The Solar System

Chapter 6

COPY DOWN THE LEARNING GOALS ON PG. 144 1-6 SKIP 5

LINES BETWEEN EACH!

Before the 17th century, philosophers were aware of the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Comets and Meteors.

EARLY UNDERSTANDING

EXPANSION OF AWARENESS

17th century –Galileo described of the phases of Venus and four moons of Jupiter

1659 – Saturn’s rings discovered1781 – Uranus discovered1801 – Ceres discovered in asteroid belt1846 – Neptune discovered

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

• Distance from Sun to Kuiper Belt (beyond Neptune) is 50 astronomical units

• Order of solar system = Sun – Mercury – Venus – Earth – Mars – Asteroid Belt – Jupiter – Saturn – Uranus – Neptune – Kuiper Belt

PLANETARY ORBITS

• The orbits of all the planets are in the same plane except for Mercury

PLANETARY ALIGNMENT

Occurred in April 2002 when Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus and Mercury were visible in the sky at the same time.

TERRESTRIAL PLANETS

• Inner planets – close to Sun• Closely spaced orbits• Small mass• Small radii• Mostly rock• Solid surface

TERRESTRIAL PLANETS

• High density• Slower rotation• Weak magnetic field• Few moons• No rings• Mercury, Venus,

Earth & Mars

JOVIAN PLANETS

• Outer planets – far from Sun• Widely spaced orbits• Large mass• Large radii• Mostly gas (outer layer H & He)• No solid surface

JOVIAN PLANETS

• Low density• Faster rotation• Strong magnetic field• Many moons• Many rings• Jupiter, Saturn,

Uranus & Neptune

INTERPLANETARY MATTER

• Dust• Asteroids• Meteors• Comets• Dwarf planets

ASTEROID BELT

Kuiper Belt

Oort Cloud

MARS CLIMATE ORBITER • During the Mars Polar Lander's 3-month surface mission, the

Orbiter provides command and data relay support, and also performs a limited amount of orbital science. Upon completing this Lander support phase in February 2000, the Orbiter starts its mapping phase, during which systematic daily global sounding of the atmosphere and imaging of the surface is performed for one Mars year (687 days). The nadir-mounted science payload consists of a Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR) and the Mars Color Imager (MARCI). Once the mapping mission is complete, the Orbiter will be available as a communication relay for future Mars landers for up to 3 additional years. Upon completion of its relay mission, the Orbiter may perform a maneuver or be placed in a low- drag attitude to satisfy orbit lifetime requirements.

MARS CLIMATE ORBITER

MARS CLIMATE ORBITER

• The image shows Mars as a tiny red "half moon" dot. It was taken on Tuesday, September 7, by the spacecraft's color camera, one of two science instruments onboard.

MARS CLIMATE ORBITER TEAM FINDS LIKELY CAUSE OF LOSSSept. 30, 1999

A failure to recognize and correct an error in a transfer of information between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado and the mission navigation team in California led to the loss of the spacecraft last week, preliminary findings by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory internal peer review indicate. "People sometimes make errors," said Dr. Edward Weiler, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science. "The problem here was not the error, it was the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft." The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation. This information was critical to the maneuvers required to place the spacecraft in the proper Mars orbit.

THE PRICE TAG

• Project Cost $327.6 million total for both orbiter and lander (not including Deep Space 2). $193.1 million for spacecraft development, $91.7 million for launch, and $42.8 million for mission operations

NEBULAR THEORY

NEBULAR & CONDENSATION

THEORY