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Tour of the Outer Planets. Our first stop… Jupiter!. Largest planet in the solar system 63 named moons (don’t worry, you only have to learn four! 11 times the diameter of Earth 5 AU from the Sun What is the surface like? Can we land there?. Great Red Spot. Giant storm - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Tour of the Outer Planets
Our first stop… Jupiter!
• Largest planet in the solar system• 63 named moons (don’t worry, you only have
to learn four!• 11 times the diameter of Earth• 5 AU from the Sun
What is the surface like? Can we land there?
Great Red Spot
• Giant storm• New spot appeared and then disappeared
days later
Jupiter’s moons (Galilean moons)
Ganymede•Largest moon in the solar system•Larger than Mercury!•Has ice!•Has a magnetosphere•Very thin oxygen atmosphere!
Callisto-2nd largest Galilean moon
• Same size as Mercury
• May have subsurface liquid ocean
• Could hold life in ocean ??
Io- 3rd largest Galilean moon• 400 active SO2
volcanoes due to tidal activity with Jupiter
• Some are taller than Everest
• Rock coated with sulfur dioxide frost
Europa-last, but most important• Smaller than the
Moon• Surface
composed of 100 km thick ice layer
• Liquid ocean underneath
• Thin O2 • Life, microbes?
Next Stop… Saturn!• 10 times the
diameter of Earth
• 10 AU from Earth
• 56 moons (you only need to know ONE!
• Storms on surface
Saturn would float in water
• Titan is the largest moon of Saturn (1.5 times our Moon)
• Made of ice and rock
• Air is nitrogen and methane
• Possible microbial life?
Uranus!!Ice Giant• 4 times
Earth’s diameter
• 19 AU away• More
methane, ammonia than Jupiter
• 27 moons
Sideways rotation• 42 years of
darkness/light• Rings less visible
than Saturn (rock vs. ice)
Ice Giant: Neptune!• Close in size and
composition to Uranus
• Methane gives it the blue color
• Four faint rings• Great Dark Spot• 30 AU from the Sun• Moon, Triton,
revolves in retrograde
• 13 moons
Dwarf Planets• Ceres (in the asteroid belt) about 3 A.U.– Probe will arrive in 2015
• Pluto (Charon)– Two objects in binary
revolution– 40 AU from the Sun– Orbit angled differently
than Earth– Crosses Neptunes orbit
20 out of 248 years
Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery
• Eres• Other TNOs
Comets• Small collections of ice, dust, and rock that
orbit the sun• Some originate in the Kuiper belt, others from
the Oort cloud