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 Our Solar System consists of a central star

(the Sun), the nine planets orbiting the sun,
moons, asteroids, comets, meteors,
interplanetary gas, dust, and all the “space”
in between them.

 The nine planets of the Solar System are

named for Greek and Roman Gods and
Goddesses.

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 Inner Planets:  Outer Planets
 Mercury  Jupiter
 Venus  Saturn
 Earth  Uranus
 Mars  Neptune
 Pluto

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4
5
 The sun’s energy comes from
nuclear fusion (where hydrogen is
converted to helium) within its
core. This energy is released from
the sun in the form of heat and
light.
 Remember: Stars produce light.
Planets reflect light.
 A star’s temperature determines its
“color.” The coldest stars are red.
The hottest stars are blue.

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 Planets are categorized according to
composition and size. There are two main
categories of planets:

 small rocky planets (Mercury, Venus,

Earth, Mars, and Pluto)
 gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
and Neptune)

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 They are made up mostly of rock and metal.
 They are very heavy.
 They move slowly in space.
 They have no rings and few moons (if any).
 They have a diameter of less than 13,000 km.

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 Mercury has a revolution
period of 88 days. Mercury
has extreme temperature
fluctuations, ranging from
800F (daytime) to -270F
(nighttime).
 Even though it is the closest
planet to the sun, Scientists
believe there is ICE on
Mercury! The ice is protected
from the sun’s heat by crater
shadows.

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 Venus is the brightest
object in the sky after the
sun and moon because its
atmosphere reflects
sunlight so well. People
often mistake it for a star.
 Its maximum surface
temperature may reach
900F.
 Venus has no moons and
takes 225 days to
complete an orbit.

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 Earth is the only planet
known to support living
organisms.
 Earth’s surface is composed
of 71% water.
 Water is necessary for life on
Earth.
 The oceans help maintain
Earth’s stable temperatures.
 Earth has one moon and an
oxygen rich atmosphere.

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 It takes the moon approximately 29 days to complete
one rotation. The same side of the moon always faces
us.
 The moon’s surface is covered in dust and rocky
debris from meteor impacts. It has no water or
atmosphere.
 The moon reflects light from the sun onto the earth’s
surface.

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 Like Earth, Mars has ice caps
at its poles.
 Mars has the largest volcano
in our solar system: Olympus
Mons. Olympus Mons is
approximately 15 miles high.
 Mars appears red because of
iron oxide, or rust, in its soil.
 Mars has two moons and
takes about two years to
complete an orbit.

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 Pluto has only one moon
and takes about 249 years to
orbit the sun.
 Part of Pluto’s orbit passes
inside that of Neptune, so at
times Neptune is the planet
farthest from the sun.
 Pluto was located and
named in 1930, but today
Pluto is no longer
considered a
planet.

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 They are made up mostly of gases
(primarily hydrogen & helium).
 They are very light for their size.
 They move quickly in space.
 They have rings and many moons.
 They have a diameter of less than 48,000 km

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 Jupiter is the largest and
most massive planet.
 It’s diameter is 11 times
bigger than that of the
Earth’s.
 It takes about 12 years for
Jupiter to orbit the sun.
 Jupiter has 16 known
moons.

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 Saturn is composed
almost entirely of
hydrogen and helium.
 Saturn has many rings
made of ice. Saturn’s
rings are very wide.
They extend outward to
about 260,000 miles from
the surface but are less
than 1 mile thick.
 Saturn has 18 known
moons, some of which
orbit inside the rings!
 It takes about 30 years to
orbit the sun.
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 Uranus is blue in
color due to methane
gas in its
atmosphere.
 Uranus has 11 dark
rings surrounding it.
 Uranus has 21
known moons and
takes 84 years to
complete one orbit.

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 Neptune has the
fastest winds in the
solar system: up to
2,000 km/hr.
 Neptune is also blue
in color due to
methane gas in its
atmosphere.
 Neptune takes 165
years to orbit the sun
and has 8 moons.

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 Meteorites

Each year Earth sweeps up ~80,000 tons of extraterrestrial

matter, from microscopic dust particles to large rocks.

Some are identifiable pieces of the Moon, Mars, or Vesta; most are
pieces of asteroids.

Meteorites were broken off their parent bodies 10’s to 100’s of

million years ago (recently compared to 4 Billion Years).

