Download The Universe, Solar System, and Planets I

The Universe, Solar System,
and Planets
The universe is believed to be 12-14 billion
years old.
Early History of the Universe
• Matter as we know it did not exist at
the time of the Big Bang, only pure
energy. Energy from the Big Bang
turned into matter!
• Einstein’s famous equation
E= m · c2
Explains how this might be possible.
Changing Composition of the
Universe
• 200 million years later, with expansion still occurring, stars and galaxies
began forming from leftover matter - hydrogen and helium
– the overall composition of the galaxies gradually changed to the
heavier elements as more protons fused together.
Edwin Hubble at Mt. Wilson
Hubble’s observations during the
1920’s led him to the conclusion that the universe
is expanding.
Hubble guiding the Hooker
100 inch telescope in 1923.
The Hooker 100 inch telescope atop Mt. Wilson
near Pasadena, CA. It was the largest telescope in
the world from 1917-1947.
Deep Hubble Space Telescope Image
A deep image of an “empty”
portion of the sky with the
Hubble Space Telescope
reveals that the universe is
filled with galaxies- many just
like our own. The light
we see from the most distant
galaxies has traveled approximately 10 billion years to
reach us.
• The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy that is
100,000–120,000 light years in diameter
and contains 200–400 billion stars.
Our galaxy is estimated to contain at
least 200 billion planets.
Depending on where you are, the entire
galaxy has a rotational rate of once every
15 to 50 million years.
It is estimated to be about 13.2 billion
years old, nearly as old as the universe.
The Solar System - Its Origin
and Early Development
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Eventually, the
heavier elements in
the early universe
bonded together, to
produce the things
we see in our solar
system, which
consists of the Sun,
eight planets, 64
known moons,
many asteroids,
millions of comets
and meteorites, as
well as
interplanetary dust
and gases
“Planet” derived from a Greek
word that means “wanderer”
and is considered any major
object which orbits around a
star (our sun is a star!)
Our solar system our sun and 8
planets (plus Pluto)
My very easy method just speeds up naming planets
• The eight planets in our Solar System are divided into two
groups – the inner planets and the outer planets. The inner
planets are the first four planets closest to the Sun, which
includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The outer
planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The inner
and outer planets are separated by the asteroid belt, which
is a region of space where thousands of asteroids can be
found.
• The inner planets and outer planets are characterized by
different features. The 4 inner planets are called terrestrial
planets because they have a solid surface and are similar to
Earth. These planets are composed of heavy metal, such as
iron and nickel and have few or no moons.
Mercury
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Mercury is the planet nearest to the sun.
The sun appears 2 and a half times larger in Mercury's sky
compared to the Earth's and the sun's rays are about seven times
as strong.
If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would only weigh 37
pounds on Mercury.
Mercury has an iron core like Earth.
Mercury has virtually no atmosphere. Because of the lack of
atmosphere, Mercury's sky is black and the stars probably can
be seen during the day. Because of a lack of an atmosphere, the
temperature rises above 800°F while on the dark side it falls
rapidly to -300°F. The lack of atmosphere also causes Mercury
to have so many craters (like our moon).
It takes less than 88 Earth days for Mercury to orbit around the
sun.
Mercury rotates slowly on its axis. It completes one rotation
every 59 Earth days. As a result of the planet's slow rotation
and rapid movement around the sun, a day on Mercury—that is,
the interval between one sunrise and the next—lasts about 180
Earth days.
Venus
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Venus is the second planet from the sun and the closest planet
to Earth. Venus is the brightest planet viewed from Earth.
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Its atmosphere is made up mostly of carbon dioxide and it’s
extremely hot and deadly atmosphere makes it impossible for
any human astronaut to explore it's surface. The clouds of
Venus is filled with sulfuric acid.
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It takes 243 days for Venus to make a rotation and it takes 224
days for Venus to orbit around the sun, so Venus has a longer
day than year.
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It is believed that Venus used to have bodies of water similar
to Earth, but dried up over a period of 300 million years.
Venus has mountains that are higher than Earth. Maat Mons is
more than 5 miles high.
The planet rotates from East to West, so the sun rises in the
west and sets in the east.
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Earth
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The Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. It travels
through space at 660,000 miles per hour.
The Earth weighs 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
tons.
The earth rotates on its axis more slowly in March than in
September.
