Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 47 views

    PHYS4652 Planetary Science: Lecture 1: Introduction LEE Man Hoi

    Uploaded by

    Yang Woo Seong
    The document discusses the formation of the solar system, beginning with the collapse of a molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago to form the sun and a protoplanetary disk, and how the planets are believed to have formed from the accretion of planetesimals and smaller bodies within the disk over 10-100 million years, resulting in the current layout of the inner terrestrial and outer gas giant planets orbiting the sun.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    PHYS4652 Planetary Science: Lecture 1: Introduction LEE Man Hoi

    Uploaded by

    Yang Woo Seong
    47 views37 pages
    The document discusses the formation of the solar system, beginning with the collapse of a molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago to form the sun and a protoplanetary disk, and how the planets are believed to have formed from the accretion of planetesimals and smaller bodies within the disk over 10-100 million years, resulting in the current layout of the inner terrestrial and outer gas giant planets orbiting the sun.

    Original Title

    Lecture01

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses the formation of the solar system, beginning with the collapse of a molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago to form the sun and a protoplanetary disk, and how the planets are believed to have formed from the accretion of planetesimals and smaller bodies within the disk over 10-100 million years, resulting in the current layout of the inner terrestrial and outer gas giant planets orbiting the sun.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    47 views37 pages

    PHYS4652 Planetary Science: Lecture 1: Introduction LEE Man Hoi

    Uploaded by

    Yang Woo Seong
    The document discusses the formation of the solar system, beginning with the collapse of a molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago to form the sun and a protoplanetary disk, and how the planets are believed to have formed from the accretion of planetesimals and smaller bodies within the disk over 10-100 million years, resulting in the current layout of the inner terrestrial and outer gas giant planets orbiting the sun.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 37

    PHYS4652 Planetary Science

    Lecture 1: Introduction

    LEE Man Hoi


    Apparent Retrograde Motion of Mars in 2003

    Copernican Revolution
    • Copernicus
    • Tycho (naked-eye observations < 1 arcmin)
    • Kepler
    Galileo

    Phases of Venus

    Discovery of Galilean Moons in 1610


    • Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

    • Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity


    – Precession of Mercury’s orbit

    • Uranus discovered by Herschel in 1781.


    • Neptune discovered in 1846 based on predictions by
    Le Verrier and Adams from perturbations on Uranus
    orbit.
    Solar System Exploration
    • Telescopes on Earth
    • Telescopes orbiting Earth (e.g.,
    Hubble Space Telescope, James
    Webb Space Telescope)
    • Flyby or orbiting spacecrafts
    (e.g., Voyagers, Cassini, Juno)
    Keck Telescopes

    Juno orbiting Jupiter Hubble Space Telescope


    • Landers (e.g., Vikings, Phoenix)
    • Laboratory experiments (e.g., meteorites, Moon
    rocks, Stardust mission)

    Meteorite

    Moon rock collected


    by Apollo 16
    Curiosity Rover on Mars
    Extrasolar Planets
    • Mayor & Queloz (1995) discovered the first extrasolar
    planet orbiting another Sun-like star, 51 Pegasi.
    • More than 4900 confirmed extrasolar planets
    discovered to date.

    HR8799
    Inventory of the Solar System

    Planet sizes to scale, but not the distances between them.


    • 99.86% of mass in the Sun
    – Solar System = Sun + some “debris”
    • But over 98% of angular momentum in orbital
    motions of planets.
    • Our Sun, a star, shines by energy released in
    thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium in its
    core.
    • All other objects in our Solar System too small for
    thermonuclear fusion.
    • Eight planets and many smaller bodies orbiting the
    Sun.
    Giant or Jovian Planets
    • Outer Solar System
    • Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
    Neptune
    • Large
    • Mostly gas or liquid
    • Mass of Jupiter (biggest
    planet) MJ = 318 MEarth =
    0.001 MSun

    Gas giants Ice giants


    Jupiter and Saturn
    Uranus and Neptune
    Terrestrial Planets

    • Inner Solar System


    • Mercury, Venus,
    Earth, Mars
    • Small
    • Iron-nickel core,
    rocky shell
    Earth-Moon System
    Mercury

    Caloris Basin
    Venus

    Visible light image

    Magellan radar topographical map

    Circular flattened domes in Alpha Regio region


    Mars

    Olympus Mons
    MGS/MOLA
    Small Objects Orbiting the Sun
    • Asteroids: rocky and metallic bodies in the inner
    Solar System.
    • Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

    Asteroid Itokawa
    (size ~ 320 m)

    Asteroid Ceres
    (size ~ 950 km)
    • Trans-Neptunian Objects: objects of rock and ice
    found beyond Neptune in the outer solar system
    • Kuiper Belt
    • Pluto a member of the Kuiper belt.
    • Asteroids and Trans-Neptunian objects: debris left
    over from formation of Solar System.

