AST101H1 Lecture Notes - Olympus Mons, Silly Putty, Radioactive Decay
10 Dec 2012
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AST101H1 Full Course Notes
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Volcanoes earthquakes, asteroids or comets slamming into the earth can dramatically reshape the surface of the earth. Water can also affect the earth -> water has carved the grand canyon. Surfaces of five terrestrial planets probably looked similar when they were young. All five were made of rocky material that condensed in the solar nebula and all five were subjected early on to the impacts of the heavy bombardment. Today, there are profound differences between the worlds: Mercury and the moon show the scars of their battering during the heavy bombardment. They are densely covered by craters, except in areas that appear to be volcanic plains. The surface of venus is covered by bizarre bulges and odd volcanoes. Mars has the largest volcanoes in the solar system and a huge canyon cutting across its surface. Planetary geology = trying to understand how the differences among the terrestrial planets came to be.