If the Earth were compressed to a sphere with a 2-inch
diameter, its surface would be as smooth as a billiard
ball's.
If the world were to become totally flat and the oceans
distributed themselves evenly over the earth's surface, the
water would be approximately 2 miles deep at every point.
Glaciers occupy 5.8 million square miles, or 10 percent of
the world's land surface, an area as large as South
America.
The world is not round. It is an oblate spheroid, flattened
at the poles and bulging at the equator.
Mars
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Mars is the fourth closest planet to the sun.
Mars is red because it is rusty. There is a lot of iron in the soil, and
the air on Mars has made it turn red-just like rusty iron on Earth.
One of Mars' moons, Phobos, is moving closer and closer to Mars.
Scientists think that one day it will crash into Mars.
Mars has the tallest Volcano in the Solar System named Olympus
Mons and it is 15 miles high which is three times the height of Mount
Everest.
Like Earth, the poles of Mars are covered in ice. The ice becomes
thicker in the winter.
Mars orbits the sun every 687 Earth days. The Martian “day” is about
half a hour longer than Earth.
In 1996 NASA, while studying the ALH 84001 meteorite of Martian
origin found in Antarctica in 1984, announced that fossilized microorganisms from Mars might be present in it.
Valleys and Canyons on Mars suggest that the planet once had large
amounts of surface water.
In winter, nighttime temperatures on Mars can drop as low as -191°F.
• The outer planets are lot larger
and have very dense atmospheres
with (relatively) small cores.
• The reason for this is that when
the Solar System was born, most
of the gases near the Sun were
soon either vaporized or blown
away by the Solar wind so that
only heavy metal & rock
materials were left to form the
inner planets. Further away
though there was plenty of gas
and this accumulated together to
form the outer gas planets.
Jupiter
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Jupiter is the 5th closest planet and is the largest planet in our Solar
System.
The atmosphere of Jupiter consists of about 84 percent Hydrogen and
about 15 percent helium, with small amounts of acetylene, ammonia,
ethane, methane, phosphine, and water vapor.
If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 264 pounds on
Jupiter.
Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth's and a diameter
that is 11 times larger. The mass of Jupiter is 70% of the total mass of
all the other planets in our Solar System combined. All the planets in
our solar system could be placed inside the planet Jupiter.
Jupiter's volume is large enough to contain 1,300 planets the size of
Earth.
Jupiter rotates faster than any planet in the Solar System. It rotates so
quickly that the days are only 10 hours long, but it takes 12 Earth
years for Jupiter to complete an orbit around the sun.
The great red spot on Jupiter is a storm that has been going on for
over 300 years.
Jupiter is covered by an ocean of hydrogen with a sludge-like
consistency.
Saturn
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Saturn is the second largest planet.
Saturn has seven thin, flat rings around it. Saturn's
rings are made up of billions of pieces of rocks and
dust. Saturn's rings are 500,000 miles in
circumference but only about a foot thick.
Saturn has the lowest density of all the planets in
the solar system. It is so light that it could actually
float on water if there was an ocean big enough to
hold it.
It takes about 29.46 Earth years for Saturn to orbit
around our sun.
Saturn has no solid surface. It is a giant ball of gas,
but it does have a solid inner core.
The atmosphere of Saturn comprises mostly of
Hydrogen and Helium.
Neptune
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After Pluto was declassified as a planet, Neptune
became the farthest planet from the sun.
Neptune is so far away that it took the space probe
Voyager 2, 12 years to reach it.
Neptune is the stormiest planet. The winds there can
blow up to 1,240 miles per hour, that is three times as
fast as Earth's Hurricanes.
Neptune is a sea blue color due to the methane gas in
its atmosphere.
Neptune only receives 1/900 of the solar energy that
reaches Earth. Neptune has its own heat source, it
emits a quantity of energy 2.7 times greater than it
receives.
Neptune is 30 times farther from the sun as is the
Earth.
It goes around the sun once every 165 Earth Years.
Neptune has a rocky core.
Uranus
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Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun.
The planet's most extraordinary feature is the tilt of its rotational
axis, which is almost perpendicular, so it basically spins on its
side. This means that it alternately has its north pole and its
south pole turned towards the sun. Because of the strange way it
spins, nights on some parts of Uranus can last for more than 40
years.
