Part II: The Contents of our Solar System

• density of the planets (Mass/Volume) and what this tells you about the materials that make up a planet or Moon.
• Dynamical properties (orbits, inclination of spin-axis [obliquity], rotational properties).
• the order of the planets in increasing distance from the Sun (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.).
• inner "rocky" planets and outer "gas-ball" planets.

Planetary Guts: What is inside a planet?

• mass and radius to determine DENSITY
• mean density vs. surface density
• direct sampling of rock from surface (Earth/Moon, Mars, Venus)
• seismic data from planet quakes to get info about STRUCTURE of interiors.
• magnetic fields provide evidence of metallic conducting cores.
• shape and rotation provides data about the PLASTICITY of the planet or Moon.

Outer Skins of Planets and Moons

• main processes for modification of surfaces:
  • impact cratering
  • volcanism
  • tectonics
  • surface atmospheric and chemical weathering
• Know which processes are important on what major objects in the solar system.
• relative ages of planetary surfaces via crater density
• absolutae ages of planetary surfaces via radioisotope dating
• the impact history of the inner solar system via lunar data
• how are the properties of the moons of the outer planets controlled
• what similarities are there with the inner rocky planets

Planetary Atmospheres

• Actual atmospheric composition of the atmospheres of the major planets
• The absence of an atmosphere on the Moon and Mercury
• Inventory of carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen (N₂), and water (H₂O), on Venus, Earth and Mars.
• Origin and change of planetary atmospheres.
  • primary vs. secondary atmosphere components
• the pressure and temperature structure of planetary atmospheres, compared.
• "greenhouse" effect on Earth and Venus.
  • greenhouse effect contributing species: CO₂, etc.
  • why Venus?
  • global warming and climate change on Earth
  • How are the activities of human beings changing the balance and how significant is it?
• Where did the oxygen (O₂) come from on Earth and when?
• Ozone depletion and the damaging effects of UV sunlight.
• What factors cause an increase in ozone depletion.

The Inner Planets

• Mercury
  • orbit and rotation
  • cratering, scarps, and the Caloris basin
  • similarities and differences in comparsion with the Moon and Mars
• Venus
  • young surface, volcanism
  • few impact craters
  • influence of atmosphere
• Mars
  • a bonanza of new information from MER program
  • evidence for liquid water in the past
  • tectonic, volcanic, and impact features
  • comparisons with the Earth
  • etc.

The Outer Planets

• pressure, temperatures strucutres of the outer planets, and their composition
• differences between the belts and zones of Jupiter
• levels of clouds of different composition and color
• belts, zones, and storms
• Differences between Jupiter and Saturn
• Interior structure (liquid metallic hydrogen) in Jupiter and Saturn.
• difference between Jupiter/Saturn and Uranus/Neptune

Tides and Rings

• the nature of tides and why they occur in Earth
• effects of tides on shape, rotation, and orbit of moons and planets
• effect on the inner moons of the giant planets (especially Io in the Jupiter system).
• rings of the outer gaseous planets and their composition and structure.
• why they occur within the Roche limit of a typical moon.

Moons of the planets - and beyond

• types and origins
• factors influencing their surfaces.
• ice geology and the effect of tidal stretching
• evidence of subsurface oceans and interior compostion
• volcanic activity on Io and Triton
• the atmosphere of Titan (Saturn's giant moon)
• moon orbits and capture
• 'Kuiper Belt Objects' and the large icy worlds of the outer solar system.

Small Bodies

• meteors and meteorites: what they are
• comets and meteor showers
• chemical makeup of meteorites (stones, irons, stoney-irons)
• chondrites, chondules, achondrites, carbonaceous chondrites...
• what meteorites tell us about the early solar system
• asteroid belt and Earth-crossing asteroids
• meteorites and their relationship to asteriods

Impacts!

• impact record of the Moon compared with the inner planets
• terrestrial impacts.
• the impact hazard scale: small impacts are more frequent
• crater size related to impactor size (crater 10x larger than impactor).
• effects of large impacts on life on Earth
• extinction of the dinosaurs: evidence of an impact causing it
• other sample impacts: Arizona meteor crater, Tunguska, Comet SL9 and Jupiter.