Solar System

There are many planetary systems like ours in the universe, with planets orbiting a host star.
Our planetary system is called “the solar system” because we use the word “solar” to describe
things related to our star. Our planetary system is in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way
galaxy. Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity –
the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets
such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.

Ref. [Link]
Mass Distribution Within the Solar System

Ref. [Link]
Planetary motion
The planets revolve around the Sun in orbits that lie close to a common plane.
Most of the planets in the Solar System have secondary systems of their own,
being orbited by natural satellites called moons. Many of the largest natural
satellites are in synchronous rotation, with one face permanently turned toward
their parent. The four giant planets have planetary rings, thin bands of tiny
particles that orbit them in unison. As a result of the formation of the Solar
System, planets and most other objects orbit the Sun in the same direction that the
Sun is rotating. That is, counter-clockwise, as viewed from above Earth's north
pole. Most of the larger moons orbit their planets in a prograde direction,
matching the planetary rotation; Neptune's moon Triton is the largest to orbit in
the opposite, retrograde manner. Most larger objects rotate around their own axes
in the prograde direction relative to their orbit, though the rotation of Venus and
Uranus are retrograde.
Ref. [Link]
Ref. [Link]
The planets revolve around the Sun in orbits that lie close to a common plane.
Kepler's Laws of planetary motion
Ref: Kepler's Laws ([Link])
Orbit Eccentricity

The eccentricity of an ellipse can be defined as the ratio

of the distance between the foci to the major axis of the
ellipse. The eccentricity is zero for a circle. Of the
planetary orbits, only Pluto has a large eccentricity.

Ref: Kepler's Laws ([Link])

Ref: Kepler's Laws ([Link])
Ref: Kepler's Laws ([Link])
Ref: Kepler's Laws ([Link])
Titius–Bode Law
Johann Titius, a German astronomer, discovered a numerical relationship
describing the relative distances of the then-known planets from the sun, and
another German astronomer, Johann Bode, popularized the relationship. It
is often called Bode's law and; occasionally, Titius-Bode law. The semimajor
axes of the orbits of the planets follow the relationship:

Here a is the semimajor axis in astronomical units (AU) and n takes values
minus infinity, 0,1,2,3, etc.
 Most planets have their
rotation axis tilted compared
to their orbit.

Ref. [Link]
Formation of the Solar System

➢ Catastrophic hypotheses
Planets formed from some improbable event such as the
collision of the sun and another star or a star passing the
sun closely, tore material out of the sun.

➢ Evolutionary hypotheses
Planets formed gradually and naturally as the sun formed.

Ref. [Link]
Solar nebula theory
Our solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a dense cloud of
interstellar gas and dust (98% is hydrogen and helium, but it includes atoms and dust
grains of heavier material, formed in previous generations of stars). The cloud
collapsed, possibly due to the shockwave of a nearby exploding star, called a
supernova. When this dust cloud collapsed, it formed a solar nebula – a spinning,
swirling disk of material.

Accretion disk - The matter around the center spins up and flattens into a disk, while
heat vaporizes the dust.

Contraction - At the center, gravity pulls more and more material in, shrinks down to
100 AU, heats up, and compresses in the center. Eventually, the pressure in the core
was so great that hydrogen atoms began to combine and form helium, releasing a
tremendous amount of energy. With that, our Sun was born, which eventually
amassed more than 99% of the available matter.
Matter farther out in the disk was also
clumping together. These clumps smashed
into one another, forming larger and larger
objects. Some grew big enough for their
gravity to shape them into spheres,
becoming planets, dwarf planets, and large
moons. In other cases, planets did not
form: the asteroid belt is made of bits and
pieces of the early solar system that could
never quite come together into a planet.
Other smaller leftover pieces became
asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and small,
irregular moons.

