THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The Solar System in General

The solar system consist of the sun, the nine planets, over
100 satellites of the planets, a large number of small bodies, (the
comets and asteroids), and the interplanetary medium.

The planets revolve around the sun in elliptical orbits with

the sun at one focus. The closest planet approach to the Sun is
perihelion, and the farthest is aphelion. The motion of a planet
around the Sun in its orbit is its revolution. The time required to
revolve from one position and return to the same position is called
one period of revolution or orbital period.

The planets in the solar system are often further classified in

two groups. The first group is of the inner planets consisting of
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The second group is of the outer
planet consisting of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
The inner planets are relatively small and have rocky crusts and
small atmospheres while the outer planets except Pluto are many
times larger and have dense, gaseous atmospheres with no visible
surfaces.

The planet not only revolves around the sun, but also spins
around its axis. The spinning of a planet is called rotation.

Table 1. The distance and diameter of the nine planets of the solar system
PLANET DISTANCE (from DIAMETER
the sun)
Mercury 57.910.000 km 4800 km
Venus 108.200.000 km 12.100 km
Earth 149.600.000 km 12.750 km
Mars 227.940.000 km 6.800 km
Jupiter 778.330.000 km 142.800 km
Saturn 1.429.400.000 km 120.660 km
Uranus 2.870.990.000 km 51.800 km
Neptune 4.504.300.000 km 49.500 km
Pluto 5.913.520.000 km 3000 km

The sun consist 99, 85 % of all materials in the solar system.

The planets contain only 0,135 %.
Satellites of planets, comets, and asteroids just contain 0.015%.
The origin of solar system:

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 Collapsing Clouds of Gas and Dust
The Spinning Nebula Flattens
Condensation of the Protosun and Protoplanets

The Planets

MERCURY

Orbital period : 87.97 days

Rotational period : 58.65 days
Mass : 0.05 time Earth mass
Volume : 0.05 time Earth volume
Surface gravity : 0.38 time Earth surface gravity
Maximum temperature : 465 C
Minimum temperature : -184 C
Diameter : 4 876 km
Distance from the sun : 57 million km

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and the eight largest.
Mercury is smaller than Ganymede and Titan but more massive.
Mercurys orbits are highly eccentric, at perihelion its only 46 million km, but
at aphelion its 70 million km.
Mercurys surface is heavily cratered and very old.
Mercury is the second densest major body in the solar system after Earth.
Mercury actually has a very thin atmosphere consisting of atoms blasted off its
surface by the solar wind.
One of the largest features on mercurys surface is the Caloris basin (Basin is
the depressed area with no surface outlet), it is about 1300 km in diameter.
Like the lunar basins, it was probably caused by a very large impact early in the
history of the solar system.
Mercury has no satellites.
Mercury is often visible with binoculars or even unaided eye, but it always very
near the sun and difficult to see in twilight sky.
Mercury is so close to the sun and so small, that it has only very thin
atmosphere. It has blown away by the suns solar wind. That means that there
almost no air on mercury.

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 VENUS

Orbital period : 224.70 days

Rotational period : 243.16 days
Mass : 0.81 time Earth mass
Volume : 0.86 time Earth volume
Surface gravity : 0.90 time Earth surface gravity
Average temperature : 449 C

Venus is the second planet from the sun and the sixth largest.
Venus orbit is mostly circular of that of any planets.
Venus was popularly thought to be two separate bodies; Eosphorus as the
morning star and Hesperus as the evening star
Venus rotation is somewhat unusual where it is both very slow (234 Earth days
per Venus days, slightly longer than Venus year) and retrograde (rotation or
orbital motion in a clockwise direction when viewed from above the north pole
of primary, i.e. in the opposite sense of most satellites.
Venus is sometimes regarded as Earths sister planet. In some ways they are
similar:
Venus is only slightly smaller than Earth (95% of Earth diameter and 85% of
Earth mass)
Both have few craters indicating relatively young surface
Their densities and chemical compositions are similar.
The Venus atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide.
There are several layers of clouds many kilometers thick composed of sulfuric
acid. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense
atmosphere produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus surface
temperature by about 125 degrees to over 470C.
Venus surface is actually hotter than Mercurys despite being nearly twice as far
from the sun
There are strong winds at the cloud tops but wind at the surface are very slow,
no more than a few kilometers per hour

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 Venus probably once had large amounts of water like Earth but it all boiled
away.
Earth would have suffered the same fate had it been just a little closer to the sun.
The surface of Venus is covered by lava flows.
There are several large shield volcanoes such as Sif Mons.
There are no small craters on Venus.
It seems that small meteoroid burn up in Venus dense atmosphere before
reaching the surface.
Venus has no satellites.
Venus is usually visible with the unaided eye. Sometimes referred as the
morning star or the evening star, it is by far the brightest star in the sky.

