Transcript Space_Explore_Sept_07 (PPTmin)

Space
Exploration
with James
Paradise
Sept 27, 2007
How many planets are there in our solar system?
How many planets are there in our solar system?
Currently: 8 planets
Why did Pluto lose status?
Why did Pluto lose planet status?
Planet definition
Definition of a Planet
RESOLUTION 5A, August 24, 2006:
The IAU therefore resolves that "planets" and other bodies in our Solar System be defined into three
distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A "planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its selfgravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
Note: The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its
self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape , (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
Note: An IAU process will be established to assign borderline objects into either dwarf planet and other
categories.
(3) All other objects except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small SolarSystem Bodies".
Note: These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, most Trans-Neptunian Objects
(TNOs), comets, and other small bodies.
What is the smallest planet in our solar system?
4 terestrial planets, and pluto shown in correct scale
8 current planets, and pluto shown in correct scale
Sun, 8 current planets, and pluto shown in correct scale
Sun to Pluto
The Sun, the closest star to Earth?
At a mere 93 million miles
distant, it takes light from the Sun
only eight minutes to arrive on
Earth.
Fact: 1 Earth-Sun distance is
defined as an AU.
The next closest are three
members of Alpha Centauri and
are just over 4 light years from
Earth.
There are 10 star systems located
within 12 light years of Earth.
Mercury
• Distance From Sun:
36 Million Miles
o
• Average Temp: 332 F
o
• Low: -270 F
o
• High: +800 F
• Diameter: 3,000 miles
• Orbital Period: 88 days
• Moons: 0
Venus
Venus
• Distance From Sun:
67 Million Miles
o
• Average Temp: 867 F
• Diameter: 7,500 miles
• Orbital Period: 225 days
• Moons: 0
under clouds
Under the clouds of Venus
earth moon
Earth
• Distance From Sun:93 Million Miles
o
• Average Temp: 59 F
• Diameter: 8,000 miles
• Orbital Period: 1 year
• Moons: 1
mars
Mars
• Distance From Sun:
142 Million Miles
o
• Average Temp: -85 F
• Diameter: 4,200 miles
• Orbital Period: 1.9 years
• Moons: 2
rovers
Mars 2003
Spirit:
Opportunity:
Launched:
Launched:
MER (twin Mars Exploration Rovers)
June 10, 2003
July 7, 2003
Landed:
Landed:
January 4, 2004
January 24, 2004
The Mars 2003 mission consists of two identical rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which will be a large (~130 kg) vehicles
based on the Athena Rover design that was originally considered for the Mars 2001 mission. The rovers will be landed
using an airbag system similar to that used on Mars Pathfinder but without the stationary lander.
The rover, Spirit landed 4 January 2004 and the Opportunity will land 20 days later on 24 January. The landing sites
have been selected, and are on opposite sides of Mars. The mission should last for at least 90 days each, until late
April. The rovers are designed to cover roughly 100 meters each martian day, or sol (approximately 24 hours, 37
minutes).
They will carry a scientific packages which will include a panoramic camera (Pancam), a rock abrasion tool (RAT) to
expose fresh surfaces of rock, a miniature thermal infrared spectrometer (MiniTES), a microscopic camera, a
Mossbauer spectrometer, and an alpha-proton-X-ray spectrometer (APXS). A goal for the rover is to drive up to 40
meters (about 44 yards) in a single day, for a total of up to one 1 kilometer (about three-quarters of a mile).
Spirit photos of Mars
Spirit photo of hill on Mars (looking forward)
Looking back
Mars 1/25/2004
Oportunity photo of
Mars
Oportunity photos on Mars
Meteorite
Hematite (proof of liquid water)
Oportunity climbing out of crater on Mars
Opportunity photo of sand dunes on Mars
Rocky outcrop
A crater in the distance?
