Outer Planets

read pages 82-89



Jupiter:

Largest of all Planets ( 5th planet from Sun)

1.  Like our Sun, its made up mostly of helium and hydrogen gases, with an outer atmosphere above the planet's air---made of ammonia, methane and some water.

****Jupiter is mostly an atmosphere of hydrogen. But as "one" gets closer to the actually surface of Jupiter ----its turns into a giant ocean of liquid hydrogen.

2. As you first get closer to the actual surface of Jupiter, it slowly will become

more liquid like in gases of hydrogen and helium clouds.

​  This creates a lot of activity and similar to the explosions on the Sun of hydrogen and helium gases.
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3.  The Great Red Spot = a giant, never ending storm system in the interior of Jupiter s atmosphere. 

Above this planet is this enormous storm of extreme wind speeds and 3 times as large as the entire planet Earth!

4.  Jupiter 's Moons ----like Saturn, Jupiter does have a set of rings orbiting the planets and it also has a series of many, many moons. 

The four most famous are shown below and each has some interesting characteristics.
the surface of Callisto taken from a NASA space probe
Artistic image of what Ganymede moon might look like
 Above is the  amazing moon of Jupiter called---Io

It is the closest moon to Jupiter

​​1.  Has volcanoes and is constantly being pulled into Jupiter's gravity and so far is able to battle this "tug of war".

Some day it might loose the fight and disappear as its pulled into Jupiter and blows up !
p


The moon of Jupiter called ---Europa

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Uranus and Neptune:  p.85-86



Above are two pictures of Uranus.
Below are pictures of Neptune.

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1.  Uranus and Nepturne are blue     planets.

2. Uranus was seen by a telescope in 1781 and Neptune in 1846

3.  There sizes are about the same and they both have an atmosphere of hydrogen and methane and release a gases color of blue.

4.  Uranus is unique with it axis.

  Instead of being tilted at an angle/ Uranus is tipped / or is sideways.

  *** this causes its poles to be completely full of sunlight or 100 percent dark


5.  Neptune has its own form of rings or cloud bands.  It also has its own Great Dark Spot or Blue Spot.

Neptune is said to be the windy planet.

 Its full of storms like Jupiter and Saturn.  ( 1000 of miles/ hr.) 

Even has giant clouds of methane that appear to be frozen.

  ***it has warm gases and cool gases mixing and then high winds/ storms occur in its atmosphere.

6.  Both Neptune and Uranus have many "moons" that orbit them.

***  Neptune has 13 moons
      Uranus has at least 5 moons

7.  Both of them have a ring system similar to what Saturn has.
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 Comets, Asteroids, Meteors :

read pages----90-93
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1.  Beyond the orbit of Neptune are several interesting objects that are very far from the Sun.

But orbit the Sun due to the force of gravity of the Sun.


2.  Meteors = the falling star we see at night. 

  A meteoroid is the meteor when it is deep in space and not being pulled into the Earth's atmosphere.

A meteorite is when the meteor will hit the Earth's surface.

***Meteor shower = these small -pebble size rocks sometimes are in a group or large dust - cloud of meteor rocks. 

***Where do they come from?

maybe comets ?




3.  Asteroids = they all orbit around our Sun, or irregular shapes an sizes. 

They exist in a "belt" or region between Mars and Jupiter.

***belief is that they are "left-over" materials from when the planets were created in the past.





4.  Comets = famous for its elongated orbits and its very bring large tails that burn as they travel around the Sun.

  The belief is that they come from an area outside of all our planets, called the Oort Cloud.


Think of an Oort Cloud as a "nest or giant egg."

And it will create new life that we called comets.

Or that God in the miracles of
ways in (science explanation)--

**made these comets in this area of space.

This is far out in space beyond our Solar System .

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Review of common  questions:

 ( study for upcoming tests ) 

 1. Astronomical unit is the distance of the Earth to the Sun ( 93 million miles).  **

Light travels this distance in 8.3 minutes or the speed of light**  ( this is knows at the A.U.)

***so if the Sun blew up we would not see that until about 8 minutes later !!!

2. Uranus was discovered in the 18th century by the telescope.

3. The telescope was invented in the 17th century and was improve in the next 300 years to allow us to see all of our solar system, such as all the planets, "moons", and other bodies. ( pages 10-13 )

4.  The outer planets include our largest planets; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. 

They also have large, gaseous
atmospheres, with many "moons" that orbit these big planets.

***But it would basically be impossible to land a spacecraft on any of these outer - planets.

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5.  The smaller, inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. 

They are closer to the Sun and have less gaseous but more terrestrial (land mass) for each planet. 

They have few "moons" of their own and more rocky surfaces on each planet.

6.  Venus = 6 light minutes from the Sun.  ( light travels 18,000,000 km in one minute) 

  Our Earth is 8.3 light minutes away or what is called one A.U. units.

*the math problem to find the AU for Venus = 6/8.3 = 0.7 AU

*extra math issue is the distance or km for Venus: 


 take 6 x 18 000,000 = 108, 000,000 km or over 50 million mi.
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More- about our entire Solar System--

with focus on the Inner Planets:

(study for your first quiz)

1.  A terrestrial planet is any of the inner planets; Mercury, Venus,Earth or Mars.
All of them have very rocky surfaces, with mountains, canyons, craters, and much smaller than all the outer planets.  They have very few "moons" to orbit them.

