts as seeds for the clumping of matter
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Formation of Planets• Orbiting dust – planitesimals• Planitesimals collide• Different elements form in
different regions due to temperature
• Asteroids• Remaining gas
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Formation of Planets
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Differentiation of gas and terrestrial planets
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Cleaning up the Solar System
• Small objects are forced out of the inner Solar System by gravitational pull of bigger planets
• Small planetesimals collide and form planets
-- or are thrown out!
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Structure of the Planets explained
Temperature and density of materials drop with distance to sun
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Different formation mechanisms of terrestrial and Jovian planets
• This explains why they are of different size and material