The Solar System Part 2

1
The Solar System Part 2

• The Planets

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Terrestrial and Gas planets

• To be considered a planet
• must orbit one or more stars
• its own gravity holds it in a spherical shape
• be the only body occupying the orbital path

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Terrestrial and Gas planets

• Large distances keep our solar neighbourhoods
  family of eight planets well separated from each
  other
• Astronomical unit (AU), is equal to the average
  distance between the Sun and Earth, about 150
  million km.
• Earth is 1 AU from the Sun, while Jupiter is 5.27
  AUs from the Sun.

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Terrestrial planets

• Four inner Planets
• Have rocky surfaces

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Terrestrial planets

• Mercury
• The closest planet to the Sun is also the
  smallest.
• slightly larger than our Moon
• differences between night and daytemperatures on
  its surface (ranging from 400C to 183C).

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Terrestrial planets

• Venus
• often called Earths sister planet
• similar size and composition to Earth
• Venuss atmosphere is almost completely carbon
  dioxide
• the Magellan spacecraft revealed that large
  portions of the planet arevery flat, while other
  areas have volcanoes, lava flows, and cracks
  called rifts.

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Terrestrial planets

• Earth
• little blue planet, third from the Sun
• only life yet discovered
• only place known to have water in three phases
• Water covers nearly three quarters of Earths
  surface
• Atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen

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Terrestrial planets

• Mars
• called the red planet
• half the size of Earth
• Mars has a very thin atmosphere of carbon
• dioxide and can experience winds of more than 900
  km/h.
• Mars has two polar ice caps made of frozen carbon
  dioxide

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Outer Planets

• Called Jovian Planets
• Much Larger than the Inner Planets
• Have no real surface

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Outer Planets

• Jupiter
• largest planet in the solar system
• It has a mass 2.5 times greater than that of all
  the other planets combined
• Great Red Spot a storm raging in the clouds of
  hydrogen and helium that form the planets outer
  layers ,as large as three Earths
• the shortest day (10 hours)

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Outer Planets

• Saturn
• elaborate system of rings (from ice particles)
• composed mainly of hydrogen and some helium

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Outer Planets

• Uranus
• fourth most massive planet
• Similar composition to Jupiter and Saturn,
  including a ring system
• blue colour from the methane gas in its
  atmosphere
• unusual rotation in that it is flipped on its side

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Outer Planets

• Neptune
• outermost planet
• third most massive
• composition is similar to that of Uranus, and it
  has the same dark blue colour
• Has a ring system
• Some times has a large, blue, Earth-size patch on
  Neptunes surface likely a storm in the clouds

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Terrestrial and Gas planets
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Questions

• Page 411 2,9,11