2. Mercury, Venus, The Earth and Mars are very similar but they are not the same.
These planets were formed in a warm region, this warm pushed away hydrogen
and helium which are light gases. Teluric planets are mainly composed of heavy
components like carbon, iron, silicon… and they are solid and rocky.
As these plantes have been evolucionating, their atmospheres had been replaced
by light gases from the interior and warm zones. Heavy elements were moved
to their interior to form cores.
Mercury: smallest planet near the Sun and without atmosphere is a desert of
craters burnt by the Sun. Mercury rotates on its own axis in 58 days and a half.
When it is facing the Sun it reaches 425º whereas the zones which are facing
the shadow can reach 170º below 0. Both poles mantain very cold that is why
scientists think there could be water.
Venus: It had oceans but the Sun evaporate the water and escape through space.
Actually, the atmosphere of this planet is very dense and is composed of
anhidrid carbonic. Several layers of clouds of sulphuric acid impede rays of the
son to reach its surface because of the green house effect which reaches a
temperature of 500ºC. They had discovered plateaus, deep valleys and
volcanos perhaps active.
3. The Earth: It is characterised by the huge amounts of water it
has conserved thanks to the distance which separates the
Earth from the Sun. Its atmosphere is composed of nitrogen,
oxygen , small amount of anhidric carbonic and water
vapour.
Our planet is composed of a 70% of water. This make the
Earth different from the other plants which rotate around the
Sun. Thanks to this, we have three estates: gas, solid and
liquid.
The Earth is composed of a core which has 10 to 60 km deep
a solid mantle of 2900 km dense, an external nucleus of
2200 km and an interior solid nucleus of 1200 km of density.
4. The Scales of the Earth: 200 million years ago all continents
were unified into one which was called pangea surrounded
by one ocean. This mass started to fragment and continents
started to separate.
Magnetic Field: The magnetic field of the Earth is more
important than Mercury. It is said that its origin comes from
the existence of electric currents which flow in the nucleus of
the liquid iron. This magnetic field, it doesn´t spread around
the Earth. In Sun direction, it blocks the solar wind protecting
it from some particles with a type of shield called
magnetopause.
5. Mars: it had an important atmosphere which
provide beningn temperatures, rivers and oceans.
But as the planet is small, and its mass is weak,
most part of its atmosphere disolved in space. It
only has a few of anhidrid carbonic. The water it
contained froze in the subsoil and its interior also
froze. Sometimes, windstorms takes place and
they make huge amounts of dust which takes
weeks to dissappear.
6. They are Jupiter, Saturn, Urane and
Neptune. Outer planets are situated
beyond the astoid belt. They are gigant in
relation with the other planets of the Solar
system.
They are mainly composed of hydrogen
and helium and they are surrounded by
rings of satellites and by plenty of moons
7. Jupiter is the fifth planet in
relation to the sun. It is the
biggest planet and the one
which has more mass in the
Solar System. It is the
fastest revolving the sun. It
has the biggest number of
moons, it has 67 moons.
Jupiter has a diameter of
142 984 km. It is 7778.3
millions of km away from the
sun. It lasts 11.9 years to
orbit the sun. It rotates in its
on axis in
8. Regular Satellites
Galilean moons: They are the principal moons, which were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610.
Their names comes from the lovers of Zeus:
Io: It is the most volcanic place in the earth and it has continuous eruptions which regenerates its
surface.
Europe: this satellite has grooves and ridges that cross the surface covered with ice.
Ganymede: It is the biggest moon of the Solar system. Its crust is full of impact craters.
Callisto: It is the moon that is situated farthest away from Jupiter. The ice from its craters bright
deeply.
Amaltean Group: They orbit very close to Jupiter. They are:
Metis
Adrastea
Amalthea
Thebis
Irregular Satellites:
They are group of satellites that rotate in orbit so far away from Jupiter that the gravitation from the
Sun affects them and so they don´t orbit in a regular orbit.
9. Jupiter has biggest atmosphere in all the Solar System. It is
principally made up by Hydrogen and Helium, but it also
contains Methane, water vapour and other substances. The
Jupiter´s atmosphere contains a lot of atmospheric
phenomenon. The most known are:
The great Red Spot: It is a huge storm
that could have existed for more than 300
years. In this storm, there are winds up to
400km/h.
The Little Red Spot: it is a big storm was
created in 2006.
10. It is the sixth planet in relation to the Sun. It has the second
greatest mass, after Jupiter. It has a volume of 740 times the
Earth, but it just have a mass of 95 times the Earth. It is the
only planet that has system of rings. Galileo was the first one
that observed its rings, in 1610.
•Saturn has a diameter
of 120 536 km. the
gravity is 10,44m/s2. Its
atmosphere it is made
up by hydrogen and
helium. It has a radius
of 60 300km.
11. There is not an exact number of satellites, but
the most important are:
Titan: it is the biggest one
Mimas: it could have water.
Enceladus
Tethys
Dione
Rhea
Hyperion
Iapetus
Phoebe
12. The system of rings of Saturn
consists in countless small
particles made up by ice water and
some rocks that go from
millimetres to metres. These rocks
are made up by silicates and
tholins. There are a lot of gaps
between the rings but there are
very few between the fragments.
This system consists of 7 rings.
This ring makes that the brightness
of Saturn increase, but we cannot
see them without a telescope.
The densest rings are A and B,
they are separated by the division
of Cassini. We also have the C, D,
E and F rings.
13. The astronomers of the Antiquity didn´t
named as a planet because of
darkness and of the slow speed of its
orbit. It was discovered as a planet in
1781 by William Herschel. It was the
first planet discovered by a telescope.
It is made up by frozen water, methane
and ammoniac. It also contains
hydrocarbons.
It has a very inclined axis (of 97.7º). So
it has the north and south poles were
other planets have the equator. Uranus
also has system of rings; seen from the
Earth seams that ring are like a
dartboard.
It lasts 84 Earth´s years to do one lap
around the Sun. It is 3 000 millions of
km away from the Sun. it turns around
itself in 17 hours and 14 minutes.
14. It has a very cold climate. It radiates even less
energy than Neptune. It has a very uniform
atmosphere in relation with the other outer planets.
When the ´Voyager2´ flew near Uranus in 1986, it
was discovered that there was ten different levels
of clouds in its atmosphere.
It has the coldest atmosphere of the Solar System;
temperatures can reach -224ºC.
It has a system of rings, as all the giant planets.
The fragments of their rings go from micrometer to
one meter. There are 13 known planets.
15. It is the first planet that was discovered by mathematic predictions. It
has a mass of 17 times the Earth and a volume of 57 times. It has
some phenomena similar to the ones of Jupiter, as the Great Dark
Spot, which had a similar size to the one of the Earth.
•It has a nucleus composed
of rocks and a frozen crust.
The atmosphere it is very
dense and it is composed of
hydrogen, helium, water and
methane. Although it has a
very cold climate,
temperatures in the centre of
the planet can reach 4 700
ºC.
16. Neptune has fourteen satellites.
• Triton: it is the biggest one. It is the only satellite of Neptune
with an spherical shape. The others are irregular. It is
considered to be a fragment of the Kuiper´s belt. It was
discovered by William Lassell in 1846.
• Nereid
• Naiad
• Thalassa
• Despina
• Galatea
• Larissa
• Proteus
