17. It is a storm that is larger than Earth! Similar to a
hurricane on Earth, Jupiter’s storm has swirling
winds that blow up to hundreds of kilometers per
hour. On Earth, hurricanes usually weaken as
they pass over land. Jupiter has no land to
weaken the storm.
18. Since humans first
started using
telescopes to look at
the solar system, the
red spot has been
seen. That means
that the storm has
been raging for more
than 350 years!
32. On Uranus, you would weigh not
much less than you would on
Earth...89 lbs.
33. And lastly, you would weigh 113 lbs
on Neptune, again, similar to what
you would weigh on Earth.
34. You learned that Jupiter’s gases are under a lot of
pressure because of its strong gravity. This means
that Jupiter has a very thick atmosphere. In fact, all
of the gas giants have thick atmospheres.
35. Like Venus, the atmospheres on
Jupiter and Saturn would crush
a space probe.
38. However, his telescope wasn’t that
powerful. He saw Saturn as 3 blobs.
He thought the 2 smaller blobs might be
moons.
39. It wasn’t until 1659 that astronomer
Christiaan Huygens discovered that the
blobs were really rings. He was able to see
it more clearly because his telescope was
more powerful.
41. Rings are made of small chunks of ice and
rock, each traveling in its own orbit around
Saturn.
42. Astronomers aren’t certain how the rings were formed, but the most
recent theory is this:
Robin Canup proposed that the rings are the icy remnants of a bygone
moon.
When Saturn and its satellites (moons) formed, one of Saturn’s large
moons formed too close to the planet to maintain a stable orbit.
This moon started spiraling inward, and as it did, Saturn’s gravity
ripped away its icy outer layers and flung them into orbit to create the
rings we see today.
What was left of this moon finally crashed into Saturn and
crumbled.After 10,000 years of this denuding, the moon's leftover rocky
core finally crashed into Saturn and crumbled.
43. Watch this short video to hear
another theory:
https://youtu.be/_taZfzF-RXM
44. Saturn has 7 main ring groups. The Voyager
spacecrafts, which flew by them in 1980 and 1981,
showed that these 7 ring groups are made up of
thousands of smaller rings. The exact number is not
known.
58. Ganymede is the largest of Jupiter’s
moons. Here is how Ganymede
compares to Earth and our moon.
59. Saturn has 53 moons, and
that’s not counting all of the
rocks that orbit Saturn in its
rings.
60. Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is larger than
the planet Mercury. Titan even has its own
atmosphere, which is very unusual for a
moon.
61. Watch this brief video of the
Huygens probe landing on
Titan!
https://youtu.be/CNiO1b0ewy0
62. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, but
there are 4 other moons of Saturn that
are over 1,000 km in diameter each.
63. Uranus has 27 moons that we know of. Some of
them are half made of ice. Uranus’s 5 largest moons
have icy, cratered surfaces. They also have lava
flows on their surfaces, suggesting that material has
erupted from inside each moon at some time.
64. Lastly, Neptune has 13 moons. One of
them, Triton, is as big as the dwarf planet
Pluto.
67. Besides being called gas giants, they are
also called “ice giants”. This is because
their atmospheres are mostly composed of
ices – water ice, ammonia ice, and methane
ice.
68. Uranus
Uranus is about 4 times
the diameter of Earth, but
is still much smaller than
Jupiter and Saturn.
Uranus is very far from the
sun, making it colder than
Saturn.
69. In fact, Uranus has the distinction of having
the coldest atmosphere of any planet in the
solar system. The temperature can be as
cold as minus 370 degrees.
70. Uranus is a greenish blue color because its
atmosphere is made up of hydrogen, helium and
methane. The methane in Uranus' upper
atmosphere absorbs the red light from the Sun but
reflects the blue light from the Sun back into
space, which is what we see.
71. Although Uranus looks to be a solid shade
of bluish-green, it contains stripes like Jupiter
and Saturn. But the bands are faint, and are
only seen with enhanced images.
72. Uranus’s axis of rotation is tilted at an angle
of about 90 degrees from the vertical (so, it
rotates on its side!).
Artist’s rendering.
74. The theory is that Uranus was knocked on its side
by a collision soon after its formation. Instead of
spinning as it revolves around the Sun, it appears
to roll around it. formation. With its equator down,
the planet appears to roll around the sun.
75. NEPTUNE
Neptune is a cold, blue
planet. Its atmosphere
contains visible clouds.
Scientists think that
Neptune is slowly
shrinking, causing the
interior to heat up. As
this energy rises to
Neptune’s surface, it
produces clouds and
storms in the planet’s
atmosphere.
76. Like Jupiter’s giant
red spot, Neptune
also had a great dark
spot at one time.
The great dark spot
was probably a
storm; however the
storm did not last
very long. Since
then, other small
spots and regions of
clouds on Neptune
also seem to come
and go.
80. Have you heard of the Asteroid Belt? It is
orbiting in the space between Mars’s orbit
and Jupiter’s orbit.
81. Several of our space probes have safely
navigated through the asteroid belt, because
the asteroids are so spread out.
82. There is another asteroid belt called the
“Kuiper Belt”. It is a collection of asteroids
that orbit the Sun past Neptune. Pluto is in
the Kuiper Belt.
83. You know that Pluto got
demoted to “dwarf planet”. Do
you know how many dwarf
planets are in our solar system?
84. Scientists believe there may be dozens or even
more than 100 dwarf planets awaiting discovery.
Below are the ones we know about.
85. There is evidence of a 9th
large
planet in the far outer solar
system.
86. The name Uranus is comes from the
Greek word “Ouranos”. According to
Greek mythology, Ouranos was the
god of the sky and father of the Titans.
His Roman name is Caelus.
87. The name Neptune comes from Neptunus,
the Roman god of the sea. He was the
brother of Jupiter. The Greeks called him
“Poseidon”.
88. Jupiter is the Roman king of the
gods. His Greek name is Zeus.
89. Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture.
According to Roman mythology, he taught
the people how to grow crops. His Greek
name was Cronus.
97. Answer:
1. They are all “outer planets”.
2. They are all large planets.
3. They are mostly made of gases.
4. They all have rings.
5. They all have many moons.
106. Much thanks to Kyrene School
District. This is a modified
version of their PowerPoint:
www.kyrene.org/cms/lib2/AZ01001083/Centricity/.../outer%20planets%20ppt.pptCachedSimilar