Midterm 2 Flashcards
How many planets are in our solar system?
8
Where did the leftover material go?
Small solar system bodies, asteroids, comets, Trans-Neptunian objects
-Flew around solar system crashing into planets and moons forming craters
Terrestrial planets
The group of planets that includes the first four planets from the Sun
-the inner 4 planets
Jovian planets
The group of planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
-second 4 planets
Average density
The total mass of a planet divided by its total volume
Albedo
The percentage of sunlight that is reflected from a celestial object
-percentage of sun light reflected by a planet or moon
Astronomical Unit
The average distance from the Sun to the Earth
Which planet has the highest average density?
Earth
- Terrestrial planets are much more dense than the Jovian
- Mercury has smallest diameter
Solar Nebula
The rotating disk of gas and dust out of which the solar system was formed
Formation of the Solar System
Began with Solar nebula (cloud of gas and dust) which began to contract
- very cold, 100 A.U., rotation
- Nebula contracts and rotates forming a flat rapidly rotating disk - the central concentration becomes the protosun
- protosun became very hot, ice was vaporized and light elements pushed to outer part of disk - heavier elements left in the inner solar system
- little dust grains, pebbles, and other materials began to bump into each other and stick together
- over a few million years these formed objects about 100 km in diameter called planetesimals
Planetesimals
During the formation of the solar system these objects were the first to form from sticking together (100 km in diameter)
T/F - In order for the formation to begin the solar nebula had to be very hot
FALSE
-think about boiling water. It expands. we need contraction for formation to begin
Where is there evidence of disks that might form solar systems around stars
In the Orion Nebula
T/F - We have found at least 5 solar systems that look exactly like our solar system
FALSE
Protoplanets
Formed as the planetisimals collided after 50 million years
- began with 100 planetisimals orbiting the sun
- after 30 million years, 100 turned into 22 planetisimals
- after 441 million years, four planets remain
Protoplanets cleaned up the material in their orbits to become PLANETS after 100 million years
formation of planets
First the terrestrial planets formed by collisions and accretion of planetisimals
- the Jovian planets formed by gas accretion
- last, the Jovian planets likely have moved a bit from where they were formed
Finding planets
- Radial velocity shifts
- brightness changes from a planet crossing in front of the parent star (transiting planet)
- microlensing
- direct imaging
Kepler satellite currently finds extrasolar planets using transiting planet method 2
Radial Velocity shifts
(Doppler effect)
- planet causes the star to shift just a little bit, but that shifts the spectral lines
- moving toward the earth causes a “blue shift” and away is “red shift”
Planetary transits
- When a planet transits (moves in front of) a star, it blacks out part of the star’s visible light (amount of dimming tells us the planets diameter)
- when planet transits the star, some light from the star passes through the planet’s atmosphere on its way to us (reveals composition of stars atmosphere)
- when planet moves behind the star, the infrared glow from the planet’s surface is blocked from our view (amount of infrared dimming tells us planet’s surface temp.)
Used in Kepler mission
New planets outside our solar system
-Kepler 7b, Kepler 5b, Kepler 8b, Kepler 6b, Jupiter, Kepler 4b. earth
-mostly very warm, 2000 F and above
Microlensing
One method for finding planets outside our solar system is microlensing, which occurs when a star passes in front of another star. The gravitational field of the passing star causes a gravitational lens to form which brightens the background star’s light. If a planet is orbiting the front star, it will also gravitationally lens the background star, just at a smaller magnitude. This amount of light given off from the background star indicates the presence of an extra-solar planet.
Direct imaging of Extra-solar planets
With modern detectors there have been a couple cases where planets have been directly imaged by blocking the light of the star
What makes the Earth Unique?
Only place with life so far
- the atmosphere (77% Nitrogen, then oxygen, almost zero CO2 - protection from UV radiation, 1 Atm of pressure) (Venus 96% CO2, Almost zero oxygen and 4% nitrogen - 98 Atm of pressure)
- magnetic field
- plate tectonics
- oceans of liquid water (maybe not unique any more)
Earth atmosphere
- Sunlight arrives at the earth
- 39% of sunlight is reflected by clouds and the surface
- Sunlight that is not reflected is absorbed by surface, heating it.
- heated surface emits infrared radiation
- Some infrared radiation is trapped by atmosphere, heating both atmosphere and surface
- Remaining infrared radiation “leaks” into space
Earth’s magnetic field
Iron core, fast rotation, dynamo effect
- helps protect us from charged particles in solar wind
- van allen radiation belts
- Aurora Borealis