| Today: Solar System Overview | |
Chapter 16: Origin of the Solar System
| Solar Nebula Hypothesis | ||
| Context for Understanding Solar System | ||
| Extrasolar Planets | ||
| Dust Disks, Doppler Shifts, Transits and Eclipses | ||
| Survey of the Solar System | ||
| Terrestrial Planets | ||
| Jovian Planets | ||
| Other “Stuff” including apparent patterns with application to the nebular hypothesis | ||
| All planets orbit in almost the same plane (ecliptic, AKA Zodiac) | |||
| Almost all motion is counterclockwise as seen from the north: | |||
| All planets orbit in this direction | |||
| *Almost* all planets spin in same direction | |||
| with axes more-or-less perpendicular to ecliptic | |||
| Regular moons (like Galilean satellites and our own moon) orbit in this direction too | |||
| Planets are regularly spaced | |||
| steps increasing as we go outward | |||
| Regular spacing of planets on a logarithmic scale | |
| Each orbit is ~75% larger than the previous one | |
| Need to include the asteroids as a “planet” |
| Planets form from disk of gas surrounding the young sun | ||
| Disk formation expected given angular momentum in collapsing cloud | ||
| Naturally explains the regular (counterclockwise) motion | ||
| Makes additional explicit predictions | ||
| Should expect planets as a regular part of the star formation process | ||
| Should see trends in composition with distance from sun | ||
| Should see “fossil” evidence of early steps of planet formation | ||
| Hard to see faint planet right next to very bright star | ||
| Two indirect techniques available (Like a binary star system but where 2nd “star” has extremely low mass) |
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| Watch for Doppler “wobble” in position/spectrum of star | ||
| Watch for “transit” of planet which slightly dims light from star | ||
| About 100 planets discovered since 1996 See http://exoplanets.org/ | ||
| Tend to be big (³Jupiter) and very close to star (easier to see) | ||
| Two types of planets | ||
| Terrestrial Planets: small, rocky material: inner solar system | ||
| Jovian Planets: large, H, He gas outer solar system | ||
| Small left-over material provides “fossil” record of early conditions |
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| Asteroids – mostly between orbits of Mars and Jupiter | ||
| Comets – mostly in outermost part of solar system | ||
| Meteorites – material which falls to earth | ||
| Terrestrial Planets | |||
| Relatively small | |||
| Made primarily of rocky material: | |||
| Si, O, Fe, Mg perhaps with Fe cores (Note – for earth H2O is only a very small fraction of the total) |
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| Jovian Planets | |||
| Relatively large | |||
| Atmospheres made of H2, He, with traces of CH4, NH3, H2O, ... | |||
| Surrounded by satellites covered with frozen H2O | |||
| Within terrestrial planets inner ones
tend to have higher densities (when corrected for compression due to gravity) Planet Density Uncompressed Density (gm/cm3) (gm/cm3) |
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| Mercury 5.44 5.30 | |||
| Venus 5.24 3.96 | |||
| Earth 5.50 4.07 | |||
| Mars 3.94 3.73 | |||
| (Moon) 3.36 3.40 | |||
Equilibrium Condensation Model
| Start with material of solar composition material | ||
| (H, He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Fe ...) | ||
| Material starts out hot enough that everything is a gas | ||
| May not be exactly true but is simplest starting point | ||
| As gas cools, different chemicals condense | ||
| First high temperature chemicals, then intermediate ones, then ices | ||
| Solids begin to stick together or accrete | ||
| snowflakes Þ snowballs (“Velcro Effect”) | ||
| Once large enough gravity pulls solids together into planetesimals | ||
| planetesimals grow with size | ||
| At some point wind from sun expels all the gas from the system | ||
| Only the solid planetesimals remain to build planets | ||
| Composition depends on temperature at that point (in time and space) | ||
| Gas can only remain if trapped in the gravity of a large enough planet | ||
| Once a planetisimal reaches critical size gravity takes over |
Evidence of Assembly Process? Craters
Craters evident on almost all small “planets”
| Radiation pressure (pressure of light) | ||
| Will see present day effects in comets | ||
| Solar Wind | ||
| Strong solar winds from young T Tauri stars | ||
| Will see present day effects in comets | ||
| Sweeping up of debris into planets | ||
| Late Heavy Bombardment | ||
| Ejection of material by near misses with planets | ||
| Like “gravity assist maneuvers” with spacecraft | ||
| Origin of the comets | ||
Chapter 17: Terrestrial Planets
| Earth | ||
| History, Interior, Crust, Atmosphere | ||
| The Moon | ||
| In particular origin | ||
| Mercury | ||
| Venus | ||
| Mars | ||
| Including water (and life ?) | ||
| Basis for comparisons is Earth | |
| Properties of Earth | |
| Similarities and differences with Mars and Venus help us understand Earth better (e.g., life, greenhouse effect, etc.) | |
| Won’t spend much class time on basic properties (size, gravity, orbital period, length of day, number of moons, etc.) but you should have some relative ideas about these (see “Data Files” in text). |
Four Stages of Planetary Development
| Plate tectonics, volcanoes, etc., a lot of action! |
Earth’s Atmosphere: Greenhouse Effect
| No atmosphere | |
| Cratering is evidence of final planet assembly – lots to be learned from craters |
| Judge age of surface by amount of
craters: more craters Þ more ancient surface (for some objects, have radioactive age dates) |
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| Moon “dead” after about 1 billion years | ||
| Mercury “dead” early in its lifetime | ||
| Mars active through ~1/2 of its lifetime | ||
| Venus active till “recent” times | ||
| Earth still active | ||
| Big objects cool off slower | ||
| Amount of heat (stored or generated) proportional to Volume ( so R3) | ||
| Rate of heat loss proportional (roughly) to Surface Area (so R2) | ||
| Heat/(Unit Area) µ R3/R2 = R so activity roughly proportional to R | ||
| Same reason that big things taken out of oven cool slower than small things (cake cools slower than cookies) | ||
| Crater caused by the explosion | ||
| Impactor is melted, perhaps
vaporized by the kinetic energy released |
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| Temporary “transient” crater is round | ||
| Gravity causes walls to slump inward forming “terraces” | ||
| Movement of material inward from all sides (trying to fill in the hole) may push up central peak in the middle. | ||
| Final crater is typically ~10
times the size of the impactor |
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Examples of craters on the moon
| Images on line at The Lunar and Planetary Institute: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/lunar_missions.html |
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| Detailed record of Apollo work
at: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html |
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| Explains lack of large iron core | |
| Explains lack of “volatile” elements | |
| Explains why moon looks a lot like earth’s mantle, minus the volatiles | |
| Explains large angular momentum in the earth-moon system |