My little science lesson

Sarah ELgohary                         10/28/13

Professor Wayne Ramsey             MDS 101 Home work lab manual lab  Unit two conclusion three page 69  due Monday 

Observation of mineral and rocks 

Dear Abby 

How much do you know about the properties of the solar system?    There are five main goals of this `lab activity five that you should be able to do when you are finished with this exercise. The first goal is to learn and describe the nature

 Solar system   and planets The Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our Sun. In addition to planets, the Solar System also consists of moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, and dust and gas. Everything in the Solar System orbits or revolves around the Sun. The Sun contains around 98% of all the material in the Solar System. The larger an object is, the more gravity it has. Because the Sun is so large, its powerful gravity attracts all the other objects in the Solar System towards it. At the same time, these objects, which are moving very rapidly, try to fly away from the Sun, outward into the emptiness of outer space. The result of the planets trying to fly away, at the same time that the Sun is trying to pull them inward is that they become trapped half-way in between. Balanced between flying towards the Sun, and escaping into space, they spend eternity orbiting around their parent star.

How Did the Solar System form?

This is an important question, and one that is difficult for scientists to understand. After all, the creation of our Solar System took place billions of years before there were any people around to witness it. Our own evolution is tied closely to the evolution of the Solar System. Thus, without understanding from where the Solar System came from, it is difficult to comprehend how mankind came to be.

Scientists believe that the Solar System evolved from a giant cloud of dust and gas. They believe that this dust and gas began to collapse under the weight of its own gravity. As it did so, the matter contained within this could begin moving in a giant circle, much like the water in a drain moves around the center of the drain in a circle. At the center of this spinning cloud, a small star began to form. This star grew larger and larger as it collected more and more of the dust and gas that collapsed into it.

Further away from the center of this mass where the star was forming, there were smaller clumps of dust and gas that were also collapsing. The star in the center eventually ignited forming our Sun, while the smaller clumps became the planets, minor planets, moons, comets, and asteroids.

A Great Storm

Once ignited, the Sun's powerful solar winds began to blow. These winds, which are made up of atomic particles being blown outward from the Sun, slowly pushed the remaining gas and dust out of the Solar System. With no more gas or dust, the planets, minor planets, moons, comets, and asteroids stopped growing. You may have noticed that the four inner planets are much smaller than the four outer planets. Why is that?

Because the inner planets are much closer to the Sun, they are located where the solar winds are stronger. As a result, the dust and gas from the inner Solar System was blown away much more quickly than it was from the outer Solar System. This gave the planets of the inner Solar System less time to grow.

Another important difference is that the outer planets are largely made of gas and water, while the inner planets are made up almost entirely of rock and dust. This is also a result of the solar winds. As the outer planets grew larger, their gravity had time to accumulate massive amounts of gas, water, a

IF you insist on including Pluto, then that ninth world would come after Neptune on the list; Pluto is truly way out there, and on a wildly tilted, elliptical orbit (two of the several reasons it got demoted). Interestingly, Pluto used to be the eighth planet, actually. Terrestrial planets

The inner four worlds are called “terrestrial planets,” because, like Earth, mars Venus MERCURY   their surfaces are all rocky. Pluto, too, has a solid surface (and a very frozen one) but has never been grouped with the four terrestrials.

The four large outer worlds — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — are known as the “Jovian planets” (meaning “Jupiter-like”) because they are all huge compared to the terrestrial planets, and because they are gaseous in nature rather than having rocky surfaces (though some or all of them may have solid cores, astronomers say). These worlds are also frequently called the gas giants, but that’s not a great way to describe them, some astronomers say, because Uranus and Neptune are more ice than gas. All four contain mostly hydrogen and helium.

Dwarf planets

The new IAU definition of a full-fledged planet goes like this: A body that circles the sun without being some other object's satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo nuclear fusion, like a star) and has "cleared its neighborhood" of most other orbiting bodies. Yeah, that’s a mouthful.

The problem for Pluto, besides its small size and offbeat orbit, is that it shares its space with lots of other objects in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune. Still, the demotion of Pluto remains controversial.

The new IAU planet definition puts other small, round worlds in the dwarf planet category, including the Kuiper Belt objects Eris, Hume, Make make.

Also now a dwarf planet is Ceres, a round object in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres was actually considered a planet when discovered in 1801 and then later deemed to be an asteroid. Some astronomers like to consider Ceres as a 10th planet (not to be confused with Nibiru or Planet X), but that line of thinking opens up the possibility of there being 13 planets, with more bound to be discovered.

The planets

Mercury

The closest planet to the sun, Mercury is only a bit larger than Earth's moon. Its day side is scorched by the sun and can reach 840 degrees F (450 C), but on the night side, temperatures drop to hundreds of degrees below freezing. Mercury has virtually no atmosphere to absorb meteor impacts, so its surface is pockmarked with craters, just like the moon.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Messenger of the Roman gods

Diameter: 3,031 miles (4,878 km)

Orbit: 88 Earth days

Venus

The second (2nd) planet from the sun, Venus is terribly hot. The atmosphere is toxic. The pressure at the surface would crush and kill you. Scientists describe Venus’ situation as a runaway greenhouse effect. Its size and structure are similar to Earth, Venus' thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway "greenhouse effect." Oddly, Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction of most planets.

