Saint Vincent De Paul Diocesan College

Mangagoy, Bislig City

ASTRONOMY

I- Title: The Solar System

Objective:

At the end of this lesson, the students shall be able to.

• Familiarize the solar system.

II- Discussion

Among the millions and millions of stars that form the Milky Way Galaxy, there is a
medium-sized one located in one of the galaxy’s arms—the Sun. To ancient people, the
sun was a god; to us, it is the central source of energy that generates heat, helping life
exist. This star, together with the planets and other bodies that spin in orbits around it,
make up the solar system, which was formed about 4.6 billion years ago from the
gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud.

Formation
Our solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a dense cloud of interstellar
gas and dust. The cloud collapsed, possibly due to the shockwave of a nearby
exploding star, called a supernova. When this dust cloud collapsed, it formed a solar
nebula – a spinning, swirling disk of material.
At the center, gravity pulled more and more material in. Eventually, the pressure in the
core was so great that hydrogen atoms began to combine and form helium, releasing a
tremendous amount of energy. With that, our Sun was born, and it eventually amassed
more than 99% of the available matter.
Matter farther out in the disk was also clumping together. These clumps smashed into
one another, forming larger and larger objects. Some of them grew big enough for their
gravity to shape them into spheres, becoming planets, dwarf planets, and large moons.
In other cases, planets did not form: the asteroid belt is made of bits and pieces of the
early solar system that could never quite come together into a planet. Other smaller
leftover pieces became asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and small, irregular moons.
Structure
The order and arrangement of the planets and other bodies in our solar system is due to
the way the solar system formed. Nearest to the Sun, only rocky material could
withstand the heat when the solar system was young. For this reason, the first four
planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – are terrestrial planets. They are all small
with solid, rocky surfaces.
Meanwhile, materials we are used to seeing as ice, liquid, or gas settled in the outer
regions of the young solar system. Gravity pulled these materials together, and that is
where we find gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.

ATTRACTED BY A STAR

Planets and their satellites, asteroids and other rocky objects, and an incalculable
number of cometlike objects, make up the solar system. In the 17th century, astronomer
Johannes Kepler proposed a model to interpret the dynamic properties of the bodies of
the solar system. He stated that the planets complete elliptical trajectories, called orbits,
around the sun. In every case, the movement is produced by the influence of the
gravitational field of the Sun. Today as part of a rapidly developing field of astronomy, it
is known that planets or planet-like bodies also orbit other stars.

Sun

Our Sun is a 4.5-billion-year-old yellow dwarf star – a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and
helium – at the center of our solar system. The Sun, at the center of the solar system, is
a source of light and heat. The energy that emanates from the sun travels through
space and initially encounters the bodies that populate the solar system. This energy is
produced by the fusion of atomic hydrogen nuclei, which generate helium nuclei.
Without the Sun’s energy, life as we know it could not exist on our home planet. The
Sun shines thanks to thermonuclear fusion and it will continue to shine until its supply of
hydrogen runs out in about 6 or 7 billion years.
From our perspective here on Earth, the sun appears motionless, yet it is in fact
speeding through the Milky Way Galaxy. Every star in the Milky Way, including the sun,
orbits the galactic center.

Planets are categorized into two.

Inner Planets – Planets located inside the asteroid belt. They are solid bodies in which
internal geologic phenomena occur that can modify their surfaces. Almost all the
terrestrial planets have an appreciable atmosphere of some degree of thickness,
according to individual circumstances, which plays a key role in the surface
temperatures of each planet.

Asteroid belt – border between the outer and inner planets, which is marked by
millions of rocky fragments of various sizes that form a band called the asteroid belt.

Outer Planets – Gas giants or the Jovian planets are located outside the asteroid belt.
They are enormous gas spheres with small solid cores. They have very low
temperatures because of their great distance from the sun. The presence of ring
systems is exclusive to these planets.

