Mercury Venus • Caloris Basin & “weird terrain” • Runaway greenhouse effect caused
• Has almost no atmosphere by dense CO2 atmosphere • Temperature extremes: • Hottest surface temperature: 900°F 800°F daytime high • Reflective clouds make it very bright -280°F nighttime low in the sky • Scarps • Spins Slowly Backwards • Longest solar day (sunrise to sunrise) of • Few craters–young active surface any planet. Earth Moon • Most dense planet: 5.5 g/cm3 • Rilles: straight and meandering • Liquid water abundant on its surface • Regolith • Plate tectonics • Highlands & Maria • Life found there • We have visited it • Oxygen rich atmosphere • Crust is thinner on one side Mars Jupiter • Wind blown deserts fringe its polar caps • Strongest magnetic field of any • Olympus Mons: highest mountain in the planet Solar System • Fastest rotation in the Solar System: • Rusty Red color from iron in its soil ~10 hours • Valles Marineris: dwarfs the Grand • Great Red Spot Canyon • Brightly colored cloud bands • Evidence of liquid water in the past • King of the planets: largest & most massive Saturn Uranus • Largest ring system • Blue-green, nearly featureless planet • Icy material makes rings bright • Spins on its side • Least dense planet: “float” in water • “George’s Star” • Most oblate planet • Dark, narrow rings composed of a • Cloud bands hidden by ammonia clouds myriad of small particles • First dim planet discovered Neptune Dwarf Planets • Blue as the deep sea Ceres • Dark rings gathered into arcs • Largest object in the asteroid belt • Great Dark Spot • Smallest known dwarf planet • Discovered by applying Newton’s Laws Pluto • Most distant planet - just inside of the • Crosses Neptune’s orbit Kuiper Belt • Recently demoted from planet status Eris • Largest known dwarf planet • Orbit is highly elliptical & highly inclined
Moon Review
Which planet does each of the following moons belong to? What makes each of them unique?
Callisto
Charon
Deimos
Dysnomia
Enceladus
Europa
Ganymede
Hydra
Iapetus
Io
Mimas
Miranda
Nix
Phobos
Titan
Triton