Our local neighbourhood - The Solar System

Dr Nicola Loaring SALT/SAAO nsl@saao.ac.za

Concept: The Scale of our Solar System

If the Sun were a grapefruit (10cm)

Earth, grain of sand

1mm,

15 m away

Jupiter, marble 1.5cm, 80 m away Pluto, tiny grain of sand 0.2mm, 700 m away

And the NEXT CLOSEST sun (or star) would be in ... Nairobi !

DEMO

Concept: Two types of Planet

Terrestrial planets:

Rocky with molten cores

Jovian planets:

Mainly gas and liquid with rocky cores

Rocky Planets

The rocky worlds are the 4 inner planets plus our Moon

They have a solid rock surface with an iron core and a weak or no

Gas Giants
There are 4 gas giant planets in our solar system.

These planets have NO solid surfaces just gas and clouds that get denser as you move to their centre.

Relative distribution of the two types of Planets

Gas giant worlds are far from the Sun

Wikipedia

Rocky worlds are close to the Sun

Relative sizes
Gas giant worlds are much larger than rocky worlds
Jupiter largest gas giant world

Earth largest rocky world

NASA/JPL

Activity opportunity: Powers of 10

Body Radius Surface Area Volume

Earth
Jupiter Sun 10x

1
[101]

1
100x [102]

1
1000x [103] 1,000,000 x

100x

10,000x

Relative numbers of rings and moons

www.hubblesite.org

Gas Giant worlds have rings and many moons.

(From left to right: Enceladus and shadow, Dione and shadow. Titan and Mimas are off the limb to the right).

Rocky worlds have no rings and no, or few, moons.

Why are there two types of planet?

Solar System Formation

All orbits are in the same direction and in the same plane.

Suggests a common origin.

Solar system formed when a cloud of gas and dust in space was disturbed. Gas and dust drawn together, forming a solar nebula.

The cloud began to spin as it collapsed and therefore flattened.

As the disk got thinner particles formed clumps, planetisimals eventually forming planets or moons. As the cloud continued to fall in, the centre eventually got so hot that it became a star, the Sun. Solar wind then blew away excess material.

Why are there 2 types of planet?

Inner parts of disk are hotter than outer parts. Only materials that solidify at high temperatures can condense to form solid particles. Rock can be solid at much higher temperatures than ice.

Inside the frost line: Too hot for hydrogen compounds to form ices. Outside the frost line: Cold enough for ices to form.

DEMO Density

and Composition

Earth 5.5 g/cm3 composition- iron, rock

Saturn 0.7 g/cm3 composition- some rock, volatiles and lots H & He

Callisto 1.9 g/cm3, Titan 2 g/cm3 composition -rock and ice

Asteroids and Comets

Leftovers from the accretion process Rocky asteroids inside frost line
Icy comets outside frost line

Has the largest temperature extreme in the solar system from 183C to 430C.

The inner rocky PlanetsMercury

Mission Launch Year 1973 Mariner 10

Second densest planet after the Earth, so must have a large iron core.

Messenger

2004 (to orbit 2011)

Has a very thin atmosphere consisting of atoms blasted off its surface from the solar wind. Atmosphere is constantly being replenished.

BepiColombo

2013 (to arrive 2019)

DEMO Heavily cratered surface because

its atmosphere is so thin.

The inner rocky Planets Venus

Recent Missions Galileo Magellan Cassini Launch Year 1989 (flyby 1990) 1989 (in orbit 1990-1994) 1997 (flyby 1998, 1999)

Venus Express
Messenger Planet C

2005 (arrive 2006)

2004 (flyby 2006, 2007) 2010

Venus is a similar size to the Earth. It atmosphere is mainly Carbon dioxide and Nitrogen. Its very hot there due to the Green house effect a whopping 462C.

Our home the Earth

Earth is at a distance of 150 million kilometres from the Sun. Sunlight takes 8 minutes to reach us.
Our atmosphere is composed of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent other constituents. 71% of the Earths surface is covered by water!

Earth is the only planet in the solar system known to harbour life.

