As well as the Planets there are countless Moons that orbit them some of them their own magnificent worlds of fire water and ice.
Friday, 17 September 2010
The Planets!
The Solar System!!
Just a little video to give an idea of the structures, distances and the size of the objects that make up our solar system and beyond.
Mercury !
Venus !
Carl Sagan! Equation for Life !
In this video Carl Sagan discusses the likelihood of life in our Universe.
Mars !
The red planet named after the roman god of war. It is believed that mars once had large oceans and that liquid water could lie beneath its ice caps.
A sunset on Mars, picture taken by probe (Spirit mission). |
Human face on mars, image taken during the viking mission 1976. The face turned out to be an illusion formed by the direction of the light. |
Spirit also took this spooky image of a lifelike figure. |
Ceres ! And the dwarf planets !
In between Mars and Jupiter is an area called the astroid belt. It is regarded as the bone yard of the solar system all the left over particles that did not form into planets. The largest object within this area is a small planet called Ceres. Ceres is known as a dwarf planet and is one of five in the solar system.
A dwarf planet is an object that orbits the sun and is rounded, it is not however a planet on the basis that it has not cleared its own orbit of all objects of a similar size. Pluto was striped of its planet status as its orbit path is to full due to the kyper belt.
Ceres
Has a rocky core and an ice mantle there is therefor a possibility that liquid water could flow beneath its surface. Something that NASA's recent dawn mission hopes to unearth. SEE VIDEO BELOW !!
PlutoNamed after the god of the underworld due to its distance from the sun. Pluto has an egg shaped orbit and was effectively striped of its planet status by professor Mike Brown in jan 2005 after the discovery of Eris.
ErisThe largest Dwarf planet discovered by Mike Brown 2005, its is considered a TNO trans Neptunian object.
Makemake Named after the Rapanui god Makemake. |
Haumea
Haumea is unique due to its shape it has a slight curvature giving the dwarf planet the appearance of an american football.
Jupiter and Its Moons!
Ganymede The largest moon in the solar system, and the most heavily cratered. |
Saturn the ringed planet!
In 1979 Voyager made a mysterious discovery. Saturn appeared to have a perfect hexagon at its north pole. The hexagon is the planets Polar vortex similar to that of earths but different in shape. |
Saturns moon's Titan and Enceladus !
Titan a world very similar to our own!
Titan is the solar systems 2nd largest moon and arguably its most interesting.
As part of the Cassini mission a probe was landed on Titan to explore the
mysterious moon shrouded in cloud. The probe found a landscape covered in
mountains dunes winds and liquid methane rivers. Titan had a atmosphere
10 times thicker than earth but the correct measures of methane and
hydrogen to stimulate organic compounds. The problem being the atmosphere
is to cold, 300 degrees below freezing.
Pictures taken by the probe revealing a world not to dissimilar to ours. The Cassini probe landed on a surface consisting of liquid and solid an almost slush type material. |
These images are scientifically accurate artist depictions of the Cassini landing. |
Enceladus About one 8th the size of our own moon. Enceladus is a very active moon, this ice ball is being constantly pulled by saturn s gravity this causes its icy surface to rub against itself this friction causes heat. In turn the heat makes massive geysers, and huge eruptions 100 miles into the air. These huge eruptions prove there is water on the moon the energy that heats this water could provide nutrients for life to exist and be sustained |
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
The outer planets! Uranus and Neptune and Pluto.
Uranus
Named after the greek goddess of the sky. Uranus is an ice giant, the planet has an off centre axis meaning it spins on its side. Scientists have recently discovered it has faint rings believed to have formed due to a huge collision into one of its 27 moons.
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