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A Census of the Solar System
1 star and 8 major planets
Mercury
Venus
terrestrial
giant
Earth
(1)
Mars
(2)
Jupiter
(17)
Saturn
(18)
Uranus
(21)
Neptune
(8)
Planetary comparisons
The Gas Giants
Jupiter -- 1/1000 Msun , 300 Mearth
1/10 Rsun , 11 Rearth
Terrestrial Objects
7 largest moons
Other members
Dwarf Planets – Pluto and the Trans-Neptunian
or Kuiper Belt Objects
Highly elliptical orbit inclined 170 to ecliptic
Brings it inside Neptune’s orbit, 1979 –
1999, Pluto was closer than Neptune
Asteroids, Meteors and Comets
Formation of Solar System
The Condensation Sequence of the
elements, minerals and molecules
The Heavy Bombardment
The Search for ExoSolar Planets
Astrometric Detection Method
Doppler Detection Method
Transit Detection Method
The first two methods are based on the fact that a planet orbiting a star will
cause the star to "wobble" in space.
The first method detects the component of this wobble that is horizontal to
our line of site, and is based simply on observing the position of the star
over time.
***The second method detects the component of the wobble
that is radial to us, (i.e. directly towards or away from us), and
is based on the Doppler shift in the star's light as the star
moves towards or away from us.
*** The third method is based on detecting the small drop in apparent
luminosity of a star as a planet transits in front of it, between the star
and the Earth.
ExtraSolar System Planets
Multiple systems
As of 1 Feb, 2011 -- 519 planets confirmed
Results from Kepler satellite:
Press release Feb 2, 2011
A NASA telescope taking a nose count of planets in one small
neighborhood of the Milky Way registered more than 1,200 candidates,
including 58 residing in life-friendly orbits around their parent stars.
The census, collected by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope after just four
months of work, shows that small planets like Earth are much more
prevalent than Jupiter-sized worlds and that multiple-planet systems are
common (about 200).