Mercury

The smallest planet in our solar system and nearest to the Sun. Therefore, it is the one
that must withstand the harshest of the Sun’s effects. Due to its proximity to the Sun,
Mercury moves at a great speed in its solar orbit, completing an orbit every 88 days.
From the surface of Mercury, the Sun would appear more than three times as large as it
does when viewed from Earth, and the sunlight would be as much as seven times
brighter. It has almost no atmosphere, and its surface is dry and rugged, covered with
craters caused by the impact of numerous meteorites. This is why it resembles the
moon. And there are also numerous faults formed during the cooling of the planet when
it was young, that are visible on the surface. Constantly baked by its neighbor, Mercury
has an average surface temperature of 333°F (167 °C).
Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and our closest planetary neighbor. It's the
hottest planet in our solar system and is sometimes called Earth's twin. Similar in size to
Earth, it has a volcanic surface, as well as a hostile atmosphere governed by the effects
of carbon dioxide. Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus spins slowly in the
opposite direction from most planets. Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway
greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system with surface
temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Glimpses below the clouds reveal volcanoes and
deformed mountains. Although 4 billion years ago the atmospheres of the Earth and
Venus were similar, today the mass of Venus’s atmosphere is 100 times greater than
the Earth’s. Its thick clouds of sulfuric acid and dust are so dense that stars are invisible
from the planet’s surface. Viewed from Earth, Venus can be bright enough to be visible
during the day and second only to the moon in brightness at night. Because of how
bright Venus is, the planet’s movement was well-known or familiar to most ancient
civilizations.
Venus is named for the ancient Roman goddess of love and beauty, who was known as
Aphrodite to the ancient Greeks. Most features on Venus are named for women.

Earth

Earth – our home planet – is the third planet from the Sun, and the fifth largest planet.
It's the only place we know of inhabited by living things. The Earth is known as the blue
planet because of the color of the oceans that cover two thirds of its surface. This planet
is the only one where the right conditions exist to sustain life. Water in liquid form makes
it possible for life to exist on Earth, the only planet where temperatures vary from 32°F
to 212°F (0-100°C), allowing water to exist as a liquid. The earth’s average distance
from the sun, along with other factors, allowed life to develop 3.8 billion years ago. It
has liquid water in abundance, a mild temperature, and an atmosphere that protects it
from objects that fall from outer space. The atmosphere also filters solar radiation
thanks to its ozone layer. The Earth takes 24 hours to revolve once on its axis.
Earth is the only planet that has a single moon. Our Moon is the brightest and most
familiar object in the night sky. In many ways, the Moon is responsible for making Earth
such a great home. It stabilizes our planet's wobble, which has made the climate less
variable over thousands of years.

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun – is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin
atmosphere. This dynamic planet has seasons, polar ice caps, extinct volcanoes,
canyons, and weather. Of all the planets, Mars closely resembles the earth. It has polar
ice caps, and the tilt of its axis, period of rotation, and internal structure are like Earth.
Known as the red planet because of the reddish iron dioxide that covers its surface,
Mars has a thin atmosphere composed essentially of carbon dioxide. Mars does not
have water. Though it did in the past, there is evidence that some water might exist
underground.

Mars is one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, and it's the only planet
where we've sent rovers to roam the alien landscape. NASA missions have found lots of
evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer, with a thicker atmosphere, billions of
years ago.
Mars was named by the Romans for their god of war because its reddish color was
reminiscent of blood. The Egyptians called it "Her Desher," meaning "the red one."
Even today, it is frequently called the "Red Planet" because iron minerals in the Martian
dirt oxidize, or rust, causing the surface to look red.

The Asteroid Belt

The asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between 2.3 and 3.3 AU
(340 and 490 million km; 210 and 310 million mi) from the Sun. It is thought to be
remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the
gravitational interference of Jupiter.
The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one
kilometer in diameter. Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be
more than a thousandth of that of Earth. The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated;
spacecraft routinely pass through without incident.