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds

and Dana E. Backman.
Terrestrial planets and the Jovian planets

The distinction between the Terrestrial planets and the Jovian planets
is dramatic. The inner four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars,
are Terrestrial planets, meaning they are small, dense, rocky worlds
with little or no atmosphere. The outer four planets, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, and Neptune, are Jovian planets, meaning they are large, low-
density worlds with thick atmospheres and liquid interiors.
 Mercury

Mercury is the fastest and the smallest planet in our

solar system and nearest to the Sun. Mercury is a
rocky planet, also known as a terrestrial planet.
Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond Mercury has a solid, cratered surface, much like the
by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
Earth's moon.
 Venus

Venus is often called "Earth’s twin"

because they’re similar in size and
structure. In composition, the
atmosphere of Venus is roughly 96
percent carbon dioxide. The rest is
mostly nitrogen, with some argon,
sulfur dioxide, small amounts of
sulfuric acid, and hydrochloric acid.
This unbreathable atmosphere is 90
times denser than Earth’s
atmosphere. Venus is the hottest
planet in the Solar System.

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond

by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
Ref. [Link]
Phases of Venus
Galileo used his telescope to show that Venus went through a complete set of phases, just like the
Moon.

In the Geocentric system, Venus should always be in a crescent phase as viewed from the Earth
because as it moves around its epicycle it can never be far from the direction of the sun (which lies
beyond it), but in the heliocentric system Venus should exhibit a complete set of phases over time
as viewed from the Earth because it is illuminated from the center of its orbit.
 Earth

Ref. [Link]

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
 Interior of the Earth
Core - The center of the Earth is made of a
dense metallic core. It is due to the metallic
nature of the Earth’s core; a magnetic field is
present on the planet. The Earth’s core is
composed of a solid inner core and a liquid
outer core. The strong magnetic field is
generated by convection in the liquid outer core.

Mantle - The major constituent elements of the mantle are

Silicon and Magnesium. The uppermost solid part of the
mantle and the entire crust constitutes the Lithosphere. Ref. [Link]
The asthenosphere is a highly viscous, mechanically weak, of-earth
ductile, deforming region of the upper mantle, which lies
just below the lithosphere. The asthenosphere is the main
source of magma, and it is the layer over which the
continental plates move (plate tectonics).
Crust - It is the outermost solid part of the earth. The thickness of the crust under the
oceanic and continental areas are different. The oceanic crust is thinner (about 5 km)
compared to the continental crust (about 30 km). Major constituent elements of the crust
are Silica and Aluminum.

Ref. [Link]
Four Stages of Planetary Development

Differentiation - the separation of material according to density. Earth has a dense

metallic core, a less-dense rocky mantle, and a low-density crust. That differentiation is
understood to have occurred due to the melting of Earth’s interior caused by heat from a
combination of radioactive decay plus energy released by in-falling matter during the
planet’s formation. Once the interior of Earth melted, the densest materials were able to
sink to the core.

Cratering - The heavy bombardment of the early solar system made craters on Earth.

Flooding - While cratering is still occurring and partly as a result of it, the crust of the
planet fractures, and lava bursts through and flows over the land, smoothing the craters
and filling them.
Slow surface evolution - Earth’s surface is constantly changing as sections of crust slide
over and against each other, push up mountains, and shift continents.
 Continental drift

Continental drift is the hypothesis that the

Earth's continents have moved relative to each
other over geologic time, thus appearing to have
"drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of
continental drift is related to the science of plate
tectonics, which studies the movement of the
continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's
lithosphere.

Ref. [Link]
Magnetic Field of the Earth

Circulating electric currents in the Earth's

molten metallic core are the origin of the
Earth’s magnetic field. The generation of the
magnetic field is linked to the rotation of the
earth, since Venus with a similar iron-core
composition but a 243 Earth-day rotation period
and does not have a measurable magnetic field.
The Earth's magnetic field is tilted 11 degrees
from the spin axis of the Earth. Evidence of
171 magnetic field reversals has been reported
in the past 71 million years.

