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UNIT ONE IN-CLASS NOTES
8/21
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objects in space
movement of objects in space
Astronomy is the scientific study of the universe and everything inside of it & what is contains
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Science is a progress report & is constantly changing and science is an ongoing process
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What we know and how we learn it
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A mnemonic to remember the steps in a simplified version of the scientific method is :
People : problem
On : observations
Hairy : hypothesis
educated possible solution; educated because of the observations
Elephants : experiments
Always : analysis
Cry : conclusions
In 2006, Pluto got demoted and is not a planet anymore
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8/23
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What is a unit?
o The standard sizes we are comparing too that everybody agrees on
Units of length
o 1 meter=5280 feet
o 1 foot=12 inches
Metric units
smallest to largest
o Nanometer
10^-9
o Micrometer
10^6
o Millimeter
10^-3
o Centimeter
10^-1
o 1 meter
m
o 1 kilometer
km
o Megameter
= 1 million km
o Gigameter
=10^9
o Terameter
=10^12
trillions
Solar system = everything that belongs to sol, the sun
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Like the eight planets and 5 dwarfs
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184 moons
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4
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galaxy= stars bound together by gravity orbiting a common center of gas
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We get around 250 billion stars
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called island universes
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There is only one that we know of
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Our universe is
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The big bang is the start of the universe
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Create clusters called filaments and walls around voids
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49 x 10^8 km
o Used to measure things in the solar system
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Scale 10 cm= 1 AU
The speed of light is constant
Distance = speed X time
Units must cancel to do multiplication, so you have to convert
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5 times in a second
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5
Other sciences, you can see it in real time and you can touch the other sciences but in space, we
can’t see the sky as it is today
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8/28
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If a hypothesis always worked multiply times, it becomes a theory
A theory has been tested and it works
model: a description of nature
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9999% empty
Everything is made of atoms & atoms can be taken apart
Atoms
o Protons
o Neutrons
o Electrons
Plasma is an ionized gas
the atoms are charged
The universe started with the Big Bang
The Big Bang happened January 1st
The ancient Greeks and romans thought the earth was the center of the universe
o They thought the sky was a ball and turned around the earth once a day
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It’s the earth that’s spinning
The earth orbits the s
▪ Why do the orbits look like that?
Dwarf planet is that they are not planets
Planets
o Only refers to our solar system
▪ Stars have exo solar planets
o a planet must be orbiting our sun
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The only thing you have to build planet is gases and dust
Small things, rock, metals and ices that had to build the planets

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Uranus and Neptune stopped forming when Jupiter pushed them away
o Those two are small
o Further from the sun and colder
Rock and metals are not common
Terrestrial planets are small because they’re built out of the stuff that is not common, but
very dense
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s
o No atmosphere
o Spins very slowly, period of 59 days
What does it take to hang onto atmospheres?