Oldest meteorites (chondrites) contain bits of interstellar dust, tiny

diamonds made in supernova explosions, organic molecules and
amino acids (building blocks of life), tiny spherules left over from
the very early Solar System Direct insight into solar system
formation.

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• Wikipedia
Meteoroid: chunk or mass of debris in the Solar System.
Meteor: The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's)
atmosphere.
Meteorite: A meteoroid that reaches the ground and survives impact
Meteor Shower: Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart.
Origin: Comes from Greek meteōros, meaning "high in the air”.
• How can you tell that you have a meteorite?

Fragments around meteor craters

– Higher metal content than terrestrial rocks

– Contain Iridium and other isotopes not in terrestrial rocks

• Very large meteorites vaporize when they hit ground, form big craters
• Sometimes small pieces are found around crater

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Barringer Crater, Arizona

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Based on composition, meteorites fall into two basic categories:

• primitive
• about 4.6 billion years old
• accreted in the Solar nebula
• processed
• younger than 4.6 billion years
• matter has differentiated
• fragments of a larger object
which processed the original
Solar nebula material

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 Origin of Meteorites
Primitive meteorites condensed and accreted directly from the Solar nebula.
• the stony ones formed closer than 3 AU from the Sun
• the Carbon-rich ones formed beyond 3 AU from the Sun, where it was
cold enough for Carbon compounds to condense
Processed meteorites come from large objects in the inner Solar System.
• the metallic ones are fragments of the cores of asteroids which were
shattered in collisions
• the rocky ones were chipped off the surfaces of asteroids, Mars, and the
Moon by impacts
Main types of meteorites
1-Chondrites
Carbonaceous
Non-carbonaceous
2-Achondrites
Iron
3-Stony-Iron
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• Characteristic of very
slow cooling of iron
within an asteroid core
• Due to diffusion of
nickel atoms into solid
iron as core cools
• Says original asteroid
must have been large
enough to be
differentiated

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 • Crystals of olivine (a rock mineral) embedded in iron
• From boundary between core and mantle of large asteroids?

Role of cosmic collisions in evolution of Solar System

Early phase (4.5 billion yrs ago): planet formation
Planetesimals collided or accreted to form larger pieces
Formation of Moon by glancing collision with Earth
Removal of most of Mercury’s crust by collision
Collision made Venus rotate backwards
Collision tipped Uranus onto its side (now rotates at 90 deg to rotation axes of all other planets)
“Late Heavy Bombardment” (~3.9 billion years ago) from Lunar record
First signs of life on Earth immediately followed “Late Heavy Bombardment” period. Is
there some sort of causal connection?

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 • Where does it start (Big Bang?)
• Did it all come from the first 3 minutes?
– Can stars play a role?

The origin of the universe is under a considerable debate,

There are many theories which tried to explain about the
origin of the Universe among which only one theory is
popular = Big Bang Theory
12 -15 billion years ago, a fireball (all matter and energy
concentrated), it exploded & all matter and energy spreaded
out in all directions.
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A brief history

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 FORMATION OF ELEMENTS

The planet Earth contains various types of elements which form soil, rocks, air,
vegetation, species etc. There are nearly 118 elements in the nature. Every
element has its specific properties. You will be surprised to know that these
elements were not formed at the time of Big Bang Explosion. After the Big Bang
only lighter elements like Hydrogen and Helium were formed. The conditions
after Big Bang were favorable only for the lighter elements and heaver elements
were formed much later inside the stars’ his process of formation of elements is
called Nucleosynthesis
The universe was started with the un imaginary tremendous explosion called Big
Bang. The universe was started from very small point which had high density of
energy. After the Big Bang Explosion, the universe started expanding. The
universe was just a soup of matter and energy till the first few fractions of second
Big bang Exploration: As the universe got cooled by expansion, the formation of
quarks took place. The particles and antiparticles were being created form the
energy and they were also being combined together to annihilate and release
energy. Till the second after the Big Bang, the quarks were having very high
energy which was not allowing them to combine for the formation of neutrons
and protons
After the one second of age, the universe expanded and cooled down to temperature
of about 100 billion Kelvin. At this temperature the electron, protons, and
neutrons had formed. But they were moving with very high energy, so the
formation of atom was not possible. The neutrons were Being, created and
destroyed by the reaction between protons and electrons. The protons and
electrons were being combined to form neutrons and neutrons were decaying into
protons and electrons
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 FORMATION OF ELEMENTS

