PHYS 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Kuiper Belt, Meteoroid, Orbital Period

• School: University of Windsor
• Department: Physics
• Course: PHYS 1000
• Professor: Mr.Mark Lubrick

Document Summary

Early astronomers knew the sun, moon, stars, mercury, venus, jupiter, saturn, comets, and meteors. Now known: solar system has one star, 169 moons* orbiting 8 planets (added uranus and neptune), asteroids, comets, meteoroids, dwarf planets, and kuiper belt objects. All or(cid:271)its (cid:271)ut mer(cid:272)ury"s are (cid:272)lose to the sa(cid:373)e pla(cid:374)e a(cid:374)d i(cid:374) sa(cid:373)e dire(cid:272)tio(cid:374) (cid:894)(cid:272)ou(cid:374)ter (cid:272)lo(cid:272)k(cid:449)ise(cid:895). The planets (with the possible exception of mercury) have evolved since their formation. Atmospheric erosion and geological activity (earthquakes and volcanoes) makes it difficult to find traces of how they formed. To learn about the formation of our solar system we should look at the smaller bodies (moons, meteoroids, etc). Many of these have barely changed since they formed along with the rest of the solar system. Asteroids and meteoroids have rocky composition; asteroids are bigger (100m or larger). The number of known asteroids is around half a million. Most are located in the asteroid belt between mars and.