Download 2/1/2012- Outer Planets Notes

Section
2
Warm Up
1.Open your notebook to
your virtual lab
2.Sit quietly
Section
1
The Outer Planets
Notes
Section
The Outer Planets
3
Jupiter
• The largest and fifth planet from the Sun is
Jupiter.
• It is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium.
• Continuous storms of swirling, high-pressure gas have
been observed on Jupiter.
• The Great Red Spot is the most spectacular of these
storms.
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3
The Outer Planets
The Voyager Probes and Galileo
• In 1979, Voyager1 and Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter,
and the Galileo space probe reached Jupiter in 1995.
• The major discoveries of these probes include
information about the composition and motion of
Jupiter’s atmosphere, characteristics of some of its
moons and the discovery of new moons and faint
rings.
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The Outer Planets
Jupiter’s Moons
• Jupiter has 63 known moons. Many are small, rocky
bodies that could be captured asteroids.
• Four are large enough to be considered small planets.
Called Galilean moons. They are called Io, Europa,
Ganymede, and Callisto.
• NASA scientists believe liquid water exists beneath
Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto’s surfaces.
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The Outer Planets
Jupiter’s Moons
• Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury and is the
largest moon in the solar system.
• Io is under a constant tug-of-war between the
gravities of Jupiter and Europa which heats up the
interior of Io and causes it to be the most
volcanically active body in the solar system.
• Europa is ice-covered.
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Saturn
• Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and has the
largest and most complex ring system of any outer
planet.
• Saturn is a large planet with a thick outer atmosphere
composed of hydrogen mostly and helium with some
ammonia, methane, and water vapor.
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The Outer Planets
Saturn’s Rings
• Saturn’s rings are composed of billions of ice and rock
particles ranging in size from a speck of dust to tens of
meters across.
• The ring system is over 280,000 km wide and only 1 km
thick.
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The Outer Planets
Cassini-Huygens
• The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft approached
Saturn in 2004 to collect data about Saturn, its ring
system and many moons.
• In January 2005, Huygens passed by Saturn’s
largest moon Titan in search of hydrocarbons.
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The Outer Planets
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Uranus
• Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun.
• It is four times larger than Earth with 27 moons.
• The atmosphere of Uranus contains hydrogen, helium,
and about two percent methane.
• The methane gives the planet its blue-green color.
• Uranus’s axis of rotation is tilted, so that it is nearly
parallel to the plane of its orbit.
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Neptune
• Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun.
• Neptune’s atmosphere is similar to that of Uranus, but
has a little more methane—about 3 percent—causing
it to look bluer.
• Voyager 2 passed by Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in
1989, the only spacecraft to fly-by each planet.
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3
The Outer Planets
Dwarf Planets
• In 2005, astronomers discovered Eris, an object
beyond Pluto, that is larger than Pluto.
• This discovery led to a change in the definition of a
planet.
• Pluto, Eris and a large asteroid named Ceres are now
classified as dwarf planets.
• Dwarf planets are nearly round objects in orbit around
the Sun that are not satellites and have not cleared the
debris in their orbits.
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The Outer Planets
Comets and Other Objects
• A comet, is composed of dust and rock particles
mixed with frozen water, methane, and ammonia.
• As a comet approaches the Sun, it begins to
vaporize. The vaporized dust and gases form a
bright cloud called a coma around the nucleus. The
solar wind pushes on the vaporized coma, forming
a tail that always points away from the Sun.
Section
3
The Outer Planets
Comets and Other Objects
• Most comets come from two places—a vast disk of
icy comets called the Kuiper Belt near Neptune’s
orbit and the Oort cloud.
• Once in orbit around the Sun, comets reappear at
predictable times.
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The Outer Planets
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Asteroids
• Rocky objects formed from material similar to that of
the planets are called asteroids.
• Most asteroids are found in a belt between the orbits
of Mars and Jupiter.
• Asteroids range in size from tiny particles to objects
500 km in diameter.
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Meteoroids
• Sand-to-boulder sized objects within the solar
system are called meteoroids.
• Meteoroids may enter the atmosphere.
• Most burn up completely and we see them as meteors
or “shooting stars.”
• Others do not burn completely and strike Earth. These
are called meteorites.
Section
3
Section Check
Question 1
The fifth planet from the Sun is __________.
A. Jupiter
B. Neptune
C. Saturn
D. Pluto
Section
3
Section Check
Answer
The answer is A. Jupiter is also the largest planet in the
solar system.
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Section Check
Question 2
Which of Jupiter’s four largest moons most volcanically
active object in the solar system?
A. Callisto
B. Europa
C. Ganymede
D. Io
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3
Section Check
Answer
The answer is D. Jupiter exerts tremendous gravitational
pull on Io.
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Section Check
Question 3
Which one of the following is NOT classified as a
dwarf planet?
A. Pluto
B. Eris
C. Ganymede
D. Ceres
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3
Section Check
Answer
The answer is C. Ganymede is one of Jupiter’s four
largest moons.
Section
3
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmyMQ_SdpNc&feature=related
Section
3
End of Day
Homework
• Get grade report signed!!!!