When the universe was three minutes old(after big bang) temperature were cool
enough for protons and neutrons to fuse together to form the nuclei of Hydrogen and
Helium atoms. Approximately 100,000 years later electrons joined with previously formed
nuclei to make complete atoms of hydrogen an helium

Nucleo synthesis
Nucleosynthesis is the process that creates new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons,
primarily protons and neutrons. The first nuclei were formed about three minutes after the
Big Bang, through the process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis. It was then that hydrogen
and helium formed to become the content of the first stars, and this primeval process is
responsible for the present hydrogen/helium ratio of the cosmos.

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 ABUNDANCE OF ELEMENTS
The goal of the theory of nucleosynthesis is to explain the vastly differing abundances of
the chemical elements and their several isotopes from the perspective of natural processes. The
primary stimulus to the development of this theory was the shape of a plot of the abundances versus
the atomic number of the elements. Those abundances, when plotted on a graph as a function of
atomic number, have a jagged sawtooth structure that varies by factors up to ten million. A very
influential stimulus to nucleosynthesis research was an abundance table created by Hans Suess and
Harold Urey that was based on the unfractionated abundances of the non-volatile elements found
within unevolved meteorites.[6] Such a graph of the abundances is displayed on a logarithmic scale
below, where the dramatically jagged structure is visually suppressed by the many powers of ten
spanned in the vertical scale of this graph. See Handbook of Isotopes in the Cosmos for more data and
discussion of abundances of the isotopes.[7]

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Abundances of the chemical elements in the Solar System.
Hydrogen and helium are most common, residuals within the
paradigm of the Big Bang.[8] The next three elements (Li, Be,
B) are rare because they are poorly synthesized in the Big
Bang and also in stars. The two general trends in the
remaining stellar-produced elements are: (1) an alternation of
abundance of elements according to whether they have even
or odd atomic numbers, and (2) a general decrease in
abundance, as elements become heavier. Within this trend is a
peak at abundances of iron and nickel, which is especially
visible on a logarithmic graph spanning fewer powers of ten,
say between logA=2 (A=100) and logA=6 (A=1,000,000).

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 The cosmic abundance of the elemental data shows the fallowing
irregularities.
1.The elemental abundances show a rapid exponential decrease for elements of
the lower atomic number(to about atomic number30),followed by an almost
constant value for the heaver elements.
2.Elements of even atomic number are more abundant than those of odd
atomic number on either side. This regularity was first recognized
independently by Oddo in 1914 and Harkins in 1917 and is sometimes
referred to as the Oddo-Harkins rule.
3.The relative abundance of elements of higher atomic number than nickel
very less than those for elements of lower atomic number.
4.Only 10 elements-H, He,C,N,O,Ne,Mg,Si,S and Fe-all with atomic number
less than 27,show appreciable abundance, of these ,hydrogen and helium for
outweighs the other eight.

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 Atomic Structure

What is an atom?

 Atom: the smallest unit of matter that

retains the identity of the substance

 First proposed by Democratus

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• Atoms are composed of 2 regions:
– Nucleus: the center of the atom that
contains the mass of the atom
– Electron cloud: region that surrounds
the nucleus that contains most of the
space in the atom

Nucleus
Electron
Cloud
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 What’s in the Nucleus?
The nucleus contains 2 of the 3 subatomic particles:
Protons: positively charged subatomic particles
Neutrons: neutrally charged subatomic particles
What’s in the Electron Cloud?
The 3rd subatomic particle resides outside of the nucleus in the electron cloud
Electron: the subatomic particle with a negative charge and relatively no mass
How do these particles interact
Protons and neutrons live compacted in the tiny positively charged nucleus
accounting for most of the mass of the atom.
The negatively charged electrons are small and have a relatively small mass but
occupy a large volume of space outside the nucleus
How do the subatomic particles balance each other?
In an atom: The protons = the electrons
If 20 protons are present in an atom then 20 electrons are there to balance
the overall charge of the atom—atoms are neutral
The neutrons have no charge; therefore they do not have to equal the number
of protons or electrons 38
  How do we know the number of subatomic particles in an atom?
 Atomic number: this number indicates the number of protons in an atom
 Ex: Hydrogen’s atomic number is 1;So hydrogen has 1 proton
 Ex: Carbon’s atomic number is 6;So carbon has 6 protons
The number of protons identifies the atom.: Ex. 2 protons = He, 29 protons = Cu

 What about the electrons?