The Greeks believed Venus was two different objects — one in the morning sky and another in the evening. Because it is often brighter than any other object in the sky — except for the sun and moon — Venus has generated many UFO reports.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman goddess of love and beauty

Diameter: 7,521 miles (12,104 km)

Orbit: 225 Earth days

Day: 241 Earth days

Related:

More Venus Facts

An image of the Earth taken by the Russian weather satellite Elektro-L No.1. 

Credit: NTsOMZView full size image

Earth

The third (3rd) planet from the sun, Earth is a water world, with two-thirds of the planet covered by ocean. It’s the only world known to harbor life. Earth’s atmosphere is rich in life-sustaining nitrogen and oxygen. Earth's surface rotates about its axis at 1,532 feet per second — slightly more than 1,000 mph — at the equator. The planet zips around the sun at more than 18 miles per second.

Diameter: 7,926 miles (12,760 km)

Orbit: 365.24 days

Day: 23 hours, 56 minutes

Mars

The fourth (4th) planet from the sun, is a cold, dusty place. The dust, an iron oxide, gives the planet its reddish cast. Mars shares similarities with Earth: It is rocky, has mountains and valleys, and storm systems ranging from localized tornado-like dust devils to planet-engulfing dust storms. It snows on Mars. And Mars harbors water ice. Scientists think it was once wet and warm, though today it’s cold and desert-like. Mars' atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist on the surface for any length of time. Scientists think ancient Mars would have had the conditions to support life, and there is hope that signs of past life — possibly even present biology — may exist on the Red Planet.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman god of war

Diameter: 4,217 miles (6,787 km)

Orbit: 687 Earth days

Day: Just more than one Earth day (24 hours, 37 minutes)

Related:

Jupiter

The fifth (5th) planet from the sun, Jupiter is huge and is the most massive planet in our solar system. It’s a mostly gaseous world, mostly hydrogen and helium. Its swirling clouds are colorful due to different types of trace gases. A big feature is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm which has raged for hundreds of years. Jupiter has a strong magnetic field, and with dozens of moons, it looks a bit like a miniature solar system.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Ruler of the Roman gods

Diameter: 88,730 miles (428,400 km)

Orbit: 11.9 Earth years

Day: 9.8 Earth hours

Related:

The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas dips onto the planet's rings and straddles the Cassini Division in this naturalcolor image taken as Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox.

Saturn

The sixth (6th) planet from the sun is known most for its rings. When Galileo Galilei first studied Saturn in the early 1600s, he thought it was an object with three parts. Not knowing he was seeing a planet with rings, the stumped astronomer entered a small drawing — a symbol with one large circle and two smaller ones — in his notebook, as a noun in a sentence describing his discovery. More than 40 years later, Christian Huygens proposed that they were rings. The rings are made of ice and rock. Scientists are not yet sure how they formed. The gaseous planet is mostly hydrogen and helium. It has numerous moons.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye

Named for: Roman god of agriculture

Diameter: 74,900 miles (120,500 km)

Orbit: 29.5 Earth years

Day: About 10.5 Earth hours

Related:

Uranus

The seventh (7th) planet from the sun, Uranus is an oddball. It’s the only giant planet whose equator is nearly at right angles to its orbit — it basically orbits on its side. Astronomers think the planet collided with some other planet-sized object long ago, causing the tilt. The tilt causes extreme seasons that last 20+ years, and the sun beats down on one pole or the other for 84 Earth-years. Uranus is about the same size as Neptune. Methane in the atmosphere gives Uranus its blue-green tint. It has numerous moons and faint rings.

Discovery: 1781 by William Herschel (was thought previously to be a star)

Named for: Personification of heaven in ancient myth

Diameter: 31,763 miles (51,120 km)

Orbit: 84 Earth years

Day: 18 Earth hours

Related:

Neptune’s winds travel at more than 1,500 mph, and are the fastest planetary winds in the solar system.

Neptune

The eighth (8th) planet from the sun, Neptune is known for strong winds — sometimes faster than the speed of sound. Neptune is far out and cold. The planet is more than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth. It has a rocky core. Neptune was the first planet to be predicted to exist by using math, before it was detected. Irregularities in the orbit of Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest some other might be exerting a gravitational tug. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find Neptune in a telescope. Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth.

Discovery: 1846

Named for: Roman god of water

Diameter: 30,775 miles (49,530 km)

Orbit: 165 Earth years

Day: 19 Earth hours

Related:

Pluto (Dwarf Planet)

The ninth (9th) planet from the sun … well … Pluto is unlike other planets in many respects. It is smaller than our moon. Its orbit carries inside the orbit of Neptune and the way out beyond that orbit. From 1979 until early 1999, Pluto had actually been the eighth planet from the sun. Then, on Feb. 11, 1999, it crossed Neptune's path and once again became the solar system's most distant planet — until it was demoted to dwarf planet status. Pluto will stay beyond Neptune for 228 years. Pluto’s orbit is tilted to the main plane of the solar system — where the other planets orbit — by 17.1 degrees. It’s a cold, rocky world with only a very ephemeral atmosphere.