AST 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Lunar Mare, Unsolved Mysteries, Tunxis Community College
18 Dec 2020
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Document Summary
Small moons (<300km) have no geological activity. Medium sized moons (300-1500km) have had past geological activity. Large moons (>1500km) have current geological activity. Medium and large moons have enough self-gravity to be spherical, have substantial amounts of ice, formed in orbit around the jovian planets, and have circular orbits in the same direction as the planet"s rotation. Small moons are far more numerous than the medium/large moons, but do not have enough gravity to be spherical. Most are potato shaped, captured asteroids or comets, so their orbits do not follow usual patterns. heating squishes and stretches io as it orbits jupiter. Jupiter"s galilean moons (io, europa, ganymede, callisto) are very geological active. Io"s surface is constantly changed by a high volume of volcanic eruptions. Orbital resonance every 7 days, io, europa and ganymede line up, and the tugs. Europa"s surface appears heavily cracked due to tidal stresses causing parts of. Europa"s icy crust to slowly slide past each other.