o Gravitational pull
▪ Depends on mass
▪ The more massive, the harder it is to leave the surface
▪ Need the escape velocity, depends on gravity
▪ Earth is 11
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o Most of the rocks on the earth can be a few hundred million years old
The earth is about 4
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The moon has cooled off
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▪ We start with a cloud of gas and dust
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There is no liquids in space
▪ Cloud bigger than the sun and circular
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And the cloud contracted, the gravitational pull inside
of the cloud got together close and gravity went up
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Conservation of angular momentum is the physics term for something spinning and
getting smaller
The cloud then flattens into a disc
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Chemical constraints
o Jupitar and saturn almost have the same elements of the sun
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Are different densities because they formed where they are warm, the
terr
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Temperature affected everything about the planets
In the center of the nebula, the temp went up
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Planets have solid metals and rocks
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Jupiter, rock metal and ice
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Saturn and Jupiter formed with the ices
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Rocks and metals are not abundant
Jovian planets have rocky and metallic cores but the gas atmospheres take over
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5 billion years old from the meteorites they radioactively date
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The heat from all the collisions, and the dense stuff sank to the core and that’s why the
plants have layers
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Cold slowing solar nebula starts to contract, it’s heating because of the attraction
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Little pieces that form - planetesimals
Planetesimals attract other planetesimals and create larger things
Accretion - the slow accumulation of mass through gravitational attraction
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Orbits of the planetesimals will run into each other
Eventually, the planetesimals create planets and then the orbits do not cross each
other
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Start with small, let it go over time and create larger
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Jovian had to grab onto the gasses and create larger atmospheres
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The planets are looking differently now
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Around the Kuiper belt is the orrt cloud
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The oort cloud is the left over from the formation of the planets
Stars halt planet formation other than random collisions from things
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▪ Object of the same mass, the two objects will orbit in opposite ends and
move
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▪ Looking at the positions of the star
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▪ This method does not work so we want to catch the side view
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• Radial velocity method because doppler measures radial
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Stars can swallow other planets
We’re looking for water on other planets to create life
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The Jovian’s had ices that the terr
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Titan and Ganymede are bigger than planets

Unit Three - Astronomy Notes
10/23/18
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unique - none of them are the same
o The only planet that has one property
Earth
o Only planet with liquid water on the surface
o We have life
o We have oxygen in the atmosphere, the oxygen came from life and planets
o The only one with plate tectonics
Earth’s atmosphere is molecule oxygen and nitrogen
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The earth’s Interior is layered
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Two kinds of waves
o Light -transverse wave, s wave
o P -waves, longitudinal waves
An earthquake will give you both types of waves
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There’s a plastic layer, flowing v slowly but it’s moving, 70% of
the Earth is the mantel, vast majority of the earth
o Iron core - there are two types of cores, outer and inner
▪ Outer core - liquid
▪ Inner core - solid
▪ Why are the cores diff?
• Pressure changes the melting point
Temperature of the earth’s core is 5,000 Celsius
Where is that heat from?
o Collisions and radioactive decay
Heat flows from hot to cool, the earth is gradually cooling off
Ocean crust - rock from the molten state, besalte
Continental crust 71% is covered in water
Continents are acting like mountains
Nickel and sulfur are found in the core
We are still studying in the crust of the earth, we don’t’ want to go to the mantle, it
would be bad
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o Field produced by Moving electric charges - an electric current
Moving electric charge produces an magnetic field
You need to make the liquid metal move and circulate
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Magnetopause is where the solar wind particles are slowed down very slowly
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Inner belt are protons, outer is electrons
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The top layer of our atmosphere is ionized, it’s the ionosphere
3 types of rock, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic
Sedimentary are small pieces
Metamorphic are formed under high temps and pressures
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Diamonds and graphite’s are made from carbon
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You need limestone to squish marble
The rocks we see give us a history about that area
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we do not have any
primitive rocks because rocks get recycled
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We had to find the mid atlantic ridge to show that the ocean floor was spreading,
and that new crust was being formed
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10/25/18
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Earth’s density is higher than your average rock, earth has an iron core
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We use seismic waves as they travel through the earth
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Iron is not the only thing that can produce magnetic fields
Venus and mars do not have magnetic fields
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o Venus is not rotating enough and that’s why there is no magnetic field
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o Have iron cores and common ices form around the iron core
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o Strongest magnetic field
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Aurora happens when the solar wind is tunneled down to hit the Earth’s poles
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Hot spot volcanism
o Plates move over hot spots and that's how we get mountains and islands
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Alfred Wegener introduced PT and then nobody believed him
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o He could not explain why it was happening
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o The seafloor was moving away from each other
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What's the evidence?
o There are fossils on the coast of South America and Africa that are the
same species
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How did it split/?
