Term
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Definition
- Molecular Cloud Collapsed
- Cloud fragments into smaller, denser pockets of matter
- In center, gravity brings material together to form star -- Sun
- Conservation of Angular Momentum -- the spinning of everything in Solar System
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Term
| Close Encounter Hypothesis |
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Definition
- Blobs of gas that were ripped from the Sun during a near-collsion with another star
- Flaming matter from each star could eventually form planets (?)
- BUT Colliding stars are very rare! They're very far apart (galaxies are relatively close together, hense other theory more likely)
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Term
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Definition
- 13.7 Billion years ago
- Supplied Universe with H, He
- only small fraction of original H, He has been converted into heavier elements
- First stars used H, He in nuclear reactors
- Materials recycled into new generations of stars
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Term
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Definition
- 98% H, He
- 2% everything else (metals)
- more than enough to form all of the terrestrial planets and astroids
- The Sun is very metalic compared to other stars the same age
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Term
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Definition
- A Vast cloud of cold gas and dust that contains the raw material of stars and planets, mostly H, He
- No real shape
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Term
| Collapsing Molecular Clouds |
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Definition
A collision with another cloud or a shock wave from an exploding star may cause the cloud to start collapsing
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Term
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Definition
- We see stars being born all the time from nebula!
- radiation burns away cloud, leaving only stars
- Stars with dust disks -- dust disk form planets
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Term
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Definition
- CONDENSATION: the general process in which solid particles condense out of a gaseous nebula
- H, He -- never condense b/c so light
- H compounds -- methane, amonia, water --> ice
- Rock -- solid particles at low temps but gaseous at high temps
- Metals -- solid particles at low temps but gaseous at high temps. Only found in certain regions based on star temp
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Term
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Definition
Area dominated by rock and meta, which clumped together into ever-larger bodies, called planetesimals, eventually forming Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. |
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Term
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Definition
Small grains of dust aggregated together that grow by collisional aggregations. The collisions and heat will cause them to get bigger. |
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Term
| Zone of the Outer Planets |
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Definition
Area dominated by ices and light elements, which also condensed to form the gas giant planet cores. Lighter elements were blown out by solar wind. |
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Term
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Definition
Young stars have strong winds that clear our light gases (H, He) It's the inside of the gas ball trying to get out GOOD for us--if left behind, H and He would have condensed on all of the planets |
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Term
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Definition
- Some formed at same time as planet
- orbit in equitorial plane
- Some captured objects
- do NOT orbit in equitorial plane
- Gas Giants all had mini nebula around them that collapsed, thats how you can tell some moons formed with planet bc they orbit and rotate in same direction
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Term
Earth's Moon Formation Close Encounter Hypothesis |
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Definition
Probably formed AFTER Earth did, when a body several times as massive as Mars slammed into it
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Term
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Definition
Rocky peices that never formed a planet because the gravity of nearby Jupiter kept pulling them apart (Jupiter also keeps them from hitting inner planets) |
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Term
| How old is our Solar System? |
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Definition
- Radioactive Decay
- what's left tells us how much was there at the start
- Meteorites & Earth Rocks
- 4.6 BILLION YEARS OLD!
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Term
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Definition
- Discovery: Periodic Doppler Shift in spectrum
- Most are closer to their stars and more massive than our SS with much faster revolution
- different stage of SS life?
- smaller planets may have been ejected
- Eart-like planet discovered!
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Term
Terrestrial Planets (Basics) |
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Definition
- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
- Thin atmospheres
- only just large enough to be shaped into spheres
- Rocky/Metalic
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Term
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Definition
Coming together--impacts from asterpoids, comets, and other debris
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Term
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Definition
Heavy material sinks, light material rises in platenary interiors |
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Term
Radioactive Decay (Planetary Interiors) |
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Definition
radioactive materials release heat, keep core molten
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Term
| Terrestrial Planetary Interiors |
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Definition
- Heat inside causes earthquakes and volcanism
- Planets continue to cool down
- rate of cooling depends on:
- initial amount of radioactive material
- whether of not there's an atmosphere
- distance from warming object (sun)
- Interior determines in planet is "alive" (geological activity)
- Three Layers:
- CORE: highest density material (nickel, iron)
- MANTLE: rocky material (minerals with silicon, oxygen)
- CRUST: lowst density material (granite, basalt)
- Differentiation!!!