EARTH

Earth is the fifth largest planet and the third planet from the sun at the
distance of about 150 million kilometers or 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) or in
Indonesian SA {satuan astronomi. An astronomical unit is the mean distance
between Earth and the sun. it is derived constant and used to indicate distance
within a solar system.
Orbital period : 365.25 days
Rotational period : 23 hours 56 minutes
Mass : 6 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 kg
Volume : 1 097 509 500 000.000.000.000 cubic
meter
Surface gravity : 980 cm/s
Average temperature : 7.2 C
Table 2. The layer of the Earth
DEPTH IN KILOMETER NAME OF LAYERS
0 40 Crust
40 400 Upper mantle
400 650 Transition region
650 2700 Lower mantle
2700 2890 D layer
2890 5150 Outer core
5150 - 6378 Inner core

The crust varies considerably in thickness.

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 The inner core and crust are solid; the outer core and mantle layer are plastic or
semi-fluids
Temperatures at the center of the core may be as high as 7500C, hotter than the
surface of the sun.
The lower mantle is probably mostly silicon, magnesium, and oxygen with
some iron, calcium, and aluminum.

Earth is the densest major body in the solar system.

Seventy percent of Earths surface is covered with water.
Earth atmosphere is 77% nitrogen, 21%oxygen, with traces of argon, carbon
dioxide, and water.

THE MOON : the Earths Satellites

Orbital period : 27.32 days

Rotational period : Same as orbital period
Mass : 0.0123 time Earth mass
Surface gravity : 0.17 time Earth surface gravity
Max. Temperature : 123 C
Min. Temperature : -233 C
Diameter : 3 476 km
Distance from Earth : 384 400 km
The moon has no atmosphere
The orbit of the moon around earth and its rotation around its axis has the same
period.
Therefore, the moon is always keeping the same face to earth.
The revolution f the moon around Earth makes the moon appear as if it is
changing shape in the sky. This is caused by the different angles from which we
see the bright part of the moons surface. These are called phases of the moon.
The four major moon phases are New, 1st quarter, Full, and Last or 3rd
Quarter
These phases of the moon, in the sequence of their occurrence are listed below:
New Moon
Waxing Crescent Moon
Quarter Moon
Waxing Gibbons
Full Moon
Waning Gibbous Moon

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 Waning Crescent Moon
Last Quarter Moon
The moon and Earth gravitational effect causing some interesting effects.
The moons gravitational attraction is stronger on the side of Earth nearest of the
moon and weaker on the opposite side.
Earths surface we see two small bulges, one in the direction of the moon and
one directly opposite. The effect is much stronger in the oceans water than in
solid crust so that water bulges are higher. And because earth rotates much
faster than moon moves in its orbit, the bulges move around earth about once a
day giving two tides per day.
One consequence of the moons orbit about earth is that moon can shadow the
suns light as viewed from earth (called Solar Eclipse), or
The moon can pass through the shadow cast by earth (called Lunar Eclipse)
The shadow cast by the moon can be divided by geometry into the completely
shadow umbra and partially shadowed penumbra.
Three general classes of solar eclipses:
Total Solar Eclipse
Partial Solar Eclipse
Annular Solar Eclipse

MARS

Orbital period : 686.95 days

Rotational period : 24 hours 37 minutes
Mass : 0.10 time Earth mass
Volume : 0.15 time Earth volume
Surface gravity : 0.38 time Earth surface gravity
Average temperature : -55 C
Diameter : 6 794 km
Distance from the sun : 229 million km
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the seventh largest.
Mars is sometimes referred to as the red planet.
Mars orbit is significantly elliptical. One result of its temperature variation is
about 30C at the sub solar point between aphelion and perihelion.
The interesting terrain in Mars:
Olympus Mons the largest mountain in the solar system
Tharsis

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 Valles Marinieris
Hellas planitia
Early in its history, Mars was much more like earth. As with earth almost all of
its carbon dioxide was used up from carbonate rocks. But lacking earths plate
tectonics, mars is unable to recycle back into its atmosphere and so cant sustain
a significant greenhouse effect.
The surface of mars is therefore much cooler than earth would be at that
distance from the sun.
Mars has a very thin atmosphere containing 95.3% carbon dioxide, 2.7%
nitrogen, 1.6% argon, 0.15% oxygen, 0.03% water.
Mars has permanent ice caps at both poles composed of water ice and solid
carbon dioxide (dry ice)
Mars has two tiny satellites that orbit very close to the surface, Phobos and
Deimos.

