PHYS 037 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Outgassing, Methods Of Detecting Exoplanets, Thermal Velocity
6 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
The age of the solar system: some of naturally occurring atoms undergo radioactive decay. Amount of time it takes for half the atoms to decay = material"s half-life. After a number of half-lives, a fraction of the material is left: fraction = ( )^n, radioactive dating helps nd the age of rock. Oldest rocks on earth are around 4 billion years old. Older samples have been found on the moon & within meteorites ago: bodies in our solar system have ages that correlate with an origin 4. 5 billion years. Model of formation: speci c criteria to be met, more or less in the same plane as well the sun. Planets must rotate on an axis in the same direction as they revolve around. If rocky & dense, the planet must be found close to the sun. If gaseous, the body must be further from the sun. Solar nebula theory: most successful model of formation gas and dust.
