MSTE AIMS 2008: Let's Go: Solar System Brian Fields Astronomy and Physics Departments, U. Illlinois

The Big Picture: Our Place in the Cosmos

• Sun motion w.r.t celestial sphere: real-time movies of the Sun (LASCO C3 camera on SOHO)
• Planet Motion
  • Location on celestial sphere
    • four-planet sunset
    • trailing planets
    • Clementine lunar orbiter view of the Moon, Sun, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury.
  • Normal (direct) motion: SOHO/LASCO movie of Mercury conjunction
  • Retrograde motion: QuickTime animation, actual movie of Saturn
• Ptolemy and epicycles: animation
• Nicholas Copernicus
  • heliocentric model
  • retrograde motion explained (animation)
• Galileo Galilei: Astronomer
  • Telescope used for astronomy
  • Galileo reporting to the funding agency
  • Observations
    • Moons of Jupiter (animation)
    • Venus phases (animation)

The Dynamic Solar System

Johannes Kepler & Kepler's Laws

1. Orbits are ellipses
2. Equal areas in equal times (animation, another animation)
3. P² = a³

• solar system orbit viewer
• inner solar system objects in real time

Whirlwind Tour of the Solar System

• the Big Picture
• Census: Solar System lineup
• orbit viewer applet
• Planet Properties

The Earth: The Theory of Plate Tectonics

• Evidence for plates
  • volcano locations
  • earthquake locations
  • plate boundaries
• Continental drift
  • Terrestrial evidence
  • Evidence from space: satellite laser ranging, VLBI, GPS timing
  • Drift animated
    
• Consequences of Drift
  • Mountains: Himalayas
  • Earthquakes: San Andreas fault. b/w image, color image, roadside cutaway in Palmdale, CA Carizo Plain, CA
  • Volcanoes: Mt. St. Helens

What's remarkable about this?

• hint

Mercury

• Messener mission--ongoing!

Venus

• terrestrial planet comparison
• atmosphere
• surface: global view (radar)
• craters, lava flows
• surface closeup (from Soviet landers): Venera 9 & 10, 1975; Venera 13; Venera 14
• Runaway greenhouse effect

Mars

• ongoing mission! Phoenix
• Polar caps S. pole
• Moons: Phobos, Deimos
• surface (Pathfinder, 1997)
• surface today: Endurance Crater, Engineering Flats, Columbia Hills, McMurdo panorama, clouds and sand
• The Face: Viking, 1976, Mars Globar Surveyor, 1998, Mars Express.
  another face, and a brain
• Craters
• Mount Olympus
• Water
  Past flows: channels, gullies, neutron Mars
  Present flows:
• a possible meteoritic fossil indication of life?

Jupiter

• Structure
• Great Red Spot image, movie
• more Jupiter movies

Rings: the Roche Limit

• Saturn: rings edge-on, illuminated from below, spoke movie
• Hot of the presses: Cassini images
  density waves in rings, rings in UV, rings in natural color, translucent C-ring, IR Saturn, reverse angle on rings
  Cassini movies
• Jupiter
• Uranus

Debris I: Asteroids

• Distribution and Orbits
  • Inner Solar System objects plotted
  • Main Belt objects: Ceres: biggest, spherical, officially a dwarf planet; Gaspara, Ida & Dactyl
  • Near-Earth objects
• Earth infall: meteors: Leonids, fireball
• Structure: NEAR Mission to asteroid Eros:
  Eros overview, rotation movie, zoom, extreme closeup composition

Debris II: Comets

• Hyakutake, West, Ikeya Seki
• McNaught--brightest comet in decades! perihelion last month! over Catalonia, near Sun, over New Zealand
• HST Hale-Bopp coma
• Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter
• Sun-grazing comets (SOHO): image, movie
• Structure
• Tail direction (SS orbit viewer)
• Kuiper Belt: current data plotted
• Oort Cloud

Pluto, Eris, and Planethood

• Charon discovery image (1978) HST image (1994), Pluto surface (2001), yet more moons (2006)
• Quaoar, Sedna, and finally: Eris (nee Xena)
• votes are in: IAU resolution demoting Pluto

Useful Links

BDF MSTE Astronomy Pages

• AIMS Astronomy 2007
• AIMS Astronomy 2006
• AIMS Astronomy 2005
• SummerMath 2004

BDF Course Webpages

• Astronomy 100 (Spring 2003): lecture pages with links
• Astronomy For Teachers: lecture pages with links

Other Astronomical/Educational Resources

• the invaluable Astronomy Picture of the Day
• solar motion throughout the year: the analemma
• solar system clearinghouse: nineplanets.org
• Google Earth, Moon

This page: www.astro.uiuc.edu/~bdfields/mste_aims08.html

Acknowledgments & Fine Print

The work of BDF was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.