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Solar System Geology & Astrophysics
The Home Planet
-Diameter: 7,973 miles
(12,831 kilometers)
-Distance from the Sun: 93
million miles (150
million kilometers)
-Surface Temperature:
59ºF (15°C)
-Length of Year: 365 days
The Home System
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8 planets or 9?
5 Terrestrial planets
4 gas giants with rings
1 star wannabee
Ice, rocks, dirt and . . . .?
Water, water everywhere
The Home System: Water
Water flow
formations on
Mars
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Broken ice
formations on
Europa
Mercury – ice
Luna (Earth) - ice
Mars – ice, recent
liquid
Europa (Jupiter) – ice,
liquid
Titan (Saturn) – water
or methane?
The Home System: Moons
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Jupiter: 52 and counting!
– U. of Hawaii:
www.ifa.hawaii.edu/ifa/
 4 Galilean moons:
 Io (volcanic),
 Europa
(icy/watery),
 Ganymede (icy),
 Callisto (icy, dead)
Saturn: 30 and counting!
The Home System:
Newton’s Orbits
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Objects orbit the
barycenter
Barycenter moves as
objects move
Stars “wobble”
Other Systems
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100 planets – 2
dozen in a single
week!
8 double-planet
systems; 2 triples
One recent
discovery: a star the
same age as our Sun
www.space.com
The Home Star: Sol
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www.spaceweather.com
www.genesismission.org
75% Hydrogen and
25% Helium by mass
Average G2 star
New Secrets:
 Hairy sunspots
 Dark canals
Other Stars
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Sun is
average size,
age, density
Color shows
age & mass
Other Stars: Life Cycle
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Aging
 red giant/planetary
nebula
 supergiant/supernova
Death
 white dwarf
 neutron star
 black hole
The Home Galaxy
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/mw/mmw_MW.html
The Home Galaxy
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/gcenter/index.html
Credit NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al.
The Center of the Home Galaxy
(artist’s rendition from
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020626bhlight.html)
The Home Universe: Bang?
The Missing Universe
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30% Dark Matter:
pulling things together
65% Dark Energy:
accelerating things
apart
5% stuff we knew
about already
Stellar Reading
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Stephen Hawking: Ill.
Brief History of Time,
Universe in a Nutshell,
Theory of Everything and
others
Brian Green: The Elegant
Universe or Cosmology &
String Theory
Richard Feynman: Six
Easy Pieces (Essentials of
Physics)