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Term
| Differences in Small vs. Large Terrestrial Planets |
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Definition
- Small
- cold interiors, little to no atmosphere (heat escapes), cooled quickly and gases escaped b/c of lack of graviational pull
- Large
- warmer interiors, atmospheres, geological activity
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Term
| Distance of Terrestrial Planets |
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Definition
- "Just Right"
- Close to sun = warm surfaces, no atmospheres, no water (b/c solar wind too strong)
- Intermediate = moderate temps, water
- Far from sun = cool surfaces, ice, snow, less erosion
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Term
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Definition
- SLOW ROTATION = less wind, weather & erosion
- MODERATE ROTATION (~24 hr) = more wind, weather & erosion
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Term
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Definition
- Smallest Planet
- Closest Planet
- Large Iron Core (perhaps Mercury was once larger)
- NO plate tectonics or volcanism for past 4 billion years
- Rotation Rate: 3 times for every 2 orbits -- Synchronous Rotation -- day is almost as long as year! (tidally locked system)
- Orbitb: 88 days
- Heavily Cratered Surface, volcanic outflow before
- Scarps: uplifted crust
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Term
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Definition
- Earth's "Twin"
- Always completely covered in clouds
- THICK atmosphere
- Hottest surface temp (greenhouse effect)
- 90x surface pressure of Earth
- Slowest rotation rate: 243 days
- Spins backward (retrograde) E to W: perhaps struck by impactor?
- Mapped by Magellan 1989
- Geologic Activity: may still be active
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Term
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Definition
- Hot interior, geologically active
- erosion erased craters
- rapid spin and molten interior = magnetic field
- changes over time
- sometimes reversed
- most solar wind deflected by magnetosphere
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Term
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Definition
Caused by energetic electrons and protons moving along the magnetic field and striking air molecules, causing them to glow Most commonly view at poles b/c magnetic field weaker |
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Term
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Definition
- 1/4 size of Earth (large for a moon)
- 1/6 the gravity of Earth
- heavily impacted
- no atmosphere
- Water detected on poles
- Highlands: light colors, rough craters, old
- Maria: dark colors, smooth, young, lava flows
- large object cut thru crust to let lava out b/c crust thinner there (graviational pull shifted core)
- Farside: mostly highland, no maria
- Differentiated
- Regolith: fine powder from all the impacts (looks brown talcum powder, but colorful under microscope)
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Term
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Definition
- Half Earth's size
- No geological activity
- Slight magnetic field
- Olympus Mons: largest volcano in solar system
- Tharsis Region: 3 large volcanos spanning 1/2 size of US
- Valles Marineris: 7x deeper than Grand Canyon, formed by crustal streching
- Evidence of water in past
- Schiaparelli: "canali"=channels
- Lowell: "canali"=canals
- Polar ice caps change with seasons
- Frost
- Used to have bigger atmosphere to allow water to exist--but interior cooled, gases escaped and surface cooled, water now under surface, how much?
- Thin CO2 atmosphere
- 2 moons
- Phobos: captured asteroid
- Deimos: captured asteroid (ice and rock)
- Metorites look different
- Use Antarctica to study Mars: Antarctic Dry Valleys
- Only 1/3 Mars missions successful
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Term
Geological Processes Terrestrial Planets |
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Definition
- Cratering
- Tectonics
- Volcanism
- Erosion
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Term
| Atmospheres: Terrestrial Planets |
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Definition
- Layer of Gas that surrounds a world
- Doesn't "end" just fades away
- Makes surfaces warmer (greenhouse effect)
- Absorb and scatter light
- Create pressure to allow water to form
- Create wind and weather, erosion
- Create Magnetosphere to protect from losing gas
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Term
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Definition
- P = F/A = ma/A = mg/A
- E~T
- Collision of atoms and molecules creates pressure in atmosphere
- Heating causes atoms to collide more (cooling collide less)
- Pressure decreases as altitude increase
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Term
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Definition
- 78% N, 21% O, 0.9% Ar, 0.1% Other (CO2)
- Early atmosphere: outgassing
- Molecules broken down by sunlight
- Some gasses escape b/c of weak gravity
- Plants provide most Oxygen
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Term
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Definition
- Thick CO2 (95%)
- Clouds made of Sulfuric Acid
- Sulfuric Acid rain
- Weather patterns seen in clouds
- NO water vapor
- Radiation bounced around by Carbon Dioxide
- Runaway Greenhouse Effect: high surface temp and pressure
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Term
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Definition
- Almost no atmosphere
- H, He from Solar wind temporarily trapped
- Atoms quickly escape to space, therefore constantly replenished
- Extreme temp changes
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Term
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Definition
- Very thin, Carnon Dioxide
- Changes in size w/ season
- Polar caps change in size accordingly as CO2 is sublimated into atmospheric gas (summer) and condensed in solid (winter)
- HST, Viking to Mars
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Term
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Definition
- Climate change is common
- Snowball Earth
- Ice ages
- Warm periods
- FOUR FACTORS:
- Solar Brightening (sun gets brighter over time)
- Changes in axis tilt (pressesion)
- Changes in planet's reflectivity (albedo can warm or cool planet)
- Changes in amount of Greenhouse Gases (allow more or less radiation to surface)
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Term
| Gain/Loss of Gasses in Atmosphere |
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Definition
GAIN - Outgassing from interior
- Evaporation of water and ice from surface
- Meteroitic bombardment onto rocks
LOSS - Condensation
- Chemical Reactions
- Solar Wind Stripping high in atmosphere
- Thermal escape when gas reaches escape veolocity
- Meteroitic bombardment onto rocks
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Term
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Definition
- Solar wind blew gases to outer solar system
- Rocky material formed rings around the planets at same time the planets formed
- Mostly H and H compounds
- BIG atmospheres
- NO crust
- Small liquid metal cores (magnetic fields)
- Less dense (D=M/v)
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Term
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Definition
- 1400x Earth's size--Largest Planet!