Ref. [Link]
Magnetic and geometric axis and poles

The axis of rotation of the earth is called the geographic axis and the points, where it
passes through the surface of the earth, are called geographic poles. The geographic
North Pole lies in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The magnetic North Pole is the point
where the lines of force of the Earth’s magnetic field converge. This is the point that
attracts the needle of a compass and is not the same as the geographic pole.

The magnetic North Pole is continually

moving, but in the last few years, it has moved
from the Canadian North towards Siberia. It
has also been moving unusually fast (40
km/year). One sign that the position of the
magnetic poles is becoming inverted is the
reorientation of ferrite crystals in geological
layers.
Earth Atmosphere
The atmosphere can be divided into layers based on its temperature.

Troposphere
This is the lowest part of the atmosphere - the part we
live in. It contains most of our weather - clouds, rain,
and snow. In this part of the atmosphere, the
temperature gets colder as the distance above the earth
increases, by about 6.5°C per kilometer. The
troposphere contains about 75% of all of the air in the
atmosphere and almost all of the water vapor. The
decrease in temperature with height is a result of the
decreasing pressure. If a parcel of air moves upwards,
it expands (because of the lower pressure). When air
expands, it cools. So, air higher up is cooler than air
lower down.
Ref. [Link]
Stratosphere
This contains much of the ozone in the atmosphere. The increase in temperature with
height occurs because of the absorption of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun by this
ozone.

Mesosphere
The region above the stratosphere is called the mesosphere. Here the temperature again
decreases with height, reaching a minimum of about -90°C (coldest place on Earth). This is
the layer where most meteors burn up on entering the atmosphere.

Thermosphere
This region lies above the mesosphere and is a region in which temperatures again increase
with height. This temperature increase is caused by the absorption of energetic ultraviolet
and X-Ray radiation from the sun. The air is really thin in the thermosphere. A small
change in energy can cause a large change in temperature.
Ionosphere
the energetic solar radiation knocks electrons off molecules and atoms, turning them
into "ions" with a positive charge.

Exosphere
The region above about 500 km is called the exosphere. It contains mainly oxygen and
hydrogen atoms, but there are so few of them that they rarely collide - they follow
"ballistic" trajectories under the influence of gravity, and some of them escape right out
into space.

Magnetosphere
The earth behaves like a huge magnet. It traps electrons (negative charge) and protons
(positive), concentrating them in two bands about 3,000 and 16,000 km above the globe -
the Van Allen "radiation" belts. This outer region surrounding the earth, where charged
particles spiral along the magnetic field lines, is called the magnetosphere.
Temperature
variation of the
Earth’s
Atmosphere

Ref. [Link]
 Solar constant
Radiation from the sun sustains life on earth and determines climate. The irradiance of the sun on the outer
atmosphere when the sun and earth are spaced at 1 AU - the mean earth/sun distance is called the solar
constant. Currently, accepted values are about 1360 W m-2. The irradiance falling on the earth's atmosphere
changes by about 6.6% over a year due to the earth/sun distance variation. Solar activity variations cause
irradiance changes of up to 1%.

[Link]
Sun - Earth relations?
 Aurora

NASA image taken by Polar satellite, November 2004

 Aurora
When energetic charged particles
enter the earth's atmosphere from
the solar wind, they tend to be
channeled toward the poles by
the magnetic force which causes them
to spiral around the magnetic field
lines of the earth. They are energetic
enough to ionize air molecules, so a
considerable number of atoms and
molecules are elevated to excited
states. When they make the transition
back to their ground states, they emit
light characteristic of the atoms and
molecules.
 Moon

Ref. [Link]

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
 The impact of
meteorites formed the
craters on the moon.
Most of the craters on
the moon are old; they
formed long ago when
the solar system was
young.

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds

and Dana E. Backman.
 The Origin of Earth’s Moon

The Fission hypothesis proposed that

the moon broke from a rapidly spinning
young Earth.

