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The Solar System: Figure Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Solar System consists of the Sun and objects that orbit it, including 8 planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt objects. The inner planets are small and rocky, while the outer planets are large gas giants. The formation of the Solar System is explained by the nebular hypothesis where a cloud of gas and dust collapsed to form a disk and then a star and orbiting bodies over billions of years.

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69 views

The Solar System: Figure Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Solar System consists of the Sun and objects that orbit it, including 8 planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt objects. The inner planets are small and rocky, while the outer planets are large gas giants. The formation of the Solar System is explained by the nebular hypothesis where a cloud of gas and dust collapsed to form a disk and then a star and orbiting bodies over billions of years.

Uploaded by

Protik
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Solar System

Figure Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech


The Sun

Luminosity 3.9 x 1026 W

Mass 1.99 x 1030 Kg

Radius 6.96 x 108 m

Temperature 5800 K

Distance 1.50 x 1011 m (1 AU)

AU = Astronomical unit
Sun and the planets
Mass distribution
99.85 % Sun
0.135 % Planets
0.015 % Comets, Kulper Belt Objects, Planetary
Satellites, Minor Planets, Meteorids,
Interplanetary Medium

Major portion of angular momentum in planets


The Eight Planets
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

Pluto?

•Elliptical orbits with Sun at one focus

•Orbits nearly circular – Mercury maximum eccentricity

•Orbits nearly coplanar – Mercury inclined at 7 degrees

•Other than Mercury and Venus, all are known to have


Planetary satellites
Orbit Parameters (J2000)
Planet Semi-major Eccentricity e Inclination
axis (au)
Mercury 0.38709927 0.20563593 7.00497902
Venus 0.72333566 0.00677672 3.39467605
EM Binary 1.00000261 0.01671123 -0.00001531
Mars 1.52371034 0.09339410 1.84969142
Jupiter 5.20288700 0.04838624 1.30439695
Saturn 9.53667594 0.05386179 2.48599187
Uranus 19.18916464 0.04725744 0.77263783
Neptune 30.06992276 0.00859048 1.77004347
Physical Parameters
Planet Mean Radius Mass (x 1024
(km) kg)

Mercury 2439.7  0.330104


Venus  6051.8 4.86732
Earth 6371.00 5.97219
Mars 3389.50 0.641693
Jupiter   69911 1898.13
Saturn 58232 568.319
Uranus    25362 86.8103
Neptune 24622 102.410
Physical Parameters
Planet Sidereal Sidereal
Orbit Period (y) Rotation Period
(d)
Mercury 0.2408467 58.6462

Venus  0.61519726   -243.018


Earth 1.0000174 0.99726968
Mars 1.8808476 1.02595676
Jupiter   11.862615 0.41354
Saturn 29.447498 0.44401
Uranus    84.016846 -0.71833
Neptune 164.79132 0.6713
Inner Planets
10 January 2010
Revolve conter-clockwise
Looking down at Earth’s N-pole

Terrestrial Planets composed of


rock and metals
relatively high densities
slow rotation
solid surfaces
no rings and few satellites
Solar System Live
Small Mass http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
Portion of orbit in blue is above the plane of the ecliptic;
in green is below the plane of the ecliptic.
Orbits to scale not planet sizes
Outer Planets
Four Giant Planets - low densities,
rapid rotation,
rings and lots of satellites,
strong magnetic filed

Jupiter and Saturn


largest and second largest
Mainly Hydrogen and Helium
Gas Giants

Neptune and Uranus


Mainly ice (fluid)– water,
rocks – silicate and metal condensates
ammonia and methane
Ice Giants
Rotation
Venus and Uranus
Retrograde rotation

Rest Direct Rotation

Courtesy: http://cseligman.com/text/sky/rotationvsday.htm

Angle relative to orbital axis


Origin of the Solar System
Coplanar orbits – ecliptic plane

Rotation axis of nearly all planets and Sun normal to ecliptic

Alignment of angular momentum suggests that the


Solar System formed by the fragmentation of a spinning
disk made of gas and dust

4.5 billion years ago


Nebular Hypothesis
Cloud (nebula) of gas and dust collapses under its
own gravity, possibly triggered by an external
disturbance eg. Supernova blast wave

Figure courtesy http://www.nineplanets.org/


by Bill Arnett
Spinning DIsk
Conservation of angular momentum
Nebula forms a disk

Figure courtesy http://www.nineplanets.org/


by Bill Arnett
Protosun and protoplanets

Figure courtesy http://www.nineplanets.org/


by Bill Arnett
Inner Solar System (Revisited)

1 January 2010
Asteroids (Yellow dots), Comets (sunward-pointing wedges).
Vernal Equinox to right along +x axis of right figure
Outer Solar System (Revisited)

Positions of asteroids and comets with semi-major axis (a) greater than 5 AU
(orbital periods greater than ~11 years) on 2010 January 1. The orbits and
positions of Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and comets Halley and
Hale-Bopp are also shown.
Distant Solar System

