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Chpt 27 Notes
1. Write two interesting facts about each planet
- See Power Pt. Notes for Chpt 27!.
2. Explain what a dwarf planet is.
A dwarf planet is a protoplanet that is still in the developmental process and has not met the two
requirements of a plant. The first requirement is that the object has coalesced into a globe shaped object
(their shape is not oblong or random like an asteroid). The second requirement is that they have cleared
their path of all debris. This is typically the scenario for a dwarf planet- it has the correct shape & size,
but has not cleared its orbital path of debris. All three designated dwarf plantes exist in asteroid belts and
have not cleared their orbit of debris.
3. What are the three dwarf planets and where are they found?
The three dwarf planets are Pluto, Ceres and Eris. Ceres is found in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and
Mars. Eris and Pluto are both found in the Kuiper Belt outside the orbit if Neptune.
4. What is the Kuiper Belt?
The Kuiper belt is an asteroid field found
outside the orbit of Neptune in the outer area of
our solar system.
5. What is the asteroid belt and where is
it found?
The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar
System located roughly between the orbits of
the planets Mars and Jupiter where 98.5% of the
known minor planets' orbits can be found.[1]
Asteroids, or minor planets, are small celestial
bodies composed of rock, ice, and some metal
that orbit the Sun.
Moon Research:
Io
• Io is the innermost of the Galilean moons, and is the first extraterrestrial body on which active
volcanoes have been seen.
• Volcanoes on Io eject thousands of metric tons of material each second.
• Io moves inward and outward in its orbit around Jupiter because of the tidal forces, or
gravitational pull, of the other moons of Jupiter.
• Calculations show the tidal forces cause Io’s surface to move in and out by 100m. The friction
from this movement results in the melting of the interior of Io, and leads to volcanism.
• Data gathered from the Galileo spacecraft show that Io has a giant iron core and may possess a
magnetic field.
• Much of what scientists know about Jupiter’s moon comes from the information gathered by the
Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.
Europa
• Europa is the second closest Galilean moon to Jupiter. Europa is about the size of Earth’s moon,
but is much less dense.
• Astronomers think that Europa has a rock core that is covered with a crust of ice that is about 100
km thick.
• Scientists have concluded that an ocean of liquid water may exists under this blanket of ice.
• If liquid water exists, simple life forms could also exist there.
Titan
• Saturn has over 30 moons, but only five moons are fairly large.
• Saturn’s largest moon is Titan, which has a diameter of over 5,000 km.
• Titan’s has a thick atmosphere composed mainly of nitrogen.
Satellite Research:
Mariner 10
 Mariner 10 was the seventh successful launch in the Mariner series
 the first spacecraft to use the gravitational pull of one planet (Venus) to reach another (Mercury)
 the first spacecraft mission to visit two planets. Mariner 10 was the first (and as of 2003 the only)
spacecraft to visit Mercury.
 Mariner 10 returned the first-ever close-up images of Venus and Mercury.
 The primary scientific objectives of the mission were to measure Mercury's environment, atmosphere,
surface, and body characteristics and to make similar investigations of Venus.
Voyager 1 & 2
 The Voyager program consists of a pair of unmanned
scientific probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were
launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary
alignment of the late 1970s. Although they were officially
designated to study just Jupiter and Saturn, the two probes
were able to continue their mission into the outer solar
system. They have since continued out and exited the solar
system.
 Both missions have gathered large amounts of data about
the gas giants of the solar system, of which little was
previously known. In addition, the spacecraft trajectories
have been used to place limits on the existence of a
hypothetical post-Plutonian Planet X.
Galileo
 Galileo plunged into Jupiter's crushing atmosphere on Sept. 21, 2003. The spacecraft was
deliberately destroyed to protect one of its own discoveries - a possible ocean beneath the icy crust
of the moon Europa.
 Galileo changed the way we look at our solar system. The spacecraft was the first to fly past an
asteroid and the first to discover a moon of an asteroid. It provided the only direct observations of
a comet colliding with a planet.
 Galileo was the first to measure Jupiter's atmosphere with a descent probe and the first to conduct
long-term observations of the Jovian system from orbit. It found evidence of subsurface saltwater
on Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and revealed the intensity of volcanic activity on Io.
Cassini
 Cassini-Huygens is one of the most ambitious missions
ever launched into space. Loaded with an array of
powerful instruments and cameras, the spacecraft is capable
of taking accurate measurements and detailed images in a
variety of atmospheric conditions and light spectra.
 Two elements comprise the spacecraft: The Cassini orbiter
and the Huygens probe. In 2004, Cassini-Huygens reached
Saturn and its moons. There the spacecraft has begun to
orbit around the system for four years, beaming home
valuable data that will help us understand the vast
Saturnian region. Huygens entered the murky atmosphere
of Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, and descended via parachute onto its surface.
Mars Orbiter- A Mission to Study the History of Water on Mars
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched
August 12, 2005, is on a search for evidence that
water persisted on the surface of Mars for a long
period of time.
After a seven-month cruise to Mars and six months of
aerobraking to reach its science orbit, Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter will seek to find out about the
history of water on Mars with its science instruments.
They will zoom in for extreme close-up photography
of the martian surface, analyze minerals, look for
subsurface water, trace how much dust and water are
distributed in the atmosphere, and monitor daily
global weather.