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History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses wikipedia , lookup
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Inner and Outer Planets * INNER PLANETS *Mercury *Venus *Earth *Mars OUTER PLANETS *Jupiter *Saturn *Uranus *Neptune *Mercury * *Mercury is the smallest terrestrial planet and the planet closest to the sun. *Mercury is not much larger than Earth’s moon and has no moons of its own. *Mercury takes 88 days to revolve around the sun and 59 days to rotate around itself. *The interior of Mercury is thought to be made up mainly of the dense metal iron. *Mercury virtually has no atmosphere so the sky appears dark all the time. *Mercury has many craters on its surface. *Mercury has extreme temperatures. The side facing the sun reaches temperatures of 430oC and at night the heat escapes into space because there is no atmosphere and the temperature drops below -170oC. * * The Mariner 10 probe flew by Mercury 3 times in 1974 and 1975. * Current mission: Messenger spacecraft launched in 2004 and entered Mercury’s orbit in 2011. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/MESSENGERTimeline/TimeLine_content.html http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-s-messenger-spacecraft-10-years-in-space/ *Venus * * Venus is similar in size and mass to Earth so it is sometimes called Earth’s twin. * Venus’s density and internal structure are similar to Earth’s. * Venus takes 224.68 days to revolve around the sun and 243 days to rotate around itself so Venus’s day is longer than its year! * Venus is the second planet from the sun and it does not have a moon. * Venus rotates east to west (retrograde) which is the opposite direction from most other planets and moons. * Venus’s atmosphere is so thick that is always cloudy there. The clouds are made mostly of sulfuric acid. * The pressure of Venus’s atmosphere is 90 times greater than the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere. You couldn’t breathe on Venus because its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. * Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the solar system. The carbon dioxide and thick clouds trap the heat like a greenhouse so the average surface temperature is 460oC! * * Many space probes have visited Venus. The first probe to land on the surface and send back data, Venera 7, landed in 1970. It survived only for a few minutes because of the high temperature and pressure. * Magellan probe reached Venus in 1990, carrying radar instruments. Magellan mapped the surface of Venus and confirmed Venus is covered with rock and has many volcanoes on its surface. * In October 1994, the Magellan spacecraft intentionally plunged to the surface of Venus to gather data on the planet's atmosphere before it ceased operations. It marked the first time an operating planetary spacecraft had been intentionally crashed. * http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=900 *Earth * * Earth is the largest inner planet and third planet from the sun. * Earth has one moon. * Water exists in 3 forms on Earth and has life existence. * Earth takes 365.25 days to revolve around the sun and takes 24 hours to rotate around itself. * Earth’s atmosphere is made primarily of nitrogen and oxygen. * The Apollo program from 1963-1972 was designed to land humans on the moon and return them safely to Earth. * The Apollo 11 mission had astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land their lunar module on the moon on July 20, 1969 and they walked on the moon’s surface. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCt1BwWE2gA * http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_audio.h tml (scroll to bottom to listen to audio of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon’s surface) *Mars * * Mars is called the “red planet”. The reddish tint is due to the breakdown of iron-rich rocks, which creates a rusty dust that covers much of Mars’s surface. * Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and has 2 small moons, Phobos and Deimos. * Mars takes 687 days to revolve around the sun and takes 24 hours 37 minutes to rotate around itself. * Mars has a tilted axis(25o) so it has seasons just like Earth does. * The atmosphere of Mars is more than 95% carbon dioxide. It is similar in composition to Venus’s atmosphere but much thinner. * Some regions on Mars have giant volcanoes. Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest volcano in the solar system. It is nearly 3 times as tall as Mount Everest. * Mars One mission to colonize Mars. Watch the video clip advertising the mission here. http://www.mars-one.com/ Crews would leave Earth for Mars in 2026. * * Scientists think that a large amount of liquid water flowed on Mars’s surface in the distant past. * In 2004, two probes landed on Mars’s surface. NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers explored Mars and examined a variety of rocks and soil samples. The rovers found strong evidence that liquid water was once present on Mars. NASA lost contact with Spirit in 2010 and Curiosity is now on the surface. * Curiosity’s mission is to determine the planet's "habitability." Curiosity was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/overview/ view the slideshow * The MAVEN mission launched in 2013 is exploring Mars’s atmosphere and interactions with the sun and the solar wind. * http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/ view slideshow and learn current info and http://mars.nasa.gov/maven/ for a video clip Current and Future Missions to Study Mars * http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/05/nasa-finds- evidence-of-a-vast-ancient-ocean-on-mars Nasa finds evidence of a vast ancient ocean on Mars article and scroll down for good VIDEO CLIP * Mars Orbiter Mission was launched in 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organization to study different technology and Mars’s atmosphere. * European Space Agency’s Exomars program is a series of missions planned to launch in 2016 and are designed to understand if life ever existed on Mars. There is also a plan for an Exomars Rover launch in 2018. * Building on the success of Curiosity's landing, NASA announced plans for a new robotic science rover set to launch in 2020. * The inner planets: *Are small in size *Have few or no moons *Do not have rings *Have solid, rocky surfaces *Have a high density *Have a variety of gases in their atmosphere *Rotate slowly (long days) *Revolve quickly (short years) *Jupiter * * Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. * Jupiter has a thick atmosphere made up mainly of hydrogen and helium and has faint, narrow rings surrounding it. * Jupiter has the Great Red Spot which is a storm that is larger than Earth. The storm’s swirling winds blow hundreds of kilometers per hour, similar to a hurricane. * Astronomers think that Jupiter probably has a dense core of rock and iron at its center. * Jupiter takes 4,331.9 days (11.9 years) to revolve around the sun and less than 10 hours to rotate around itself. * Galileo discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. All four are larger than Earth’s moon. * Io’s surface is covered with large, active volcanoes. Europa has an icy crust and astronomers suspect an ocean of liquid water lies beneath it. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. Callisto’s surface is icy and covered with craters. * Astronomers have discovered 67 moons orbiting Jupiter. * * The Pioneer 10 spacecraft launched in 1972 became the first to fly beyond Mars' orbit, through the asteroid belt, and close to Jupiter, blazing a trail for the two Voyager spacecraft that were to follow and conduct more in-depth surveys. * Voyager 2, launched in 1977, explored Jupiter in greater detail than the Pioneer spacecraft did. * One of Jupiter’s moons, Europa was explored by Voyager spacecraft * Europa has a smooth, icy crust with giant cracks * Scientists hypothesize that there is a liquid ocean under Europa’s ice-the water could be kept liquid by heat coming from inside Europa * Galileo spacecraft launched in 1989 discovered an intense radiation belt above Jupiter's cloud tops, helium in about the same concentration as the Sun, extensive and rapid resurfacing of the moon Io because of volcanism, and more evidence for liquid water oceans under the moon Europa's icy surface. * The Galileo Orbiter became the first unmanned spacecraft to witness a celestial event - the impact of multiple fragments of comet Shoemaker Levy-9 into Jupiter in July 1994. * * Juno mission was launched in 2011 and the orbiter spacecraft will arrive 2016. http://missionjuno.swri.edu/ Lots of information and video clips about the Juno mission. * The purpose of the Juno mission is to understand giant planet formation and evolution. Jupiter was likely the first planet to form and it has held onto all of its original material. So we can study the planet as a sort of time capsule to learn more about what the solar system was like at the time when Jupiter was forming. *Saturn * * Saturn is the second-largest planet in the solar system and the sixth planet from the sun. * Saturn has a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium like Jupiter. * Saturn is the only planet whose average density is less