Objects with semi-major axes (a) greater than 6 AU (orbital periods greater than
~15 years) on 2010 January 1. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eriss, Sedna,
and comets Halley and Hale-Bopp are shown. The brighter color is used for the portion
of the orbit above the ecliptic plane. Trans-Neptunian objects larger than about 700 km
in diameter are shown as white diamonds,
Distant Solar System
Pluto is no longer a planet
• IAU resolution in 2006

(1) A planet is a celestial body that:

a. is in orbit about the sun

b. has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to


overcomeits rigid body forces so that it assumes a
hydrostaticequilibrium (nearly round) shape,

c. has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.


Pluto is a dwarf planet
(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that

a. is in orbit about the sun

b. has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome


its rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic
equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and

c. has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit,


and

d. is not a satellite

(3) All other objects, except satellites, orbiting the sun


shall be referred to collectively as Small Solar-System
Bodies.
Dwarf Planets
Pluto is a “dwarf planet” by the above definition and isrecognized
as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.

Designated Dwarf Planets


1 Ceres, 134340 Pluto, and 136199 Eris
Asteroids
•Small rocky bodies

•Those observed range in diameter from 948 km


(1Ceres) to a few meters.

•Primarily in orbit between Jupiter and Mars (i.e.


main-belt).

•Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are a subset


of asteroids whose orbits approach and/or cross the
Earth's orbit.
Asteroids
•Includes Trojans - bodies captured in Jupiter's
4th and 5th Lagrange points
•Centaurs - bodies in orbit between Jupiter and
Neptune
•Trans-Neptunian objects - orbiting beyond
Neptune
•Minor Planets
Lagrange Points
Two masses in
nearly circular orbit

Test particle has


equilibriun points

L1, L2, L3 Unstable

L4, L5 stable
Comets
• Small icy bodies (water and dust)
• Few km (~1 km) in extent
• Formed in Outer Solar System – Cold
• Orbits are disturbed by massive planets
• Approach the Sun (few AU or less)
• Vapourised
• Atmosphere – upto few hundred
thousands of km
Comets
• Reflected light
• Atmosphere glows – fluorescence
• Tail pointing away from Sun
• Gas – pushed by Solar wind
• Dust – radiation pressure
Comet Halley

76 year period – small


changes

e 0.967142908462304
a 17.8341442925537 AU
Comet Halley
Hale Bopp
Hale-Bopp

1997

Time period
2520 yr
Comets
• Short period < 200 yrs (eg. Comet Halley)
• Orbit often in ecliptic
• Period often 5 – 7 yr - frequent passes close to
Sun – vaporized

• Long period > 200 yrs to millions of years


• Example Hale-Bopp
• Orbit generally not in ecliptic
Long Period Comets
• In bound orbits around Sun
• Apohelion around 50,000 AU
• No preferred direction
• Where do these come from?
• not from interstellar space
Oort Cloud

Oort proposed
•A clound of objects at peripheryy of Solar
Susyem
•50,000 AU to 150,000 AU
•Maybe as many as a trillion objects
•Come into Solar System due to disturbance from
passing star or Galaxy disk
• long period Comets
SOURCE OF OORT CLOUD?

• Asteroids in orbit between Uranus and


Neptune
• Disturbed by massive planets
• Scattered to Outer parts of Solar System
• form the Oort Cloud
Short Period Comets
Trans-Neptunian Objects
• Several Scientists have proposed
existence of small objects in the Solar
System beyond Neptune’s orbit

• Disturbance from passing planet

• Orbit changed towards interior of Solar


System

• source of Short Period Comets

L
Trans-Neptunian Objects

• Leonard (1930), Edgeworth (1945),


Kuiper (1951)

• Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt or
KuiperBelt

• between 30 to 50 Au from Sun


Edgeworth-Kuiper belt
• First EKBO 1992 (Jewitt and Luu)
• Around 1000 EKBOs known
• ~70,000 predicted larger than 100 km
• Ice – frozen volatides (methane, ammonia
and water)
• Temperature ~50 K
• Pluto, Makemake, Humea dwarf planets
• Pluto largest EKBO
Kuiper Belt possibly not the
source of Short Period Comets

Scattered Disk – beyond 50 AU


Mass of Solar System
Estimated that

Kuiper Belt contains

108 to 1010 objects of size greater than 1 km

Oort cloud contains

1012 to 1014 objects of size greater than 1 km

Total Mass Estimates Vary

Mass in outer parts may excedd planets


Sun and the planets
Mass distribution
99.85 % Sun
0.135 % Planets
0.015 % Comets, Kulper Belt Objects, Planetary
Satellites, Minor Planets, Meteorids,
Interplanetary Medium

Major portion of angular momentum in planets


Much remains to be explored in the
Solar System

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