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Even though Neptune is further from the sun, Uranus is the
coldest planet in the solar system.
Uranus mass is more than 14 times larger than Earth.
Uranus and Neptune are both known as Ice Giants. Uranus is a
gassy giant!
It is the second least dense planet after Saturn.
It takes 30,685 Earth days for Uranus to complete an orbit
around the sun.
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Pluto
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Pluto is technically no longer a planet, but it is still the 10th largest body orbiting around
the sun. One reason why Pluto is declassified as a planet is because asteroids has been
detected in our solar system that are as large or larger than Pluto. Stricter rules are now in
place as to what can be called a planet. Pluto did not meet all the new requirements to be
labeled as one. Some astronomers believe that Pluto was once a moon of Neptune but it
somehow escaped into its own orbit.
Pluto is smaller than the Earth's moon.
The sun would look like a bright star from Pluto, since they are so far away from each
other.
Pluto's thin atmosphere contains traces of methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
Because of Pluto's irregular orbit, there are periods of times when it is closer to the sun
than Neptune.
Asteroid Belt
The Asteroid Belt is a region
between the inner planets
and outer planets where
thousands of asteroids are
found orbiting around the
Sun. Asteroids are chunks of
rock and metal that orbit
around the Sun. Scientists
think that they are loose
material that never formed
into planets.
Meteorites Visitors to our solar system from
Outer Space
• Meteorites are believed to be pieces
of material that originated in the
formation of the Solar System about
4.6 billion years ago
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A very large number of meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere
each day. They are almost all very small, just a few milligrams
each. Only the largest ones ever reach the surface to become
meteorites. The largest found meteorite (Hoba, in Namibia) weighs
60 tons.
The average meteoroid enters the atmosphere at between 10 and 70
km/sec.
What killed the dinosaurs?
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Explanation: Their sudden disappearance 65 million years ago, along with about 70
percent of all species then living on Earth, is known as the K-T event (Cretaceous-Tertiary
Mass Extinction event). Geologists and paleontologists often entertain the idea of a large
asteroid or comet impacting the Earth as the culprit. Besides the firestorms, tidal waves,
earthquakes, and hurricane winds such an impact would generate, the debris thrown into
the atmosphere would have a serious global environmental impact -- creating extended
periods of darkness, low temperatures, and acid rains. In 1990, a 65 million year old, 112
mile wide ring structure still detectable under layers of sediment in the Yucatan Peninsula
region of Mexico. In addition to having the right age, the crater is consistent with the
impact of an asteroid of large size (6 to 12 miles wide) to cause the global disruptions.
Extremely Interesting Facts on the Planets, Stars and the Universe.
• Deimos, one of the moons of Mars, rises and sets twice a day.
• The star Zeta Thauri, a supernova, was so bright when it
exploded in 1054 that it could be seen during the day.
• The star Antares is 60,000 times larger than our sun. If our sun
were the size of softball, the star Antares would be as large as a
house.
• When we look at the farthest visible star we are looking 4 billion
years into the past—the light from that star traveling at 186,000
miles a second, has taken that many years to reach us.
• The Earth moves in its 585-million-mile orbit around the sun
approximately eight times faster than a bullet travels.
• It is estimated that within the entire Universe there are more than
a trillion galaxies (the Milky Way itself contains 100 billion
stars). This means that there are probably about 100 (to the 22nd
power) stars in the entire cosmos.
• The Sun burns 9 million tons of gas a second. At this rate, it has been
estimated, it will burn out in another 10 billion years.
The star known as LP 327-186, a white dwarf, is smaller than the state
of Texas yet so dense that if a cubic inch of it were brought to Earth it
would weigh more than 1.5 million tons.
Because of the speed at which the sun moves, it is impossible for a
solar eclipse to last more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds.
When the Apollo 12 astronauts landed on the moon, the impact caused
the moon's surface to vibrate for fifty-five minutes. The vibrations
were picked up by laboratory instruments, leading geologists to
theorize that the moon's surface is composed of many fragile layers of
rocks.
Statistically, UFO sightings are at their greatest number during those
times when Mars is closest to Earth.According to Professor David
Saunders of the Psychology Department of the University of Chicago,
abnormally large numbers of UFO sightings occur every sixty-one
months, usually at distances from 1,500 to 2,000 miles apart.