than that of water. * Scientists looking through telescopes discovered Saturn has rings around it. The rings are made of chucks of ice and rock, each traveling in its own orbit around Saturn. Saturn has the most spectacular rings of any planet. * Saturn takes 10,738.4 days (29.5 years) to revolve around the sun and takes 10.23 hours to rotate around itself. * Saturn has 64 moons and its largest moon, Titan, is larger than the planet Mercury. * * The Voyager spacecrafts, launched in 1977, gave us a close-range look at Saturn and its moons. * Cassini is an extended mission to follow up on the many discoveries made during its primary 4-year mission that launched in 1997. Among the most surprising discoveries were geysers erupting on one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus. Researchers believe that there is a warm ocean beneath Enceladus’ icy crust. Cassini detected tiny particles of silica floating in space. The silica particles could only be made if that ocean were hot. On Earth, silica similarly forms at undersea hydrothermal vents, when chemicals dissolved in hot water crystallize as the water is suddenly cooled when it meets the ocean. * Cassini's observations of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, have given scientists a glimpse of what our home planet might have been like before life evolved on Earth. *Uranus * * Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and is twice as far from Saturn so it is much colder. * Uranus looks blue-green because of traces of methane in its atmosphere. Uranus also has hydrogen and helium in its atmosphere. * Uranus is surrounded by a group of thin, flat rings. * Uranus takes 30,790.6 days (84 years) to revolve around the sun and just over 17 hours to rotate around itself. * Uranus rotates east to west (retrograde) and is tipped on its side. Astronomers think that billions of years ago Uranus was hit by an object that knocked it on its side. * Uranus has 27 moons. Five of Uranus’s largest moons have icy, cratered surfaces. The craters show that rocks from space have hit the moons. Uranus’s moons also have lava flows on their surfaces, suggesting that material has erupted from inside each moon. * * Voyager 2 was the first and only manmade object to reach Uranus. It launched in 1977 when it had previously visited Jupiter and Saturn and reached Uranus in 1986. * The planet displayed little detail, but gave evidence of an ocean of boiling water about 800 km below the cloud tops. * Curiously, the average temperature of its sun-facing pole was found to be the same as that of the equator. * The spacecraft discovered moons, two new rings, and a strangely tilted magnetic field stronger than that of Saturn. * A gravity assist at Uranus propelled the spacecraft toward its next destination, Neptune. * A number of missions have been proposed but none have been approved yet. *Neptune * * Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun and is similar in size and color to Uranus (twin planets). * Neptune is a cold, blue planet that has rings. * Neptune’s atmosphere contains hydrogen, helium, and methane and also contains visible clouds. Clouds of icy droplets of methane can also be seen in the upper atmosphere of Neptune. * Scientists think that Neptune is slowly shrinking causing its interior to heat up. As this energy rises toward Neptune’s surface, it produces clouds and storms in the planet’s atmosphere. * Neptune takes 60,193.2 days (165 years) to revolve around the sun and 16.11 hours to rotate around itself. * Neptune has 13 moons, including a moon with eruptions of nitrogen. * The winds on the planet are the strongest in the Solar System, with areas of high pressure shown by Dark Spots. * * In the summer of 1989, NASA's Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe the planet Neptune, its final planetary target. * In the closest approach of its entire tour, the spacecraft passed less than 5,000 km above the planet's cloud tops. * It discovered moons, rings, and a "Great Dark Spot" that vanished by the time the Hubble Space Telescope imaged Neptune five years later. * Neptune's largest moon, Triton, was found to be the coldest known planetary body in the solar system, with a nitrogen ice "volcano" on its surface. * A gravity assist at Neptune shot Voyager 2 below the plane in which the planets orbit the sun, on a course which will ultimately take the spacecraft out of our solar system. * The outer planets: *Are large in size *Have many moons *Have rings *Do not have solid, rocky surfaces (gas giants) *Have a low density *Have similar gases in their atmosphere *Rotate quickly (short days) *Revolve slowly (long years)