JUPITER

Orbital period : 4 332.59 days

Rotational period : 9 hours 55 minutes
Mass : 317 time Earth mass
Volume : 1 318 time Earth volume
Surface gravity : 2.54 time Earth surface gravity
Average temperature : -153 C
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and the largest.
Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined.
Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky.
Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen, 10% helium with the traces of methane, water,
ammonia, and rock.
The vivid colors seen in Jupiters clouds are probably the result of subtle
chemical the traces elements in Jupiters atmosphere.
The Great Red Spot is an oval about 12000 by 25000 km, big enough to hold
two Earths.
The Great Red Spot is high-pressure region whose clouds tops is significantly
higher and cooler than the surrounding regions.
Jupiters rings are dark and much fainter and smaller than saturns.
Jupiter has 61 known satellites, four of them are the Galilean moons; Io,
Europe, Ganymede, and Callisto.

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 SATURN

Orbital period : 10 759.2 days

Rotational period : 10 hours 13 minutes
Mass : 95 time Earth mass
Volume : 744 time Earth Volume
Surface gravity : 1.07 time Earth surface gravity
Average temperature : -184 C
Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest.
Saturn also exhibits long-lived oval and the others features common on Jupiter.
Saturn has two prominent rings (A and B) and one faint ring (C) can be seen
from Earth.
The gap between A and B rings is known as the Cassini division.
The fainter gap in the outer part of the A ring is known as the Encke Division.
Saturns rings are extraordinarily thin; though theyre 250.000 km more in
diameter theyre less than one kilometer thick.
The origin of Saturns ring is unknown.
Though the ring system not stable and must be regenerated by ongoing process.
When its in nighttime sky, Saturn is easily visible to the unaided eye.
Saturn has 30 named satellites plus one discovered in 2003 and as yet unnamed.
The five biggest are Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, and Iapetus

URANUS

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Orbital period : 30 684 days
Rotational period : 17 hours 12 minutes
Mass : 14.6 time Earth mass
Volume : 67 time Earth mass
Surface gravity : 0.8 time Earth surface gravity
Max temperature : -184 C

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and the third largest.
Most of the planet spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the
ecliptic but Uranus axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic.
These result in the odd fact that UranusPolar Regions receive more energy
input from the sun than do its equatorial regions.
Uranus is nevertheless hotter at its equator that at its poles.
The mechanism underlying this is unknown.
Uranus is composed primarily of rock and various ices, with only about 15%
hydrogen and a little helium.
Uranus atmosphere is about 15% helium and 2% methane.
Uranus blue color is the result of the absorption of red light by the methane in
the upper atmosphere.
Like the other gas planets, Uranus has rings.
There are 11 known rings, all very faint, the brightest is known as the epsilon
ring.
Uranus is sometimes just barely visible with the unaided eye on a very clear
night and fairly easy tosspot with binoculars.
Uranus has 21 named moons and one unnamed one.
Scientist think Uranus has a huge water ocean underneath its cloud.

NEPTUNE

Orbital period : 60 190 days

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Rotational period : 16 hours 17 minutes
Mass : 17 time Earth mass
Volume : 57 time Earth volume
Surface gravity : 1.2 time Earth surface gravity
Average temperature : -223C

Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun and the fourth largest.
Neptune is the most distant planet from the Sun for few years. Its because
Plutos orbit is crosses the orbit of Neptune.
Neptunes composition is various ices and rock with about 15% hydrogen and
little helium.
Its atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with a small amount of methane.
Neptune blue color is largely the result of absorption of red light by methane in
the atmosphere.
Neptunes winds are the fastest in the Solar system, reaching 2000km/hour.
Neptunes prominent feature was the Great dark spot.
Neptunes wind blew the Great dark Spot westward at 300m/second.
Neptunes wind is moves from the southern hemisphere to northern hemisphere.
Neptune has dark rings but the composition is unknown.
Neptune has 12 known satellites; three of them are Proteus, Triton, and Nereid.

PLUTO

Orbital period : 90 465 days

Rotational period : 6 days 9 hours
Mass : 0.0025 time Earth mass
Volume : 0.01 time Earth volume
Surface gravity : 0.01 time Earth surface gravity
Average temperature : -234 C

Pluto is the farthest planet from the sun and the smallest.
Plutos orbit is highly eccentric. At times its closer to the sun than Neptune.
Pluto rotates in the opposite direction from most of the other planets (retrograde
rotation)
The surface temperature on Pluto varies between about -235 and -210C.
Plutos atmosphere probably consists primarily of nitrogen with some carbon
monoxide and methane.

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 Plutos atmosphere may exist as a gas only when Pluto near its perihelion; for
the majority Plutos long year, the atmospheric gases are frozen into ice.
Pluto has a satellite, Charon.
Pluto can be seen with an amateur telescope but it is not easy.
Pluto is so far away, that no artificial satellites have ever seen sent there, so, all
the scientist can do is guess what it must look like.

