1. This Mini-Lesson will cover: 1) How did our solar system form? 2) How do we discover planets outside our solar system?

2. Day 1: The Nebular Hypothesis Scientists have long debated the origins of the solar system. In the 1600s and 1700s, many scientists thought that the sun formed first and threw off the materials that later formed the planets. This was incorrect.

3. The Nebular Hypothesis, continued In 1796, French mathematician Pierre Simon, advanced a hypothesis now known as the nebular hypothesis. States that the Sun and all the planets were formed from a huge, rotating cloud of gas and dust 4.6 billion years ago. Particles slowly gathered together by the pull of gravity forming the Sun and planets. The sun is composed of about 99% of all of the matter that was contained in the solar nebula.

4. Day 1: Formation of the Solar System

5. Good you tube videos. (WE WANT YOU TUBE!!) 1) Mr. Mister Big Head on Origin of Solar System http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm9LTnozHJ0 2) 2 minute animation on the Nebular Hypothesis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhYEQgLW5NM

6. Day 2: Evidence for Nebular Hypothesis Read the article on from Cornell University’s Ask an Astronomer. http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?numbe r=600 http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?numbe r=600 After reading the article cite all the evidence 3 pieces of evidence that supports the Nebular Hypothesis.

7. Day 2: Answers All planets and most moons orbit in the same directions and all the planets rotate in the same direction. This is consistent with the solar system forming from a giant rotating cloud. We have seen young stars with disk of debris around them like the disk of debris in the Nebular Hypothesis. Computer models of the Nebular Hypothesis predict the current solar system well. Larger gaseous plants farther away from the Sun fit the model because they would have more material to collect.

8. Day 3: Exoplanets Watch the following video on exoplanets. http://exoplanets.org/linkframe.html Go to link and click on Overview: the Search Begins 1) What are exoplanets? 2) How many exoplanets have been discovered? 3) What are the sizes of all the planets that have been discovered? 4) How are exoplanets found? 5) Why it the purpose of NASA’s Kepler Project

9. Day 3: Answers Exoplanets are planets that circle stars other than Earth’s sun. 357 expoplanets have been discovered so far. All of the exoplanets that have been identified are larger than Saturn because current technology can only detect large planets. Exoplanets cannot be directly observed with telescopes but they can be detected by their gravity tugs on stars that they orbit or by interfering with the light coming from those stars.

10. Day 4: Quiz (Boffo!!)