If you lived in a world where people regularly traveled at speeds near the speed of light, why would it be risky to make a dental appointment for 10:00 AM next Thursday?
ASTRONOMY AST 1001-0001 RILEY WEEK 4 WEEK FOUR LECTURE NOTES THE SOLAR SYSTEM • Terrestrial planets- 4 inner • Jovial planets- 4 outer • Our solar system is a very small part of the universe • Solar objects o Oort Cloud o Kulper Belt objects o Dwarf Planets (Pluto, Ceres, Eris) o 336 Moons (and counting) o 8 Planets o 1 Sun • Incline of Orbits o Except for Mercury, all orbits are on close to the same plane, the Eliptic o Mercury is 7° to the eliptic o Solar system-pretty much flat o Pluto is 37° at an incline • The ORBITAL PERIOD is how long it takes to go around the sun • You can measure the rotation period by direct observation • The solar system is 4.6 billion years old o How do we know this o Radioactive Decay FORMATION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM • Asteroids are very old and they have different properties from planets • KEPLER BELT- a collection of asteroid-size icy bodies orbiting Neptune • OORT CLOUD- comets in a distance far from the sun, icy fragments, do not orbit in the plane of the eliptic • Iron and heavier elements were created from dying stars in a process called NUCLEAR FUSION • Heavier elements make up the inner planets and lighter elements make up the outer planets • Cosmic recycling • Spectroscopy of distant stars • A cloud of interstellar gas and dust contracts because of its own gravity o Cloud flattens and begins to spin around