The Asteroid

Asteroids are rocky and metallic objects that orbit the Sun but are too small to
be considered planets. They are known as minor planets.
Asteroids range in size from Ceres, which has a diameter of about 1000 km,
down to the sizes of pebbles.
They have been found inside earths orbit to beyond Saturns orbit.
Most, however, are contained within an Asteroid Belt that exists between the
orbit of Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroid that are on a collision course with earth are called Meteoroids.
When a meteoroid strikes our atmosphere at high velocity, friction causes this
chunk of space matter to incinerate in a streak of light known as meteor.
If the meteoroid doesnt burn up completely, whats left strike Earths surface
and its called a meteorite.
At all the meteorites examined, 92.8 percent are composed of silicate (stone),
and 5.7 percent are composed of iron and nickel; the rest are a mixture of the
three materials.

The Comets

Comets sometimes called bintang berekor in Indonesian are not stars.

Comets are still the member of our solar system.
They come from a great spherical cloud of cometary material surrounding the
solar system called the Oort cloud.
Comet structures are diverse and very dynamic, but they all develop
surrounding cloud of diffuse material, called a coma.
Usually small, bright nucleus is visible in the middle of the coma.
The coma and nucleus together constitute the head of the comet.
When far from the sun, the nucleus is very cold and its materials is frozen solid
within the nucleus. In this state comets are sometimes referred as a dirty
iceberg or dirty snowball.

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 When comets approach the sun they develop enormous tails of luminous
material that extend for millions of kilometers from the head, away from the
sun.
The tail is composed of gas and dust emitted from the nucleus and is very
diffuse.
Many comets have two tails.
A gas tail (also called the ion tail)composed of ions blown out of the comet
away from the sun by the solar wind.
A dust tail composed of dust particles.
After 500 or so passes near the sun off most of a comets ice and gas is lost
leaving a rocky object very much like an asteroid in appearance.
Half of the near-Earth asteroids may be dead comets.
Meteor shower sometimes occurs when Earth passes through the orbit of a
comet.

The Meteor

When these meteoroids strike Earths atmosphere at high relative speeds they
leave visible trails created when the intense heat caused by friction vaporizes
them.
These are called meteors and the frequently referred to as falling stars or
shooting stars.
On a normal night you can typically see a few sporadic meteors per hour.
However, at certain times the rate of observable meteors is much higher.
These periods are called meteor shower.
The majority of the meteors appear to come from a particular point in the sky
called the radiant of the shower.

The Sun

The sun is the largest object in the solar system. It contains more than 99.8% of
the total mass of the solar system.
The sun is an ordinary star.
The median size of stars in our galaxy is probably less than half the mass in the
sun.
The sun at present, about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium by mass (92.1%
hydrogen and 7.8% helium by number of atoms)

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 The outer layers of the sun exhibit differential rotation: at the equator the
surface rotates once every 26 days; near the poles its as much as 36 days.
The sun isnt a solid body like Earth.

The Solar Data

Rotation period : 26 days (at equator)
Mass : 2 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
kg
330 000 time more than Earth
Volume : 1 400 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
000 cubic meters
1 300 000 time more than Earth
Surface gravity : 27 400 cm/s
Temperature at surface : 5 700 C
Diameter : 696 000 km

The temperature is 16 million Celsius degrees, and the pressure is 2.6 billion
kg/cm2.
At the center of the core the suns density is more than 150 times that of water.
It is here that the intense nuclear reactions take place.
Every second 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium ashes.
The surface of the sun, called the photosphere, is at a temperature of about
5.500 C.
Sunspots are cool regions, only 3.500 C (they look dark only by comparison
with the surrounding regions)
Sunspots are caused by complicated and not very well understood interactions
with the suns magnetic field.
A small region known as the chromosome lies above the photosphere.
The highly rarefied region above the chromosphere, called the corona, extends
millions of kilometers into space but is visible only during eclipses.
Temperatures in the corona are over 1,000,000 K.
In addition to heat and light, the sun also emits a low density stream of charged
particles known as the solar wind which propagates throughout the solar system
at about 450 km/sec.
The sun is a very active star.
A more dramatic form of a solar activity can be found in the solar flares and
coronal mass ejections.
Coronal mass ejections, and flares, are the solar causes of geomagnetic storms
on Earth, which disrupt telecommunications, satellites and power grids.
The sun is about 4.5 billion years old.
Since its birth it has used up about half of the hydrogen in its core.
Heat from the center of the sun takes a million years to reach the suns surface.
Once the heat leaves the suns surface, though, it only takes it 8.5 minutes to
reach earth.

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