 The electrons are equal to the number of protons ; So e- = p = atomic #
 Ex: He has a mass # of 4 and an atomic # of 2;p+ = 2;no = 2;e- = 2
 Determine the number of subatomic particles in the following:

 Cl has a mass # of 35 and an atomic # of 17; p+ = 17, no = 18, e- = 17

 K has a mass # of 39 and an atomic # of 19; P+ = 19, no = 20, e- = 19

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• Bohr Model of the atom:
Reviewers think this could lead to misconceptions!

All of the
protons and
the neutrons
The 3rd ring
can hold up
to 18 e- The 1st ring can
The 4th ring hold up to 2 e-
and any after The 2nd ring can
can hold up to hold up to 8 e-
32 e-

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 What is nuclear stability and where does this come from?
As we all know , the nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons and protons
are positively charged particles and neutrons have no charge From Coulomb’s law we
learned that like charges repel one another strongly , particularly in the nucleus when we
consider how close they must be to each other.
At first glance, the existence of several protons in the small space of a nucleus is
puzzling. Why would not the protons be strongly repelled by their like electric charges?

Nagehan Demirci 10-U

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The existence of stable nuclei with more than one proton is due to the nuclear
force. The nuclear force is a strong force of attraction between nucleons
(protons and neutrons together called nucleons ) that acts only at very short
distances. (about 10-15 m.) Beyond nuclear distances these forces become
negligible. Insıde the nucleus however , two protons are close enough together
for the nuclear force between them to be effective. This force can more than
compensate for the repulsion of electric charges and thereby gives a stable
nucleus. The fact that some nuclie are unstable (radioactive) ,and others are
stable leads us to consider the reasons of stabilitiy.

FACTORS DETERMINING NUCLEAR STABILITY

Two important factors determine the nuclear stability.
•1-The mass number- (the total number of nucleons in the nucleus);
•2-The neutron to proton ratio-This is because in a nucleus , the positively
charged protons repel each other and as the number of protons increases in a
nucleus the forces of repulsion between the protons increases drastically.

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Thus a greater proportion of neutrons is required for a nucleus to remain stable as the atomic number
increases.
The Band Of Stability
When you plot each stable nuclide on a graph with the number of protons (Z) on the horizantal axis and
the number of neutrons (N) on the vertical axis , These stable nuclides fall into a certain region, or band
, of the graph. The band of stability is the region in which nuclides lie in a plot of number of protons
against number of neutrons.

 The zone of stability. The dots in the blue

area represents the nuclides that do not
undergo radioactive decay. Note that as
the number protons in a nuclide increases,
the neutron/proton ratio required for
stability also increases. The area above the
blue area represents an unstable region in
which there are too many neutrons,
therefore beta decay. In the region below
the blue area represents an unstable region
in which there are too many protons
therefore spontaneous positron decay

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 A 1 to 1 neutron to proton ratio holds true for the stable nuclei of the
first twenty elements in the periodic table. This ratio increases to 1.5 to 1 around
atomic number 80. Elements above atomic number 83 with 209 nucleons do not
exist as stable isotopes. Thus for polonium , with 84 protons , the repulsive
forces due to the 84 protons are so large that regardless of the number of
neutrons , its nuclides are unstable.
When the neutron to proton ratio is too large or too small, the nucleus is
unstable , the atom is called a radionuclide and undergoes radioactive decay. If
a radionuclide has a higher neutron to proton ratio , that is it has

An excess of neutrons and therefore a neutron disintegrates to form a

proton with the emission of a beta particle.
0n 1p + -1e
1 1 0

This decreases the neutron to proton ratio and may be repeated until it
reaches the stable value and no further radioactive decay takes place. An
example of beta decay is;93Np239 -1e0 + 94Pu239
If on the other hand , a radionuclide has a lower neutron to proton ratio ,
it has an excess of protons and therefore a proton is transformed

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to a neutron either by positron emission or by
electron capture.