- Strong Graviational field -- attracts asteroids and comets, keeps from hitting Earth
- 63 moons
- Rotation: 10 hour
- White zones of rising air: amonia clouds
- Dark belts of falling air: no amonia
- Atmosphere mostly water and amonia
- Each layer has unique color and chemistry
- white: amonia cloud
- yellow, red, brown: amonia ice
- blue: water ice
- Great Red Spot: hurricane with CC circulating winds (high pressure)
- Four largest moons: Gallilean Satelites
- Formed when Jupiter formed
- Icy/slushie moons, tidal heating (volcanism and tectonics b/c of gravitational forces oflarge planets)
- RINGS: Most likely created by debris from impact events on the moons. Dark material, no ice
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Term
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Definition
- Moon of Jupiter
- Most volcanically active object in our Solar System
- Gravitational tug from Jupiter make an active interior
- Young surface
- Sulfur emissions (100s of km)
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Term
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Definition
- Moon of Jupiter
- Rocky composition
- Evidence for salty liquid ocean under ice
- Oxygen ?
- Energetic interior
- Nutrients from inner may allow life
- Active moon with a young surface
- Evidence in ice for shifting, rifting, and ice bergs
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Term
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Definition
- Largest moon in the Solar System
- Water ice surface
- Possible 150-km deep ocean
- Water from below “slushed” up to the surface
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Term
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Definition
- Heavily cratered ice ball
- NO volcanic or tectonic features
- No heat
- NOT differentiated
- Rock and Ice evenly mixed in interior
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Term
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Definition
- Gallileo confused by hotdog shape
- higher resolution telescope showed rings in 1659
- 75% H, 25% He
- Traces on water, methane, amonia, rock
- No solid surface
- 60 moons
- Rotation: 11hrs
- Clouds lie deeper in atmosphere
- Cold atmosphere
- layers thicker bc gravity less
- RINGS!
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Term
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Definition
- Very THIN
- 250,000km diameter, only 10s m thick
- Water ice, rocky particles with ice coatings
- Wide gaps: particles accreted onto nearby moons
- Sheparding Moons
- Moons supply particles
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Term
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Definition
- Moon of Saturn
- Observed by Huygens
- 1/2 water/ice, 1/2 rock, earthlike?
- Interior may still be hot
- Surrounded by thick N atmosphere
- Trace amounts of organic compouds (early Earth)
- HST -- show light and dark areas, pools?
- Cassini/Huygens Mission (launched 1997)
- found ice and tar, clashing ridges (Titanquakes), few craters (resurfacing)
- Methane lakes
- COLD
- Methane rain
- Evaporation of methane
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Term
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Definition
- Moon of Saturn
- 392 km in diameter
Large crater is ~1/3 that
size (140 km)! - Looks like eye ball!
- Why didn't it break up? HARD material?
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Term
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Definition
- Moon of Saturn
- Reflects most sunlight (95%)
- Icy particles errupt
- Tides?
- Radioactive heating?
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Term
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Definition
- Moon of Saturn
- ~280 km across
- Most-impacted object
- Dark material composition
- >1.5 million km from Saturn
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Term
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Definition
- Found by Hershel (1781)
- Tilted on side 90% so one hemisphere always faces Sun
- 27 moons
- 11 rings
- First object observed w/ telescope
- Moons and rings are
tilted, too - Uranus rotates backwards!
