GEOL105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Mass Wasting, Breccia, Toyota Electronic Modulated Suspension
31 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
CH 14: Impacts and Extinctions
14.1 Earth’s Place in Space
● 4.6 billion years old
● The “big bang”: a starting point of earth theory; this explosion produced the atomic
particles that later formed galaxies, stars, and planets
● The first stars formed within the first billion years after the big bang and continue to form
today
○ A star’s life span depends on its mass
○ Large stars have higher internal pressure and burn up more quickly than small
stars
● Objects with a mass equal to about that of our sun last around 10 billion yrs, and large
stars with masses of 100 times that of our sun last only about 100,000 years
● The sun is a middle aged star, halfway through its lifespan
● Supernova: occurs when a star is no longer capable of sustaining its mass and
collapses inward, resulting in a high energy explosion that scatters its mass into the void
of space, creating a vast nebula
● Solar nebula: a flattened, pancake like rotating disk of hydrogen and helium dust.
Around 5 billion years ago a solar nebula condensed to form the sun by accretion of
matter from its flattened disk
● Sun contains approx 99.8 percent of the mass of the solar system and was formed at the
center
○ Remaining mass became trapped in solar orbits as rings
○ Gravitational forces from the largest, densest particles attracted other particles in
the rings until they collapsed into the planetary system
● Asteroids: rock or metallic particle in space with a diameter between 10 m and 1000 m
○ Found in the asteroid belt, the region between Mars and Jupiter
○ Pose no threat to earth if they remain in belt
○ Move around and collide with one another and a number of them are now in
orbits that intersect earth’s orbit
● Meteoroids: extraterrestrial particle in space that is smaller than 10 m and larger than
dust size; may form in the breakup of asteroids
● Meteor: extraterrestrial particle from dust to several centimeters in size that is burned up
from frictional heat upon entry to earth’s atmosphere; light emitted from the burning
meteor forms a “shooting star”
○ Meteors occurring in large numbers produce meteor showers
● Comet: particle in orbit in space composed of a sponge like rocky core surrounded by
ice and covered by carbon rich dust with a tail of gas and dust that glows, as its orbit
approaches the sun; ranges from a few meters to a few hundred kilometers in diameter
● Meteorite: extraterrestrial particle from dust to asteroid size that hits earth’s surface
○ Originated far out in the solar system and to have been thrown into an area
called the Oort Cloud
○ Oort Cloud lies beyond the Kuiper Belt and extends out as far as 50,000 times
the distance from the earth to the sun
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The big bang : a starting point of earth theory; this explosion produced the atomic particles that later formed galaxies, stars, and planets. The first stars formed within the first billion years after the big bang and continue to form today. A star"s life span depends on its mass. Large stars have higher internal pressure and burn up more quickly than small stars. Objects with a mass equal to about that of our sun last around 10 billion yrs, and large stars with masses of 100 times that of our sun last only about 100,000 years. The sun is a middle aged star, halfway through its lifespan. Supernova: occurs when a star is no longer capable of sustaining its mass and collapses inward, resulting in a high energy explosion that scatters its mass into the void of space, creating a vast nebula. Solar nebula: a flattened, pancake like rotating disk of hydrogen and helium dust.
