Planetology

• Terrestrial Planets
– Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and maybe Pluto
– Solid, rocky crusts
– Thin atmospheres
– Ages of surfaces determined by counting craters
• Jovian Planets
– Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
– Composed mostly of gas, small cores of rock or
ice
– Thick atmospheres
 Earth: Fast Facts
• Orbital Period: 365.25 days
• Rotational Period: 1 day
• Orbital eccentricity: 0.0167
• Diameter: 12800 km
• Atmosphere: nitrogen, oxygen, argon,
methane, water vapor
 Mercury
• Fast Facts:
– 57 million km from sun
– Year = 88 earth days
– Day = 59 earth days
– Eccentricity = 0.2
– Diameter = 4866 km
– Thin atmosphere of Na, O, H
– Strong magnetic field, which means it has a
large iron core
 Mercury
• When a planet has such an eccentric orbit,
we can deduce that it formed in a different
place and was “captured” into its present
orbit.
Mercury
Mercury
Mercury: Caloris Impact Basin
 Venus
• Fast Facts:
– 108 million km from sun
– Year: 225 earth days
– Day: 243 earth days
– Only planet where sun rises in the west
– Diameter 12,106 km
– Atmosphere: thick CO2, H2SO4, which falls as
precipitation
– Surface temperature 475 degrees C (900 F)
– Atmospheric pressure 90X earth’s
 Venusian Geology
• 85% of surface covered by basalt flows
• Basalt only about 500 million years old
(based on crater counts)
• No chains of volcanoes and no extensive
fault zones, so…..
• No plate tectonics
False color images from
Magellan radar probe
The Maat Mons volcano
Maat Mons, Venus
 Jupiter
• Fast facts:
– 778 million km from sun
– Year: 11.8 earth years
– Day: 9.9 hours
– Diameter: 139516 km
– Magnetic field 20,000 X as strong as earths
– > 25 moons
– Besides the sun, contains 70% of solar system’s mass
– Generates twice as much heat as it gets from sun
 A cross-section of Jupiter
Lower atmosphere:
Hydrogen & Helium Upper atmosphere:
ammonia, water vapor
water ice crystals

Metallic
hydrogen core
 Saturn
• Fast Facts:
– 1.4 billion km from sun
– Year: 29.5 earth years
– Day: 10.5 hours
– Diameter: 116438 km
 Interior of Saturn
Lower atmosphere:
Hydrogen & Helium Upper atmosphere:
ammonia, methane,
water ice crystals

Ice or rock core

Saturn and some of its moons
The rings of Saturn
 Saturn’s rings
• Total diameter of 270000 km
• Total thickness of 5 km!
• Formed by a moon being torn apart by
Saturn’s gravity
• Composed of water ice
• Clean, bright ice particles tell us rings are
young:
• 100,000,000 million years old
Moons of Saturn
 Uranus
• 286 billion km from sun
• Year: 84 earth years
• Day: 17.5 hours
• Inclination: 98 degrees: poles point to sun,
so no true day/night cycle
• Maybe caused by some impact?
Uranus
Uranus
Rings of Uranus
 Neptune
• Fast Facts:
– 4.49 billion km from sun
– Year: 164 earth years
– Day: 15.6 hours
– Warmer than Uranus, even though it’s farther
from sun
– Eccentricity = 0.007, almost a perfect circle
– Therefore, no big (Jovian) planets beyond
– Observable weather
Neptune
Neptune
 Pluto
• 4.4 billion to 7.7 billion km from sun
• Highly elliptical orbit (0.25)
• Inclined orbit
• Diameter: 2300 km
• Year: 248 earth years
• Day: ?
• Surface is frozen water, CO, N2 and methane
• Maybe a rocky core
• 1 satellite, Charon (1200 km diameter)
Pluto and Charon
Pluto and Charon
Map of Pluto