15P 14Si30 + -1e0 ; positron emission

30

18 Ar37 + e0  Cl37 ; electron capture

-1 17

In both positron emmission and electron capture by

a nucleus , the nucleus produced hass one less
proton .
If however , the number of nucleons exceeds 209,
the limit to be a stable nuclide is over and lies
beyond the stable value , so several decays are
required in order to attain stability.
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MAGIC NUMBERS
The protons and neutrons in a nucleus appear to have energy levels
much as the electrons in an atom have energy levels. The shell model of the
nucleus is a nuclear model in which protons and neutrons exist in levels, or
shells analogous to the shell structure that exists for electrons in an atom. Filled
shells of electrons are associated with the special stability of the noble gases. The
total numbers of electrons for these stable atoms are 2,10,18,36,54,86.
Experimentally it is noted that nuclie with certain numbers of protons or neutrons
appear to be very stable.
These numbers are called the magic numbers and associated with
specially stable nuclei. According to this theory, a magic number is the
number of nuclear particles in a completed shell of protons and neutrons. For
protons the magic numbers are 2, 8,20, 28, 50, 82 . Neutrons have these
same magic numbers , as well as the magic number 126.
Some of the evidence for these magic numbers, and therefore for the shell
model of the nucleus is as follows. Many radioactive nuclei decay by
emmitting alpha particles or helium nuclei.

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There appears to be special stability in the helium nucleus. It contains two
protons and two neutrons , which 2 is a magic number.
Another piece of evidence is seen in the final products obtained in natural
radioactive decay. For example uranium-238 decays to thorium-234,
which in turn decays to protactinium- 234 and so forth. Each product is
radioactive and decays to another nucleus until the final product 82Pb206 is
reached. This nucleus is stable. Note that it cantains 82 protons, a magic
number. Other some radioactive series end with 82Pb208 and note that it
has magic number of neutrons (208-82=126
A nucleus with a completely filled shell of either protons or neutrons is
said to be magic because it is relatively more stable than nuclei with either
a larger or a smaller number of nucleons. Most magic nuclei are spherical
in shape, but some nuclei can lower their energy somewhat, and hence
increase their stability, by rearranging their protons and neutrons into
deformed shells accommodating a different number of nucleons. The
closing of these deformed shells leads to deformed magic numbers

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Another rule that can be useful in predicting the nuclear stability is;
Nuclei with even number of protons and even number of neutrons are more stable
that those with any other combination. Conversely nuclei with odd numbers of
both protons and neutron are the least stable. Remember that magic numbers are
also even.

The Odd-Even Rule

In the odd-even rule, when the numbers of neutrons and protons in the nucleus are both
even numbers, the isotopes tends to be far more stable than when they are both odd. Out of
all the 264 stable isotopes, only 4 have both odd numbers of both, whereas 168 have even
numbers of both, and the rest have a mixed number.
This has to do with the spins of nucleons. Both protons and neutrons spin. When two
protons or neutrons have paired spins (opposite spins), their combined energy is less than
when they are unpaired.

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 Number of protons Number of neutrons Stable Nuclides Example
Even Even 168 Carbon12-6
Even Odd 57 Carbon13-6
Odd Even 50 Fluorine19-9
Odd Odd 4 Lithium6-3

Summary of the rules that are useful in predicting the nuclear stability :
•All nuclides with 83 or more protons are unstable with respect to radioactive
decay.
•Light nuclides are stable when atomic number equals to the number of
neutrons ; that is when the neutron to proton ratio is 1. However for heavier
elements the neutron to proton ratio required for stability is more than 1 and
increases with the increase in the atomic number.
•Nuclides with even number of protons and neutrons are more stable compared
to others.
•Nuclei that contain a magic number of proton and neutron seems to
be more stable.

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The ABC's (or Alpha, Beta, Gamma)
of Radioactivity

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 Agenda
Definition of Radioactivity and emissions
Discussion of the three most important
types of emissions
What do we mean by half-life?
Where is Radioactivity encountered?
Is Radioactivity dangerous?

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 Expectations
SWBAT state what radioactivity is, where these
rays come from, what each ray is made of and
state why they are dangerous.
SWBAT identify 4 pioneer scientists who made
important contributions to understanding
radioactivity
SWABT to explain the meaning of “half-life”.
Student will be asked to find any sources of
Radioactivity in his/her environment

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Radioactive decay is the process in which an
unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by emitting
radiation in the form of particles or
electromagnetic waves.

There are numerous types of radioactive decay.

