Download The Solar System: An Insider`s Guide

The Solar System:
An Insider’s Guide
Thursday!
The Gas Giants,…
and one more!
Day
Thursday
Content
The Gas Giants, and one more.
Activities
Jupiter’s Moons
Solar Observing
Field Trip tonight!
Night Viewing with telescope
Extra!
News
Deep Space World Rivals Pluto Moon
Hidden Oceans Could Still Support Life
Review of Terrestrial Planets
They were fairly close to the Sun, and to
each other,
They were all fairly similar in size
They were all fairly similar in their
composition, specifically the amt of rock
versus gas, overall density, etc.
Beyond Mars...
• An asteriod belt, but we’ll get back to this
on Friday
• Incredibly large, very gaseous objects:
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Jupiter: known to ancients, important to Galileo
Saturn: known to ancients, large, bright rings
Uranus:
Neptune: discovery due to physics—gravity
• Then there’s Pluto: small, rocky, eccentric
Jupiter Overview
This is a page from Galileo’s observing log on the
planet Jupiter. Just as he’d done with Venus, Galileo
became the first witness to a dynamic spectacle around
this large gas giant. He observed four tiny points of
light, now known as the Galilean satellites, which
moved around Jupiter (and not around the Earth).
Moreover, their periods and distances from Jupiter
followed Kepler’s laws!
More on Jupiter
Saturn Overview
Titan probed by Cassini
More on Saturn
Uranus Overview
Why doesn't Uranus radiate more heat than it receives from the Sun as
the other gas planets do? Is its interior cold?
Why is its axis so unusually tilted? Was it due to a massive
collision?
Why do Uranus and Neptune have so much less hydrogen and
helium than Jupiter and Saturn? Is it simply because they are smaller?
or because they're farther from the Sun?
What will happen to Uranus's weather as it progresses thru its
seasons?
More on Uranus
Neptune Overview
Neptune is composed mostly of ice, hydrogen and helium. It may
have a small, rocky core, and an icy mantle that blends into the
atmosphere.
Neptune radiates almost three times as much heat
energy as it gets from the distant Sun. Some of this excess heat is
probably left over from the formation of this planet and some is
generated by the slow collapse of the surface because of the planet's
own gravitational forces.
Pluto Overview
Pluto is the farthest planet from the Sun
(usually) and by far the smallest. Pluto is
smaller than seven of the solar system's
moons (the Moon, Io, Europa, Ganymede,
Callisto, Titan and Triton). There is
mounting debate on whether it is a true
planet.
Like Earth, Pluto has only one moon, Charon. It is half the size of Pluto! Pluto and Charon are closer in
size than any other planet-moon system in our solar system, and are sometimes called a double planet.
FOOTNOTE: After the discovery of Pluto, it was quickly determined that Pluto was too small to account
for the discrepancies in the orbits of the other planets. The search for Planet X continued but nothing was
found. Nor is it likely that it ever will be: the discrepancies vanish if the mass of Neptune determined from
the Voyager 2 encounter with Neptune is used. There is no evidence for a tenth planet based solely on
Neptune’s mass.
More on Pluto
HST Image!
The least understood planet. Even
HST can barely resolve it. Its Moon
was undiscovered until 1978. It’s size,
peculiar orbit, and unusual composition
pose many questions. It is the only
unexplored SS object.
Outer Planets all together now.