o First, north south
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o Himalayan mountains are from PT ramming each other and pushing each
other’s up
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Heat moves from hot to cold
3 ways to move heat conduction, convection and radiation
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4 layers in the interior and 4 layers in the atmosphere
o Inner core - solid iron

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Outer core - liquid iron
Mantle -mostly rock, slowly flowing
Crust - solid broken pieces of rock
Troposphere
Stratosphere
Mesosphere
thermosphere/ionosphere

The troposphere 0-12 km
o From the ground to 8 miles above
o Contains water and the weather
The stratosphere 12-50 km
o Where the ozone is
o Absorbs uv light, getting heated at the top
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Mesosphere 50-80 km
o Heated at the bottom, heated by the stratosphere
o The boring layer, nothing happens
Thermosphere/ionosphere 80- space km
o Absorbs x-rays and gamma rays, that's why they don’t hit the surface
o They ionize the top layer because they’re absorbed
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You must go 100 km to be in space, 62 miles up
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Earth has a greenhouse effect
How the atmosphere was made → formation of the atmosphere
o We used to not have an atmosphere, the gases are trapped rocks, early
volcanism, out gasses some gases
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That have atmospheres have
volcanoes and volcanoes bake the gaes out
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Co2 and sulfur d and water
make sedimentary rocks
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Climate - long term average
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greenhouse effect
o Sunlight hits the earth, strikes and heats the surface
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This is called the greenhouse effect, bc this is what happens
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3 days
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We see 59% of the earth
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Orbit’s elliptical so the orbital speed varies
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Common ices - water, methane and ammonia
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The moon is lacking in the volatiles
Volatiles - material that vaporize at low temperatures
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Mercury and the moon do not have atmosphere
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No oxygen, no magnetic field
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o Gus grisom, roger chafy and ed white were the 3 astronauts that killed in
the explosion
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Apollo 9 did not leave earth’s orbit
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Apollo 11 was the first landing
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12 people have walked on the moon
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What causes quakes on the moon?
o Impacks
They put out a seismometer, a mirror (finding out how far the moon), set up
experiments, take pictures and brought back rocks
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The moon is very dry
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Moon’s composition is the same, but the moon does not have iron or water
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The light is anorthosite
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The side we cannot see are almost all highlands
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(the dark part)
Highlands, the craters overlap but the maria’s are more spread out
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Far side is mostly highlands
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Craters on the moon are named after philosophers and scientists
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Only new craters have rays
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Sunlight striking the earth that’s reflecting off the earth to the moon allows us to
see the moon that’s not lit by the sun
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Highlands came first
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The only weather on the moon is cratering, it wears the surface down
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Little to no air pressure on mars, liquids cannot be on the surface
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Volcanoes on venus and mars have shield volcanoes
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Mars has powered rock on the surface and forms dunes
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The winds on mars is not that strong
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11/20/18

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The rings and moons have rocky matieral and icy ices
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New ice is white and older ice is darker
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Carbon interacting with water,
hydrogen and uv light makes dark carbon compounds
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The older, the blacker the dark it’s color
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Orbits are due to gravity
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In this case, if two objects have a whole number ratio of their periods, they will
affect each other
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Callisto has the oldest icy surface, not heated
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o Methane cycle is on titan
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o It’s in the retrograde orbit
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o Thin atmosphere, but it’s really an exosphere
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o Discovered by comparing picture of fixed objects and moving objects
against a backdrop of stars
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Moons are important because it allows us to calculate mass (of an object)
Pluto is smaller than our moon
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Pluto and the moon keep the same sides facing each other
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Plutos has 4 other moons
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Charon looks like it was fractured and it has a weird red cap on it
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Ices run into each other and make mountains, tidal forces possibly from it’s large
moon
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All 4 have rings but some are not visible
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Uranus’s rings was when the earth is moving faster than uranus is moving
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In 1977, when a star passed behind uranus, the star dimmined before and
after it got to uranus
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Thin and dark rings, old ice, the ring particles are as black as coal
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It did not work with neptune
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Neptune has a ring systme, but stellar occulation did not work
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Moons that get too close a planet can create rings, if the moon gets in the roche