The condensation hypothesis suggested that Earth and its moon condensed from the same
cloud of matter in the solar Nebula.

Ref. [Link]
 The capture hypothesis suggested that the
moon formed elsewhere in the solar nebula and
was later captured by Earth.

Ref. [Link]

Giant-impact hypothesis – (most widely

accepted today) the Moon formed from the
ejecta of a collision between the proto-Earth and
a Mars-sized planet, approximately 4.5 billion Ref. [Link]
years ago.
The Earth-Moon system

The Earth-Moon system has a shared center of mass. It stays located at 1,700 km (about a
quarter of Earth's radius) beneath the Earth's surface, making the Moon seemingly orbit
the Earth.
The Moon has a 1:1 spin–orbit resonance. This rotation–orbit ratio makes the Moon's
orbital periods around Earth equal to its corresponding rotation periods. This is why only
one side of the Moon, the near side, is visible from Earth.
Tidal effects

The Moon’s gravitational pull causes the

oceans to bulge out on the side closest to
the Moon and the side farthest from the
Moon. These bulges create high tides. The
low points are where low tides occur. these
tides coincide with certain lunar phases
since they occur when the Moon reaches
specific positions in its orbit. Twice a
month, when the Earth, Sun, and Moon line
up, their gravitational power combines to
make exceptionally high tides, called spring
tides. When the Sun is at a right angle to
the Moon, moderate tides, called neap tides,
result. Ref. [Link]
Eclipse
An eclipse occurs when one terrestrial object, such as a moon or planet, moves into the
shadow of another terrestrial body.

Lunar Eclipse

Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon. When this happens, Earth blocks the sunlight
that normally is reflected by the Moon. A lunar eclipse can occur only when the Moon is
full.
[Link] lunar eclipse.
A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon and the Sun are on exact opposite sides of
Earth. Although the Moon is in Earth's shadow, some sunlight reaches the Moon. The
sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere, which filters out most of the blue light. This
makes the Moon appear red to people on Earth.

Ref. [Link]
2. Partial lunar eclipse
A partial lunar eclipse happens when part of the Moon enters Earth's shadow. In a
partial eclipse, Earth's shadow appears very dark on the side of the Moon facing Earth.
What people see from Earth during a partial lunar eclipse depends on how the Sun,
Earth, and Moon align.

Ref. [Link]
Mars
The Martian air contain
95% Carbon dioxide,
3% nitrogen, and 2%
percent argon.

Ref. [Link]
Ref. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
These visual-wavelength
images made by the Viking
orbiters and Mars Global
Surveyor show some of the
features that suggest liquid
water on Mars. Outflow
channels and runoff channels
are old, but some gullies may
be quite recent. (Malin Space
Science Systems and NASA)
Unlike Mercury or Venus, Mars has moons. Small and irregular in shape,
Phobos and Deimos are probably captured asteroids.

Ref. [Link]
 Jovian planets

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest and most massive of
the Jovian planets, containing 71 percent of
all the planetary matter in the entire
solar system. Under very high pressure,
liquid hydrogen becomes liquid metallic
hydrogen — a material that is a very good
conductor of electricity. Model calculations
indicate that most of Jupiter’s interior is
composed of this material.
Ref. [Link]
 The large circular or oval
spots seen in Jupiter’s clouds
are circulating storms that can
remain stable for decades or
even centuries.

Ref. [Link]

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
Jupiter’s Moons

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system.

 Saturn

Ref. [Link]

Ref: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond by Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman.
Saturn’s Moons

Saturn has nearly 50 known moons, many of which are small and all of which contain
mixtures of ice and rock. Many are probably captured objects.

Ref. [Link]
Saturn's rings
Saturn's rings are thought to be pieces of comets, asteroids, or shattered moons that broke up
before they reached the planet, torn apart by Saturn's powerful gravity. They are made of
billions of small chunks of ice and rock coated with other materials such as dust.