SOLAR SYSTEM

By: María Martín, Leire Martín and Elisa Vicente.

SOLAR SYSTEM

TELLURIC PLANETSMercury, Venus, The Earth and Mars are very similar but they are not the same. These planets were formed in a warm region, this warm pushed away hydrogen

and helium which are light gases. Teluric planets are mainly composed of heavy components like carbon, iron, silicon… and they are solid and rocky.

As these plantes have been evolucionating, their atmospheres had been replaced by light gases from the interior and warm zones. Heavy elements were moved to their interior to form cores.

Mercury: smallest planet near the Sun and without atmosphere is a desert of craters burnt by the Sun. Mercury rotates on its own axis in 58 days and a half. When it is facing the Sun it reaches 425º whereas the zones which are facing the shadow can reach 170º below 0. Both poles mantain very cold that is why scientists think there could be water.

Venus: It had oceans but the Sun evaporate the water and escape through space. Actually, the atmosphere of this planet is very dense and is composed of anhidrid carbonic. Several layers of clouds of sulphuric acid impede rays of the son to reach its surface because of the green house effect which reaches a temperature of 500ºC. They had discovered plateaus, deep valleys and volcanos perhaps active.

The Earth: It is characterised by the huge amounts of water it has conserved thanks to the distance which separates the Earth from the Sun. Its atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, oxygen , small amount of anhidric carbonic and water vapour.

Our planet is composed of a 70% of water. This make the Earth different from the other plants which rotate around the Sun. Thanks to this, we have three estates: gas, solid and liquid.

The Earth is composed of a core which has 10 to 60 km deep a solid mantle of 2900 km dense, an external nucleus of 2200 km and an interior solid nucleus of 1200 km of density.

The Scales of the Earth: 200 million years ago all continents were unified into one which was called pangea surrounded by one ocean. This mass started to fragment and continents started to separate.

Magnetic Field: The magnetic field of the Earth is more important than Mercury. It is said that its origin comes from the existence of electric currents which flow in the nucleus of the liquid iron. This magnetic field, it doesn´t spread around the Earth. In Sun direction, it blocks the solar wind protecting it from some particles with a type of shield called magnetopause.

Mars: it had an important atmosphere which provide beningn temperatures, rivers and oceans. But as the planet is small, and its mass is weak, most part of its atmosphere disolved in space. It only has a few of anhidrid carbonic. The water it contained froze in the subsoil and its interior also froze. Sometimes, windstorms takes place and they make huge amounts of dust which takes weeks to dissappear.

OUTER PLANETS

They are Jupiter, Saturn, Urane and Neptune. Outer planets are situated beyond the astoid belt. They are gigant in relation with the other planets of the Solar system.

They are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium and they are surrounded by rings of satellites and by plenty of moons

JUPITER  Jupiter is the fifth planet in

relation to the sun. It is the biggest planet and the one which has more mass in the Solar System. It is the fastest revolving the sun. It has the biggest number of moons, it has 67 moons.

Jupiter has a diameter of 142 984 km. It is 7778.3 millions of km away from the sun. It lasts 11.9 years to orbit the sun. It rotates in its on axis in

SATELLITES OF JUPITER

Regular Satellites  Galilean moons: They are the principal moons, which were discovered by Galileo

Galilei in 1610. Their names comes from the lovers of Zeus:

Io: It is the most volcanic place in the earth and it has continuous eruptions which regenerates its surface.

Europe: this satellite has grooves and ridges that cross the surface covered with ice. Ganymede: It is the biggest moon of the Solar system. Its crust is full of impact

craters. Callisto: It is the moon that is situated farthest away from Jupiter. The ice from its

craters bright deeply.  Amaltean Group: They orbit very close to Jupiter. They are:   Metis Adrastea Amalthea Thebis   Irregular Satellites:

They are group of satellites that rotate in orbit so far away from Jupiter that the gravitation from the Sun affects them and so they don´t orbit in a regular orbit.

JUPITER´S ATMOSPHERE Jupiter has biggest atmosphere in all the Solar

System. It is principally made up by Hydrogen and Helium, but it also contains Methane, water vapour and other substances. The Jupiter´s atmosphere contains a lot of atmospheric phenomenon. The most known are:The great Red Spot: It is a huge storm that could have existed for more than 300 years. In this storm, there are winds up to 400km/h.

The Little Red Spot: it is a big storm was created in 2006.

SATURN It is the sixth planet in relation to the Sun. It has the

second greatest mass, after Jupiter. It has a volume of 740 times the Earth, but it just have a mass of 95 times the Earth. It is the only planet that has system of rings. Galileo was the first one that observed its rings, in 1610. •Saturn has a diameter of 120 536 km. the gravity is 10,44m/s2. Its atmosphere it is made up by hydrogen and helium. It has a radius of 60 300km.

SATELLITES OF SATURN There is not an exact number of satellites, but

the most important are:

Titan: it is the biggest one Mimas: it could have water. Enceladus Tethys Dione Rhea Hyperion Iapetus Phoebe

SYSTEM OF RINGS The system of rings of Saturn

consists in countless small particles made up by ice water and some rocks that go from millimetres to metres. These rocks are made up by silicates and tholins. There are a lot of gaps between the rings but there are very few between the fragments. This system consists of 7 rings.

This ring makes that the brightness of Saturn increase, but we cannot see them without a telescope.

The densest rings are A and B, they are separated by the division of Cassini. We also have the C, D, E and F rings.

URANUS  The astronomers of the Antiquity didn

´t named as a planet because of darkness and of the slow speed of its orbit. It was discovered as a planet in 1781 by William Herschel. It was the first planet discovered by a telescope.

  It is made up by frozen water,

methane and ammoniac. It also contains hydrocarbons.

  It has a very inclined axis (of 97.7º).

So it has the north and south poles were other planets have the equator. Uranus also has system of rings; seen from the Earth seams that ring are like a dartboard.

  It lasts 84 Earth´s years to do one lap

around the Sun. It is 3 000 millions of km away from the Sun. it turns around itself in 17 hours and 14 minutes.

CLIMATE & RINGS It has a very cold climate. It radiates even less

energy than Neptune. It has a very uniform atmosphere in relation with the other outer planets. When the ´Voyager2´ flew near Uranus in 1986, it was discovered that there was ten different levels of clouds in its atmosphere.

It has the coldest atmosphere of the Solar System; temperatures can reach -224ºC.

It has a system of rings, as all the giant planets. The fragments of their rings go from micrometer to one meter. There are 13 known planets.

NEPTUNE  It is the first planet that was discovered by mathematic

predictions. It has a mass of 17 times the Earth and a volume of 57 times. It has some phenomena similar to the ones of Jupiter, as the Great Dark Spot, which had a similar size to the one of the Earth.

•It has a nucleus composed of rocks and a frozen crust. The atmosphere it is very dense and it is composed of hydrogen, helium, water and methane. Although it has a very cold climate, temperatures in the centre of the planet can reach 4 700 ºC.

SATELLITES OF NEPTUNE Neptune has fourteen satellites.  

• Triton: it is the biggest one. It is the only satellite of Neptune with an spherical shape. The others are irregular. It is considered to be a fragment of the Kuiper´s belt. It was discovered by William Lassell in 1846.

• Nereid• Naiad• Thalassa• Despina• Galatea• Larissa• Proteus