The general idea:

An unstable nucleus releases energy

to become more stable

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• Z = The Atomic Number. It’s the Number of
Protons in the nucleus of an Atom.
• Nucleus: It’s where the Protons and
Neutrons are located in an Atom.
• Protons: Positively Charged Particles in the
Nucleus of the atom. Mass = (approx) 1 AMU
• Neutrons: Neutrally charged particles in the
nucleus of an atom Mass = (approx) 1 AMU
• Mass Number of an atom: Number of Protons
+ Number of Neutrons in the nucleus of an
atom.
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55
Kinds of Radioactivity

The three main decays are Alpha,

Beta and Gamma
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Three Common Types of
Radioactive Emissions
Alpha

Beta

Gamma

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 ORIGIN OF SOLAR SYSTEM
The solar system consists of the Sun, nine planets ,61 known moons a,
tremendous number of asteroids-most of which orbit the Sun in a zone between
Mars and Jupiter-and millions of comets, meteorites and interplanetary dust and
gases. If all the matter in the solar system, excluding the Sun ,were combined, it
would make up less than one percent of the Sun’s total mass.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLAR SYSTEM

1-All the planets revolve around the Sun in the same direction in nearly circular orbit and
in approximately the same plane(called the plane of the ecliptic) except for Pluto whose
orbit is both highly elliptical and tilted 17 to the orbital plane of the rest of the planets
2-all the planets except Venus and Uranus and nearly all the planetary moons rotate
counter clockwise when viewed from a point high in space above the Earth’s North pole
3-The axis of rotation of the planets except for those of Uranus and Pluto, are nearly
perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic
All the nine planets are divided in to two groups
1-Terrestrial planets- Mercury, Venus ,Earth and Mars. Terra means in Latin for Earth
2-Jovian planets- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune .these resemble Jupiter
3-the outermost planet ,Pluto is small and a low mean density of slightly more than 2.0
g/cm.
Any theory which explains the origin of our solar system must all the above said factors
and must accommodate the nature and distribution of the various interplanetary objects
such as the asteroids belt, comets and interplanetary gases and dust
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 Nebular Hypothesis
German philosopher, Kant and French mathematician, Laplace .
1-Earth, planets and sun originated from Nebula.
2-Nebula was large cloud of gas and dust. It rotates slowly. Gradually it cooled and
contracted and its speed increased.
3-A gaseous ring was separated from nebula4-Later the ring cooled and took form of a
planet5-On repetition of the process all other planets came into being6-The central region,
nebula became sun.
objections:
Sun should have the greatest angular momentum because of its mass and situated
in the center, however, it has only two percent of momentum of the solar system. How the
hot gaseous material condensed in to rings
Planetesimal Hypothesis
Chamberlin and Moulton proposed the theory in 1904-1-The sun existed before
the formation of planets
2-A star came close to the sun. 3-Because of the gravitation pull of the star, small gaseous
bodies were separated from the sun 4-These bodies on cooing became small planet's 5-
During rotation the small planets collided and form planets
Objections:
The angular momentum could not be produced by the passing star. The theory failed to
explain how the planetesimals had become one planet
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Gaseous Tidal Theory
Jeans and Jeffrey proposed the theory in 1925
Large star came near the sun. Due to gravitational pull a
gaseous tide was raised on the surface of the sun.
As the star came nearer, the tide increased in size. Gaseous
tide detached when star move away. The shape of the tide
was like spindle. It broke into pieces-forming nine planets
of the solar system

60
 Origin and Differentiation of the Earth
Current hypotheses have the Earth (and the other planets) formed from material in
the solar disk as described in the previous lecture. The sequence of events leading to a
differentiated Earth are presented below.
The Earth formed by the process known as Accretion. This
process is "gravity-driven", and involves gravitational attraction of material
in the vicinity of the solar disk to the growing Earth. The process continues
to this date with meteorite impacts, but must have occurred at a very high
rate while the planet was initially forming. Release of energy during
impact of the accreting bodies produced heat. Owing to the fact that the
rocky material which comprises the Earth is a good heat insulator, heat
from the accretion process was maintained below the Earth's surface, as
each hot layer was subsequently covered by, and insulated by overlying
accretion debris.