    Charon

    Pluto
    • Comets: objects of rock and ice from the outer solar
    system that come close to the Sun after gravitational
    perturbation from planets and nearby stars.

    Comet Hyakutake
    1996

    Halley’s Comet (Giotto)


    Planetary Satellites
    • All planets except Mercury and Venus have satellites
    (or moons) orbiting them.
    • More than 140 known.
    • Earth has one (our Moon) and Mars has two.
    • Giant planets have large number of satellites (13 to
    62): “mini solar systems”.
    – Regular and Irregular satellites.
    • 7 as big as Mercury.
    • Some are terrestrial-like in terms of composition and
    structure (e.g., our Moon)
    • Others have substantial amount of water ice (e.g.,
    Ganymede and Callisto).
    Io Europa
    Titan

    Enceladus
    Planetary Rings
    Layout of the Solar System
    • All planets orbit the Sun
    – in the same direction
    – in almost the same plane as the Sun’s equator
    – on elliptical orbits that are nearly circular.

    Side view of Solar System showing planetary orbits in almost the same plane
    • Planets very small
    compared to distances
    between them.
    • Astronomical Unit (AU)
    = average Earth-Sun
    distance = 1.496 ×
    1011 m
    • Inner terrestrial planet Asteroid Belt

    orbits crowded within


    1.5 AU.
    • Orbital period:
    1 year for Earth
    88 days for Mercury
    1.9 years for Mars.
    • Outer giant planets
    widely spaced
    between 5.2 and 30
    AU.
    • Orbital period:
    12 years for Jupiter
    165 years for
    Neptune.
    • Kuiper Belt and Oort Kuiper Belt

    Cloud
    Solar System Formation
    • Already hypothesized by
    e.g. Kant and Laplace in
    18th century that Solar
    System planets formed in a
    disk, the Solar Nebula.

    HL Tau (ALMA)

    • Confirmed by discovery of
    protoplanetary disks around
    young stars.
    • Lifetime of protoplanetary disk
    ~ 106-107 yr from observations.
    • Our Solar System formed 4.6
    billion years ago.
    • Parts of the interstellar
    medium of gas and dust
    are cold and dense
    molecular clouds, with
    hydrogen in molecular
    form (H2).

    • Densest parts can


    collapse under their own
    gravity into clumps,
    forming the cores of
    protostars.
    • Material forming the protostar usually has some rotation.
    • As it contracts, it spins faster and part of the material ends
    up in a rotationally supported disk with the pressure-
    supported protostar at the center.
    • Protostar contracts slowly with rising central temperature,
    until the core is hot enough for thermonuclear fusion of
    hydrogen to helium, i.e., it becomes a main sequence
    star.
    Inner Solar System
    • Initial solid material: micron-sized dust particles of
    rocky silicates and metals like iron.
    • Dust particles collided and grew into km-sized bodies
    called planetesimals (~105 years at 1 AU).
    • Planetesimals interacted gravitationally and
    continued to grow by collision.
    • At ~ 1 AU, planetary embryos of ~ lunar mass (about
    1/80 of Earth mass) could be formed in less than 1
    million years.
    • Final assembly of embryos into Earth could take 108
    years (0.1 billion years).
    NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle & R. Hurt (SSC)
    Outer Solar System
    • Temperature cold enough for
    volatiles like water to condense
    into ice particles.
    • Once a solid body of ~10 Earth
    masses was formed, it could
    accrete gas rapidly.
    • Solid cores of gas giants Jupiter
    and Saturn must have formed
    within 10 million years before the
    gas was dispersed.
    • Ice giants Uranus and Neptune can be explained, if their
    solid cores formed near the end of the gas disk lifetime
    and accreted some hydrogen and helium.
    • Is this scenario correct for our Solar System?
    • Does it explain properties of other planetary
    systems?

    You might also like