The Solar System

Speeds

One light year (distance light travels in one year) is 6 trillion miles or 9 trillion kilometers Light can travel around the equator 7 times in one second

Light can go around the equator 7 times in one second!

The time it takes light from the Sun to reach Earth 93 million miles away is 8 minutes

It takes the Sun’s light 8 minutes to travel the 93 million miles to Earth!

What is retrograde motion? When a planet with a smaller orbit passes a planet with a larger and slower orbit That planets path will appear to change direction in the sky over a course of several weeks

The Inner Planets Terrestrial Planets = “Earth-like” Mercury, Venus, Earth, & Mars

Relatively small Made up of solid rock High Densities Few moons, if any

Mercury

Venus

Hottest planet in the solar system Atmosphere made up of mostly Carbon Dioxide Carbon dioxide lets Visible light in and traps Infrared heat energy

Earth

Mars

Martian Landscape

Olympus Mons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zazuzkO9nNk

Jovian Planets

The Outer (Jovian) Planets Gas giants Many moons Rings Low densities (gas) Mostly Hydrogen

Jupiter

Saturn

Saturn & it’s Moons

Saturn’s Rings

Uranus

Neptune

Neptune’s Dark Spot

Obliquity of Nine Planets Eight Obliquity is the axial tilt or inclination of a planets rotation

Pluto

The orbits of Pluto and Neptune cross each other

Where does Pluto fit in? Pluto, dwarf planets and comets are all found in the Kuiper Belt

The Oort Cloud

Small bodies of rock, iron and frozen water and gases that orbit the sun in very elliptical orbits. Comet

Comets have very Elliptical Orbits

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 colliding with Jupiter (JULY 1994)

Halley’s Comet

What are Meteor Showers? Meteor showers are the remains of a comets tail entering the earth’s atmosphere