PCS 181 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Solar System, Hot Hot Hot (Arrow Song), Tidal Locking
28 Nov 2017
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Document Summary
Collisions dominated the early solar system: dust collides and clumps together into planetesimals, planetesimals collide and clump together into protoplanets, protoplanets gather up left over debris and became planets. 8 planets in the solar system: planets are categorized according to composition and size. There are two main categories of planets: small rocky planets (mercury, venus, earth, mars, gas giants (jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune) Inner (terrestrial) planets: mercury, venus, earth, mars. Characteristics: they are made up mostly of rock and metal, they are actually pretty heavy, they move slowly in space, they have no rings and few moons (if any) Mercury: a small, hot, rocky planet, 1/3 the earth"s size, no atmosphere -- heavily cratered, takes 88 days to orbit sun, temp: 430c to -180c, no moons. Venus: earth"s twin in size, brightest object in the sky, no moons, takes 225 days to orbit sun, carbon dioxide (co2) atmosphere (greenhouse effect, hot, hot, hot -480c.
