01. Solar System Cover 9/4/01 12:18 PM Page 1 National Aeronautics and Educational Product Space Administration Educators Grades K–12 LS-2001-08-002-HQ Solar System Lithograph Set for Space Science This set contains the following lithographs: • Our Solar System • Moon • Saturn • Our Star—The Sun • Mars • Uranus • Mercury • Asteroids • Neptune • Venus • Jupiter • Pluto and Charon • Earth • Moons of Jupiter • Comets 01. Solar System Cover 9/4/01 12:18 PM Page 2 NASA’s Central Operation of Resources for Educators Regional Educator Resource Centers offer more educators access (CORE) was established for the national and international distribution of to NASA educational materials. NASA has formed partnerships with universities, NASA-produced educational materials in audiovisual format. Educators can museums, and other educational institutions to serve as regional ERCs in many obtain a catalog and an order form by one of the following methods: States. A complete list of regional ERCs is available through CORE, or electroni- cally via NASA Spacelink at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/ercn NASA CORE Lorain County Joint Vocational School NASA’s Education Home Page serves as a cyber-gateway to informa- 15181 Route 58 South tion regarding educational programs and services offered by NASA for the Oberlin, OH 44074-9799 American education community. This high-level directory of information provides Toll-free Ordering Line: 1-866-776-CORE specific details and points of contact for all of NASA’s educational efforts, Field Toll-free FAX Line: 1-866-775-1460 Center offices, and points of presence within each State. Visit this resource at the E-mail: [email protected] following address: http://education.nasa.gov Home Page: http://core.nasa.gov NASA Spacelink is one of NASA’s electronic resources specifically devel- Educator Resource Center Network (ERCN) oped for the educational community. Spacelink serves as an electronic library to To make additional information available to the education community, NASA has NASA’s educational and scientific resources, with hundreds of subject areas created the NASA Educator Resource Center (ERC) network. Educators may pre- arranged in a manner familiar to educators. Using Spacelink Search, educators view, copy, or receive NASA materials at these sites. Phone calls are welcome if you and students can easily find information among NASA’s thousands of Internet are unable to visit the ERC that serves your geographic area. The ERCs and the resources. Special events, missions, and intriguing NASA Web sites are featured in regions they serve include the following: Spacelink’s “Hot Topics” and “Cool Picks” areas. Spacelink may be accessed at http://spacelink.nasa.gov AK, Northern CA, HI, ID, MT, AL, AR, IA, LA, MO, TN NV, OR, UT, WA, WY U.S. Space and Rocket Center NASA Educator Resource Center NASA Educator Resource Center for NASA Ames Research Center NASA Marshall Space Flight Center NASA Spacelink is the official home of electronic versions of NASA’s Educational Mail Stop 253-2 One Tranquility Base Products. A complete listing of NASA Educational Products can be found at the fol- Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 Huntsville, AL 35758 Phone: (650) 604-3574 Phone: (256) 544-5812 lowing address: http://spacelink.nasa.gov/products IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI MS NASA Educator Resource Center NASA Educator Resource Center NASA Television (NTV) NASA Glenn Research Center NASA Stennis Space Center features Space Station and Shuttle mission cover- Mail Stop 8-1 Building 1200 age, live special events, interactive educational live shows, electronic field trips, 21000 Brookpark Road Stennis Space Center, MS 39529-6000 Cleveland, OH 44135 Phone: (228) 688-3338 aviation and space news, and historical NASA footage. Programming has a three- Phone: (216) 433-2017 hour block—Video (News) File, NASA Gallery, and Education File—beginning at CA CT, DE, DC, ME, MD, MA, NH, NASA Educator Resource Center for noon Eastern and repeated at 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m., and midnight, Monday NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Educator Resource Laboratory Village at Indian Hill through Friday. Live feeds preempt regularly scheduled programming. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 1460 East Holt Avenue, Suite 20 Mail Code 130.3 Pomona, CA 91767 Greenbelt, MD 20771-0001 Phone: (909) 397-4420 Check the Internet for programs listings at: Phone: (301) 286-8570 AZ and Southern CA http://www.nasa.gov/ntv CO, KS, NE, NM, ND, OK, SD, TX NASA Educator Resource Center for Space Center Houston NASA Dryden Flight Research Center NASA Educator Resource Center for 45108 N. 3rd Street East For more information on NTV, contact: NASA Johnson Space Center Lancaster, CA 93535 1601 NASA Road One Phone: (661) 948-7347 NASA TV, NASA Headquarters-Code P-2, Washington, DC 20546-0001 Houston, TX 77058 Phone: (202) 358-3572 Phone: (281) 244-2129 VA and MD’s Eastern Shore NASA Educator Resource Center FL, GA, PR, VI GSFC/Wallops Flight Facility NASA Educator Resource Center Visitor Center Building J-17 How to Access Information on NASA’s Education Program, NASA Kennedy Space Center Wallops Island, VA 23337 Materials, and Services Mail Code ERC Phone: (757) 824-2298 Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899 This brochure serves as a guide to accessing a variety of NASA materials and serv- Phone: (321) 867-4090 ices for educators. Copies are available through the ERC network or electronical- KY, NC, SC, VA, WV ly via NASA Spacelink. Virginia Air & Space Center Educator Resource Center for NASA Langley Research Center 600 Settlers Landing Road Solar System Lithograph Set for Space Science is available in Hampton, VA 23669-4033 electronic format through NASA Spacelink. The most up-to-date lithographs and Phone: (757) 727-0900 x 757 links to the individual images can be downloaded from NASA Spacelink at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/products/Solar.System.Lithograph.Set 02. Solar System (2001) 9/4/01 12:28 PM Page 2 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Our Solar System 02. Solar System (2001) 9/4/01 12:28 PM Page 1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Our Solar System From our small world we have gazed upon the cosmic ocean for There are at least 91 natural satellites (also called moons) around the Activities thousands of years. Ancient astronomers observed points of light that various planets in our solar system, ranging from bodies larger than our appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects planets, own Moon down to small pieces of debris. Many of these were discov- How big is our solar system? To give you a rough idea, consider that it meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities—Jupiter, ered by planetary spacecraft. Some of these have atmospheres (Saturn’s took the Voyager 2 spacecraft, traveling in a sweeping arc at an aver- king of the gods; Mars, the god of war; Mercury, messenger of the Titan); some even have magnetic fields (Jupiter’s Ganymede). Jupiter’s age of 65,000 kilometers per hour, 12 years to reach Neptune! How gods; Venus, the goddess of love and beauty; and Saturn, father of moon Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. An fast is that in meters per second? In feet per second? If you could trav- Jupiter and god of agriculture. The stargazers also observed comets ocean may lie beneath the frozen crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa, while el that fast, how long would it take you to reach the next town? To get with sparkling tails, and meteors or shooting stars apparently falling images of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede show historical motion of icy to the Moon? from the sky. crustal plates. Some planetary moons, such as Phoebe at Saturn, may be asteroids that were captured by a planet’s gravity. Can you build a scale model of the solar system? If you use Earth’s Since the invention of the telescope, three more planets have been dis- diameter as a unit of measure (Earth diameter = 1), figure out how big covered in our solar system: Uranus (1781), Neptune (1846), and From 1610 to 1977, Saturn was thought to be the only planet with the other planets are compared to Earth. Hint: divide each planet’s Pluto (1930). In addition, there are thousands of small bodies such as rings. We now know that Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have ring diameter by Earth’s diameter. What objects might you use to depict the asteroids and comets. Most of the asteroids orbit in a region between systems, although Saturn’s is by far the largest. Particles in these ring sizes of the Sun and planets? How far away would the planets be from the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, while the home of comets lies far beyond systems range in size from dust to boulders to house-sized, and they each other? Map out a scale model of the solar system in your town. the orbit of Pluto, in the Oort Cloud. may be rocky and/or icy. Actual Mean Distance Number The four planets closest to the Sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Most of the planets also have magnetic fields, which extend into space Diameter (km) from sun (km) of Moons Mars—are called the terrestrial planets because they have solid and form a “magnetosphere” around each planet. These magnetos- Sun 1,391,900 0 – rocky surfaces. The four large planets beyond the orbit of Mars— pheres rotate with the planet, sweeping charged particles with them. Mercury 4,878 57,910,000 0 Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—are called gas giants. Tiny, dis- The Sun has a magnetic field, the heliosphere, which envelops our Venus 12,104 108,200,0000 0 tant Pluto has a solid but icier surface than the terrestrial planets.