Post on 12-Jan-2016
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The solar system
• Formed 4.6 billion years ago from a nebula• a cloud of dust and gas• The hot center from
this nebula, shrinking and spinning, formed the sun
• Left over dust and gas formed planets around the sun
THE SUN
– Hot ball of gas or a big star
– It’s gravity holds objects together in the solar system
• Stops planets from flying off into space, keeps them in line of orbit
THE SUN
• Diameter = 1.4 km• 27 million degrees
Fahrenheit• Large enough to hold 1
million Earth’s • More information is in
your textbooks on page D40
PLANETS: Large, round bodies that revolve around a star
Terrestrial Planets
• made mostly of rock
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jovian Planets
• a gas giant planet• does not consist of solid or rock
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Order of the Planets
• My Mercury• Very Venus• Energetic Earth• Mother Mars• Just Jupiter• Served Saturn• Us Uranus• Noodles Neptune
Can you think of your own?
PLUTO??
• In the Kuiper Belt • made mostly of ice and
rock
• Too small to be a planet, but known as a dwarf planet• massive and has own
gravity• has not cleared the
neighborhood around its orbit
STARS
• Massive balls of plasma
• Constellation: formation of stars
• Nearest star to Earth– Sun
• Most stars 1 – 10 billion years old
ASTEROIDS
• Rocky objects between Mars and Jupiter
• Too small to be a planet – hypothesis that failed to
be a planet• Giant chunks of rock that
look like giant potatoes in space
• Some are the size of planets, others are the size of a basketball
COMETS
• Ice chunks that spin close to the sun• Glowing clouds surround most comets, and
tails of gas can often be seen trailing them as their orbits take them near the sun
GALAXIES
• Billions of stars together• Stars, gas, dust, and dark matter