Jupiter

Jupiter is a world of extremes. It's the largest planet in our solar system – if it were a
hollow shell, 1,000 Earths could fit inside. It's also the oldest planet, forming from the
dust and gases left over from the Sun's formation 4.5 billion years ago. But it has the
shortest day in the solar system, taking only 10.5 hours to spin around once on its axis.
Its diameter is 11 times that of the Earth, and its mass is 300 times as great. Because of
the speed of Jupiter’s rotation, this flattens the planet at its poles, and so its equatorial
diameter is greater than its polar diameter. Jupiter rotates at 25,000 miles per hour
(40.000km/h). One of the most distinctive elements of Jupiter’s atmosphere is the Great
Red Spot, a giant high-pressure region of turbulence that has been observed on the
Earth for more than 300 years. The planet is orbited by numerous satellites and has a
wide, faint ring of particles.

Jupiter's signature stripes and swirls are cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water,
floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The dark orange stripes are called
belts, while the lighter bands are called zones, and they flow east and west in opposite
directions. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has
raged for hundreds of years.
The king of planets was named for Jupiter, king of the gods in Roman mythology. Most
of its moons are also named for mythological characters, figures associated with Jupiter
or his Greek counterpart, Zeus.

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, and the second-largest planet in our solar
system. It is a large ball of gas surrounding a small, solid core. Saturn was the most
distant planet discovered before the invention of the telescope. to the naked eye, it
looks like a yellowish star but with the help of a telescope, its rings are visible.

Saturn is the only planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water. If an ocean
could be found large enough to hold it, Saturn would float. The rings of Saturn are made
up of small ice and rock particles.

Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and
helium. Saturn is not the only planet to have rings, but none are as spectacular or as
complex as Saturn's. Saturn also has dozens of moons.
From the jets of water that spray from Saturn's moon Enceladus to the methane lakes
on smoggy Titan, the Saturn system is a rich source of scientific discovery and still
holds many mysteries.

Uranus

Uranus is the seventh farthest planet from the Sun and the third largest planet in the
solar system. Uranus is a very cold and windy world. The ice giant is surrounded by 13
faint rings and 28 small moons. One peculiarity distinguishing it from the other planets is
its anomalous axis of rotation, tilted nearly 90° around the plane of its orbit, one or the
other of Uranus’ poles points towards the sun. Astronomers speculate that, during its
formation, Uranus may have suffered an impact with a protoplanet, which could have
altered Uranus’ tilt. Since Uranus’ orbit is so large, the planet takes 84 years to
completely orbit around the Sun. Uranus’ period of rotation is 17hours and 14minutes.

Uranus was the first planet found with the aid of a telescope. It was discovered in 1781
by astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was either a comet or
a star. It was two years later that the object was universally accepted as a new planet,
in part because of observations by astronomer Johann Elert Bode.
Neptune

Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. Dark, cold, and
whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is more than 30 times as far from the
Sun as Earth. Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked
eye. In 2011 Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery in 1846.
Neptune is so far from the Sun that high noon on the big blue planet would seem like
dim twilight to us. The warm light we see here on our home planet is roughly 900 times
as bright as sunlight on Neptune. Images sent to Earth by Voyager 2 show the planet as
a remarkably blue sphere, an effect produced by the presence of methane in the outer
part of Neptune’s atmosphere. Its rings and impressive clouds are noteworthy, as it is
resemblant to Uranus.

Resources:

https://science.nasa.gov/sun/facts/#hds-sidebar-nav-1

https://science.nasa.gov/mercury/facts/

https://science.nasa.gov/venus/facts/#hds-sidebar-nav-1

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/facts

https://science.nasa.gov/mars/facts/

https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/facts/

https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/facts/

https://science.nasa.gov/uranus/facts/#hds-sidebar-nav-1

https://science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts/#hds-sidebar-nav-1