limit, the planet’s force will rip apart the moon/object it will be ripped apart and
then be distributed around the ring
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Saturn’s rings are not as old as saturn because the ice in the rings are young white
ice
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Jupitar’s rings a
o Jupiter gave it energy and made it go faster
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Years to decades to get the jovians, it takes hours to get signals from the jovians
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Jupiter is the biggest and it takes the longest to cool off
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Jupiter has a red spot, it’s a storm
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o It’s been there since we’ve been able to see the planets, but it’s shrinking
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Neptune is blue and it has clouds
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Cloud patterns are driven by internal heat and convection
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They crashed Galileo into Jupiter because we didn’t want it to hit Europa, Jupiter’s
moon, because the moon has a liquid water ocean crust
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We did the same thing with Cassini, bopped it into saturn
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Uses three solar panels, solar
powered
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It’s good at absorbing
red light, showing blue
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Jupiter is a radio source
By studying the radio waves, we know how fast it spins
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Solid body rotation - periods are the same, speed is not
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-- differential
rotation
Jupiter almost has no tilt, so no reasons
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Uranus’s moons names are from shakespeare and pope plays
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o 42 years in dark and 42 years in light
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o Density is 35 g per cubic centimeter, very dense
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All jovian planets have magnetic fields
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o They have internal energy sources, they're all different
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Neptune is contracting, converts gravitational energy into heat
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Saturn is the last dense, low gravitational pull
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Jupiter has the longest lived storm
Has the most moons
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Uranus is tilted sideways, most extreme seasons
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They’re not aligned with their spin axis and not centered
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Helium falling as rain in saturn
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Neptune has gravity by contracting
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- has the biggest bulge - oblateness - how non spherical
something is
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Things that are spinning have a bulge
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o Thin atmosphere
o Lower gravity
o Expands outwards
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If it moves against the background of stars - it’s a planet
Herschel saw it’s orbit and realized it was a planet
Uranus - the roman god of heaven
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Neptune was predicted to exist
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o Something was pulling on it
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There was argument over the planet of Neptune
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Neptune - the god of the sea
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This was good for science in general
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All four jovian planets have moons and rings
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The ices contain carbon compounds, methane, ethane, alcohols, dirty dark stuff
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o The younger it is, the whiter it is
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o Hard to find because they’re dark and we cannot see them
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Anything with a retrograde orbit is almost always captured
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- not reflective so we cannot see it from earth
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o Titan is the largest of saturn, bigger than mercury
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Titan can have an atmosphere and ganymede cannot because it’s warmer, it’s close
to the sun
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Saturn has shiny rings, the rings are made of new ice
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Uranus has 27 moons and 11 rings
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o The rings are dark ice
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o When we watched a star pass Uranus, it blinked out before Uranus
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o Found by stellar occultation
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Neptune is so far away it probably has more moons that we cannot see
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o Tidal forces are making it come closer to the planet
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How you can get rings
o If you have a moon that gets too close to a planet, it can rip the moon apart,
cannot get past the roche limit, tidal forces will break it apart and it will get
distributed around the plant
Uranus has partial rings
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Callisto has an old dirty surface
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little solar system forming in the larger solar system
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o Rocks and ices are mixed
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Callisto has white creates that were formed by things hitting the moon and
exposing the underneath
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Ganymede has a magnetic field
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o Tidal flexing keeps it warm
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o Possible has water under it’s crust
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Io
o Most volcanically active in the solar system
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o Something is heating the moon
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o Brown is the warmest sulfur, white is the coldest sulfur
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The colors and plumes are from sulfur compounds
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A lot of the material leaves, it does not come back
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Io gives a lot of radiation
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The orbit of the moons move in and out
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Titan is too cold for liquid water, methane drives the energy on titan
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o Very cold

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