Picture taken by Apollo 17 astronauts

Mission

The Moon

Launch Year 1968 - 1972 1998 2003 2007 2008

Apollo manned missions Lunar Prospector SMART-1 SELENE (JAXA) Chandrayaan-1

LRO
LCROSS

Heavily cratered. Evidence for water.

2009
2009

The inner rocky Planets Mars

Mars is 1/10th the mass of Earth Average temp is 63C Rock are made of silicates (like sand) and also a dash of iron oxides to give it that reddish colour (Mars is rusty!) Surface is dry now, but scientists believe there were once rivers, lake and maybe oceans of water

Water exists in permafrost a few metres below the surface (Mars Express / Mars Odyssey). Maybe even liquid water down there! (MGS). No landers have detected water in soil, but have found evidence of past water.

Recent Missions Viking 1

Mars

Launch Year 1975 (landed 1976) 1975 (landed 1976)

Mars has the Viking 2 highest (extinct) Mars Global Surveyor volcano in the Mars Pathfinder Solar System: Mars Express Olympus Mons at Spirit / Opportunity 24 km high 2.7 Phoenix times Everest!

1996 (arrived 1997)

1996 (arrived 1997) 2003 (still active) 2003 (still active) 2007 (till 2008) 2016? 2020?

ExoMars

Mars Sample Return Mission

The gas giants -Jupiter

Mission Largest planet in the solar system its diameter is 11x the Earths diameter.
Jupiter takes about 12 years to orbit the sun and rotates in about 10 hours.Pioneer 11 Jupiter is a ball of dense hydrogen, helium, water, nitrogen and other gases over a rocky core. ~90% H, ~10% He.

Launch

1974 (arrived 1979)

Voyager 1

1977 (arrived 1980)

Above core is the main bulk of the planet which is liquid metallic hydrogen. (Huge pressure). Ionized protons and electrons in liquid form. Powerful winds, jet streams, lightning and huge hurricane-like storms like the Great Red Spot. This storm has been raging for over 300 years Galileo and is twice the size of Earth!

Voyager 2

1977 (arrived 1981)

1989 (arrived 1990, still operational)

Cassini and Saturn

Mission
95 times the Earths mass.
Saturn, famous for its rings. These are made up of trillions of icy 1973 (flyby 1979) particles. 1015 tons of material in the rings, enough for a small moon! No more than 50 million years old (MUCH younger than the planet) continually replenished

Launch Date

Pioneer 11

Voyager 1

1977 (encounter 1980)

2 outer portion of the C ring 1977 This image shows, from leftVoyager to right, the and (encounter 1981) inner portion of the B ring. The B ring begins a little more than halfway across the image. The general pattern is from "dirty" particles indicated by red to cleaner ice particles shown in turquoise in the outer parts of the rings. 1997 (orbiting 2004, Titan descent

Cassini-Huygens

2005 - orbiter still operational)

Titan

Titan's surface in 2004-2005!

Liquid ethane/methane on surface Lots of hydrocarbons

Uranus

Primarily composed of rock and ices with only 15% H (much less than Jupiter and Saturn). Mission No rocky core like Jupiter and Saturn, but material is more evenly distributed. Voyager 2 Launch Date

1977 (encounter 1985-1986)

No liquid metallic hydrogen envelope.

Atmosphere of 83% H, 15% He, 2% methane.

Composed of ices and rock with about 15% H and a little He

Neptune

Atmosphere mainly H and He with a little methane which gives it its blue colour as methane absorbs Mission red light

Launch Date

Small solid core, the size of the Earth Voyager 2

1977 (flyby 1989)

No distinct layers like Uranus (unlike Saturn and Jupiter)

Neptune has the fastest winds in the solar system reaching 2000

What Counts as a Planet?

The IAU definition of a planet (2006):

is in orbit around the Sun, Mission

Launch

has sufficient mass so that it is nearly round

has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.
New Horizons 2006 (to arrive 2015)

Dwarf Planets

The IAU currently recognises five dwarf planetsCeres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.

Ceres is in the asteroid belt others in the Kuiper belt.

Many Kuiper Belt objects, exist in what is believed to be a vast shell of icy and rocky objects that live at the very edge of our solar system.