- Rotation: 17hrs
- Orbits in 84years
- Tilts = extreme seasons, poles see darkness for 42 years at a time
- Thick clouds
- Methane gas and snowflakes
- Atmosphere absorbs red light, blue light reflected
- Sufferes smog that sunlight cannot penetrate
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Term
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Definition
- There was irregularily in Uranus' orbit, thought there must be another gravitational body out there
- Used this law to predict distance from the Sun
- Nearly accurate for all known planets, so they started searching for what would be Neptune
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Term
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Definition
- First planet to be
predicted to exist
by Adams (1843)
and Le Verrier (1846) - Rotation: 16hrs
- Mostly made of methane gas, methane “snowflakes”
- Deeper blue because more sunlight reaches down to the clouds
- Neptune has also had a giant storm in its clouds
- Rings:
- Particles should be uniformly distributed,
but are confined instead by Galatea (sheparding moon)
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Term
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Definition
- Orbits backwards (retrograde) and at an inclination
- Probably a captured Kuiper Belt Object
- Coldest object in the Solar System - it
reflects all of the light that reaches it - Icy volcanism
- Tectonic ridges
- Thin atmosphere
- Surface undisturbed for long time
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Term
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Definition
- Most lie in asteroid belt b/w Mars and Jupiter
- Trojan asteroids: clump near Jupiter
- Chunks of rock left over after SS formation Gravity kept them from forming a planet
- Hard to see
- First discovered 1800s
- Ceres ~1000km -- largest
- NEA pass thruinner solar system
- Some may be extinct comet nuclei
- Orbit in same direction as planet
- Inclinded to ecliptic plane 20-30°
- Ave. distance b/w asteroids millions of miles BUT collisions do occur
- Carbon rich materials, dark rocky materials, Fe, Ni
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Term
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Definition
- Gravity tugs at certain locations in the Asteroid
Belt and creates gaps - Whenever certain objects line up, gravity pushes
asteroids out of orbit
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Term
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Definition
- Chunks of asteroids that have fallen to Earth
- As they're falling -- "Meteors"
- Carbon, Iron, Nickle
- Show evidence that some asteroids were large enough to differentiate, have volcanism and contain water!
- 20,000 collected so far
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Term
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Definition
- Nucleus: dirty snowball
- Rock dust and ices are abundant
- Coma: luminous sphere of gases around nucleus when heated by the sune
- Tail: fat moving ions affected by solar wind, slow moving dust affected by radiation pressure
- Dust tail: follows path
- Ion tail: points away from sun
- Meteor Showers: pieces of comet tail
- What do they tell us?
- dust and gas composition tell about SS formation/composition
- don't interact with much so they are unchanged so they are more like the original
- 50-50,000 AU away
- Scattered from interations w/ gas giants
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Term
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Definition
- Kuiper Belt
- 30-50 AU
- Gravitational effects from Neptune keep the
objects in orbit or perturb them to fall out - Periods less than 200 years
- Orbit in same plane as planets and moons (ecliptic)
- Move in same direction around Sun as planets
- Comet Halley
- 1910, 1987
- Water, ammonia, cyanide, formaldehyde
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Term
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Definition
- Oort Cloud
- 100-50,000+ AU
- Gravitational effects from near-by stars, galaxies
- 200 - 50,000+ year periods
- Half are Earth crossers
- Comet Hykutake (72,000yr)
- Evidence for ethane, methane
→ not seen in other comets
- Comet Hale-Bop (2400yr)
- LARGE
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Term
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Definition
- Galileo fly by (1989)
- Deep Space 1 fly by (2001)
- Stardust (currently collecting data) --gel stuff
- Rosetta (launched, arrival in 2014)
- Deep Impact (December 2004 launch)
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Term
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Definition
Comets affected by gravitational pull from Sun
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Term
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Definition
- Discovered by Claude Tombaugh (American)
in 1930 - Though to exist since motions of Uranus and Neptune seemed affected by “something”
- Found as moving “dot” on photographic plates
- Composition is 70% rock and 30% water (?)
- Small atmosphere that changes in size due to distance from the Sun
- Composed of N?
- ~6.4 day retrograde rotation period
- Takes 248 years to orbit Sun once
- Moons: Charon (2 others)
- rotate around eachother
- Double planet system?
- New Horizons Mission
- Does NOT orbit in plane of ecliptic (17°)
- Pluto's orbit goes in Kuiper belt -- KBO
- Object found LARGER than Pluto
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