ASTR 1P01 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud, Astronomical Unit

• School: Brock University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: ASTR 1P01
• Professor: Bozidar Mitrovic

Document Summary

A short survey of the universe, part 3: Before we continue with this view at an ever larger scale, the box below is 160 million km across: one astronomical unit (1au) = 150 million km. When we go up again by a factor of 100 we will be dealing with a box that is 110 au across, thus leaving kilometers behind as it is just too small of a distance to be useful. Until 2006 the solar system had nine planets after 2006 now our solar system has eight planets and several dwarf planets. One of these dwarf planets is pluto. From the scale above it is hard to see the planets inside the orbit of mars: *the closest one being: mercury, then venus, then earth, then mars. These are known as terrestrial or earth-like planets: *the next planets in order: jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune.