SPACE EXPLORATION PART 2

Try This!

How did our solar system form?

Solar System Formation Early universe – hot

cloud of mostly hydrogen and helium

Gases clump to form nebula and gravity begins to concentrate mass

Stars are created through nuclear fusion - huge amounts of light and heat!

Solar System Origin (4.56 b.y.a.)ROTATING NEBULA THEORY

Gravitational contraction and rotation of interstellar gas

Planetary disk with central bulge

Gravity causes sun to form Fusion and proto-sun Planets form from debris left

Evidence for Rotating Nebula Theory1. The solar system is all the same

age approx.2. The planets all rotate in the same

direction and on the same planehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt9Bvc8s_d0Hubble video 9 minutes

We Can Also Look and see solar systems forming elsewhere….

Close-up of “Protoplanets" in Orion

What’s in our solar system?

TERRESTRIAL PLANETS•Density (mass/volume) = 4.0 - 5.5 g/cm3

•Earth is 149 597 871 km from the sun = 1 AU (astronomical unit)

The Inner Planets: solid/rocky

The Asteroid Belt

Not all solar material formed planets!

Asteroids orbit between Mars and Jupiter

Source of majority of meteorites that fall to Earth

Most get pulled into Jupiter due to its large gravity

Stony meteorites

95 % of falls They are called meteorites if the hit the Earth’s

surface Most burn up in the atmosphere and are called

meteors or “shooting stars”

Meteoroid, Meteor, Meteorite…

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Meteoroid_meteor_meteorite.gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S6KatI7M3A

•Captured a greater amount of the lighter materials of the initial solar cloud•Density = 0.6 – 1.7 g/cm3

The Gas Giant Planets

Kuiper Belt

Disk of debris at the edge of our Solar System

Pluto is a KB Object (sorry!)

Source of some comets

Pluto?

considered a dwarf planet –not a true planet

Pluto ranges from 30 – 40 AU’s from the SUN

(30 to 40 times farther from the SUN than Earth is!)

It has 3 moons

Frozen and rocky

Comets… frozen snowballs

Dust tail – white, “smoke,” reflects sun. 600,000 to 6 million miles long tail – Solar UV breaks down CO gas, making them glow blue for of millions of miles

The planets don’t ever all line up like this, but it shows their order and relative size

Earth is 1/1,000,000 the volume of the Sun

Try This!Planetary Preview – Complete the tableName of Planet

What I know What I wonder

What I learned

Jigsaw “The Universe and Its Stars”A. The origin of the universeB. Measuring distances in spaceC. The Birth of Stars, including our SunD. Stars: Old Age, Death and New LifeE. Galaxies and our Home: The Milky

WayF. Dark Energy and the Expansion of

the Universe