2.  Prograde and retrograde rotation is about the direction of the rotation spin.

Prograde is the most common direction of orbit and is counter-clockwise. 

Retro-grade rotation is clockwise direction.  This affects where the Sun appears at sunrise and sunset.  A retrograde (Venus) have sunrise in the eastern sky.

3.  Scientists  believe that the waterd on Mars now exists as polar icecaps.

4.  Three similarities of Venus to Earth are its size, both have volcanoes, and both
deal with gravity at about the same rate of force.

***the differences are that Venus is full of carbon-dioxide at a very high level, Venus also has intense heat of over 464 degree C. and Venus its Sun rises in the West.

5.  Rotation is the spinning of a planet on its axis.  Its 24 hours for our Earth to spin once.  Revolution is a planets orbit around the Sun. For Earth it take 365+days.

6.  Earth is suitable for life due to our gases of oxygen and carbon-dioxide, and its large supply of water /  67% of Earth's area. 

With animal-life and plant life working in this important cycle, we have abundant forms of life.

   Our temperatures and fertile soils give Earth a variety of environments that allow many kinds of life to exists.

  With the distance of the Sun at 93 million miles away, we are safe yet heated and have weather on Earth.

7.  Venus is close to the Sun, but its mostly having a very hot surface due to its high concentrations of carbon-dioxide cloud cover.  It allows heat in but traps the air.

8.  Mercury takes 58.8 Earth days to rotate just once. ( its day= 58.8 E days)
But it also takes 88 Earth days to revolve around the Sun (one year = 88 E days)

***so on Mercury--during one Mercury year ( 88 days) it will revolve
and during that 88 day cycle it would have rotated once after 58.8 days.

  So that means it keeps spinning for 29 more days or almost half way completed.
 
***your estimate answer = 1.5 rotations in one Mercury year ***  or 88 / 58.8
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Outer Planets review studies: 
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1.  A gas giant are all the large planets; Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus.

  They all have high levels of powerful and deadly gases; like methane, ammonia, hydrogen and helium.  They are fall from the Sun but amazing planets.

2.The many colors of Jupiter's atmosphere are probably caused by the organic compounds in its atmosphere.

3.  Some scientists claim that Saturn is still forming. 

The reason is due to its atmosphere still sending helium from its atmosphere and sinking into its core.

  It may still be growing more rings around itself and adding perhaps more "moons."

4.  Uranus has a blue-green color due to its mostly of a combination of hydrogen and methane gases.

  These gases will absorb RED-so the main color left to see is BLUE color.

5.  Pluto's moon is called Charon.  Charon does seem to orbit Pluto and is close to the same size as Pluto.

  Pluto is covered by frozen nitrogen but Charon is covered by frozen water.

6.  The Great Red Spot is a large powerful storm in the atmosphere of Jupiter. 

It is larger than Earth and has a constant set of hurricane storms and high winds.

7.  Jupiter is able to release/ radiate more energy from its core than what it receives from the Sun. 

This is due to its large size and that it by itself can produce radiation energy from its explosions of hydrogen and helium gases in its atmosphere.

8.  As mentioned earlier, the gases planets are larger and much farther away from the Sun. 

  These large gas planets are known for having many "moons".

9.  Uranus axis of rotation is based on that it is not tilted as other planets are.  Uranus is "tipped" over on its side at 90 degrees.

  This makes the poles to either be directly pointed at the Sun or 100 percent not pointed or in total darkness.
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10.  Pluto = 5.5 light hours away from the Sun.  ( 60 minutes to an hour) --------also Pluto = 60 x 5.5 or 330 light / minutes:

*so----1 A.U. = 8.3 minutes------330/8.3 = 39.8 AUs for Pluto

11.  Jupiter = 43.3 light minutes from the Sun.


      Neptune = 4.2 light hours ( 60 min for one hour) from Sun
                       take 4.2 x 60 = 252 light minutes for Neptune.

to get the answer --take 252 minus 43.3 = 208.7 light minutes


You do not need to know these math facts, but I m showing you how they determine these large numbers.
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  More review about our unit:


1.  Comets are small bodies of ice,rock and dust that were left over from the planets when formed.

They orbit the Sun and seem to travel within or close to other planets in their orbits.

    Asteroids are mostly from a belt region between Jupiter and Mars.  They range in size from small bodies to large masses.

2.  Meteors are the falling star (streak of light) we see at night.


When the meteor strikes the surface we call it a meteorite.

3.  Meteorites ARE NOT made of rocky-iron matter.

4.  Comets, asteroids and meteors are part of the story of how the Solar System was made. They all carry material of our past.


5.  Comets sometimes have two tails/ one will point towards the Sun and one dust tail will simply follow behind the comet.


6.  If a comet hit the Earth it would change our weather and then affect animal and plant life.

***a really good movie is called Deep Impact and I m sure you can rent it at a local movie rental place.

7.  A meteoroid is a meteor in space and smaller than asteroid

8.  The asteroid belt in between Jupiter and Mars.

9.  THE TORINO SCALE measures the danger level of objects moving towards Earth for a potential impact.

This is really astronomy nerd stuff and you don t have to know this actually : )
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10.  We see more impact craters on the Moon than Earth because our atmosphere will burn up most objects before they hit the Earth.

  The Moon's atmosphere will not burn them up.

Above a meteor shower and the famous Halley's Comet