As the Earth grew larger, it's gravitational field increased and it began to
compact as a result of the growing mass of largely unconsolidated
material. The process of compaction also produced heat, which further
served to increase the temperature within the still-forming planet. At this
stage of planetary formation, the Earth was "warm" with internal
temperatures probably reaching as high as 1500 degrees Centigrade.
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 In addition to heat generated by the processes of accretion and
compaction, the newly formed Earth also contained relatively small
quantities of radioactive elements (esp. isotopes of U, K and Rb).
[Some of these isotopes, such as U(238) have a half life of about
4.5Ga, and consequently about twice as many radioactive atoms
existed at this time relatively to the present.] As these radioactive
atoms spontaneously disintegrate by nuclear fission, energy is
released in the form of heat.

Immediately following accretion, the Earth must have been uniform or homogeneous
in composition. Furthermore, it would have lacked both an atmosphere and
hydrosphere.

The three main processes involved in planetary formation (I, II and III above) each
contributed heat to the newly formed planet. The figure below (Fig. 1-9 in your textbook)
represents results of calculations of interior temperatures following planetary formation. The
lowermost curve (a) gives the temperature vs depth profile immediately after accretion and

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compaction (i.e., without radioactive heat production). Radioactive decay resulting
in a warming of the interior as indicated by curves b and c. At some point in time,
radioactive heating resulted in temperatures exceeding the melting point for iron
(curve d).

Once temperatures were high enough for iron (and other lower-melting-point
minerals) to begin to melt, a profound event occurred. This event is known as
the Iron Catastrophy. Once the interior began to partially melt, high density,
iron-rich liquids began to sink toward the center of the earth, while low-density
liquids rose toward the surface. In other words, the planet began to
differentiate (seperate) into a density stratified body. As dense material sank
toward the center, more energy was released in the form of heat, causing the
temperatures to increase even more, resulting in more melting, more sinking of
iron, and more heat being released ( a positive-feedback process). It is likely that much of
the Earth melted in this process. There is strong evidence to suggest that the outer portions
of the Moon became completely molten, thus forming a magma ocean. The same may have
also happened on the Earth. The sequence of events and final result are illustrated in the
figure below (Fig. 1-9 in your textbook):

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The differentiation resulted in formation of an iron-rich core (ca. 90% Fe, 10%
Ni), a low density crust rich in silicon, aluminum and oxygen, and an
intermediate density mantle rich in magnesium, silicon and oxygen. The
efficiency of the differentiation can be judged by the following table showing the
relative abundance of elements in the whole Earth compared to that in the crust:

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 Wt. % in
Element Wt.% in Whole Earth
Crust
Oxygen 30 46
Iron 35 6
Silicon 15 28
Magnesium 13 4
Nickel 2.4 <1
Calcium 1.1 2.4
Aluminum 1.1 8
Sodium + Potassium <1 4.4

Another profound result of the Iron Catastrophy was the initial

formation of the primitive atmosphere and hydrosphere. As the Earth began to melt,
gases would be released in a fashion similar to that observed in contemporary
volcanoes. Release of enormous quantities of volatiles during wholesale melting,
resulted in the generation of the primitive atmosphere and hydrosphere. I use the
term primitive, because these volcanic gases would have been very toxic, would have
contained little or no free oxygen, and certainly would have been incapable of
supporting any life. It would take an additional billion years or so, before primitive
organisms could develop and begin the process of photosynthesis necessary to
generate an atmosphere at all like the one we enjoy and rely upon today.

Another consequence of the Iron Catastrophy is that it resulted in a very hot planetary interior. The large temperature gradient between
the interior and the surface results in heat transfer from the interior to the surface. The dominant mode of Earth's heat transfer is
convection, primarily in the still-hot, plastic portion of the mantle known as the asthenosphere. This convection is responsible for the
many dynamic characteristics of the Earth today. Indeed, it can be said that the past 4.6 Ga of Earth's history can be described as the
dynamic consequences of the Earth's internal mechanism of transferring heat from the interior. These consequences include, but are not
limited to the following

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 Plate Tectonics
Volcanism
Mountain Building
Recycling of Earth Materials

The diagram to the left presents a very simplified model showing how
convection in the mantle might be the driving force of plate tectonics. Hot
matter from deep within the interior rises beneath divergent plate
boundaries (rifts) and flows apart carring with it the overlying, rigid
lithospheric plate. Plates sink with cold matter along convergent plate
boundaries (subduction zones).
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