MRO
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Launched: August 12, 2005
Arrived: March 10, 2006
Major Instruments:
• Context Camera (CTX)
• Mars Color Imager (MARCI)
• High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)
• Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM)
• Shallow Radar (SHARAD) (can see up to 1 km into ground)
Victoria from above
MRO
• 'Victoria Crater'
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
from 200 miles up
Crater edge
Opportunity at Victoria Crater
In crater
Opportunity in Victoria Crater
NASA's Mars Exploration
Rover Opportunity has
reached its science team's first
destination for the rover
inside Victoria Crater,
information received from
Mars late Tuesday confirms.
Opportunity has descended
the inner slope of the 800meter-wide crater (half a mile
wide) to a band of relatively
bright bedrock exposed
partway down. The rover is in
position to touch a selected
slab of rock with tools at the
end of its robotic arm, after
safety checks being
commanded because the rover
is at a 25-degree tilt.
skylights
NASA Orbiter Finds Possible Cave
Skylights on Mars
Sept 21, 2007 - PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the
slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caverns elsewhere
on the Red Planet.
Very dark, nearly circular features ranging in diameter from about 100 to 250 meters (328 to 820 feet) puzzled researchers who found
them in images taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor orbiters. Using Mars Odyssey's infrared camera to check
the daytime and nighttime temperatures of the circles, scientists concluded that the temperatures of the holes change only about onethird as much as the change in temperature of surrounding ground surface.
Phoenix
Mars Phoenix Lander 2007
Launched 8/4/2007
PHOENIX WILL LAND AT MARS' ICY NORTH POLE,
5/25/2008, and dig into the ice cap with a robotic arm.
Mars - A Feast For Your Eyes
QuickTime Movie of Mars from MRO Images
Asteroid Belt (gold colored specs)
• Distance From Sun:
260 Million Miles to center
• over 166,000 asteroids
• Largest:
Ceres 1/3 of all mass
600 miles in diamter
Our inner solar system
Ceres Vesta
Dwarf Planet 600 mi dia
Largest Asteroid 350 mi dia
A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b)
has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so
that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape , (c) has not
cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
dawn
Launch 9/27/07
gaspra
Asteroid Photos
1st ever closeup
photo of an asteroid.
Gaspra (12x7 miles)
Ida
Asteroid Photos
Ida (35 miles long)
Dactyl
Asteroid Photos
Ida (35 miles long) and
Dactyl (1 mile diameter)
impact?
Meteor Crater in New Mexico
Crater is about 1 mile in diameter and 570 feet deep.
Debris was found over 300 miles from the crater.
This was caused by a rock 50 – 100 feet in diamter. Imagine what a
Gaspra or Ida sized boulder would do?
Half way
Jupiter
Jupiter
• Distance From Sun:
483 Million Miles
o
• Average Temp: -166 F
• Diameter: 88,000 miles
• Orbital Period: 12 years
• Moons: 63
saturn
Galileo
Mission to explore Jupiter and its 61 moons
Launch:
Orbit Jupiter:
Mission End:
10/18/1989
12/7/1995
9/21/2003
First two years focused on Jupiter.
Extended mission (6 years) focused on
Jupiter's moons, with emphasis on Europa,
Callisto, Ganymede, and Io.
On it’s journey to Jupiter, Galileo did gravity sling shots around Venus,
Earth, and Earth in a 2.5 year speed-building phase that achieved a
velocity exceeding 100,000 miles per hour.
The Galileo mission ended September 21, 2003 when the remaining fuel
was used to splash the spacecraft into Jupiter.
Gaspra and IDA
Galileo Jupiter Moons Images (4 of Jupiter’s 61 moons)
Io
(with active volcanos)
Europa
Liquid Oceans?
Ganymede
Callisto
Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
by 2011
This proposed mission would orbit
three planet-sized moons of Jupiter --
Callisto, Ganymede and
Europa -- to make extensive
investigations of their makeup, their
history and their potential for
sustaining life.
Will use Prometheus Nuclear-Electric
Propulsion.
Casini and Huygens
Mission to Saturn and its
largest moon Titan.
Launch: 10/15/1997
Orbit Saturn: 7/1/2004
Huygens Release: 12/2004
Landed on Titan: 1/12/2005
Saturn
• Distance From Sun:
888 Million Miles
o
• Average Temp: -220 F
• Diameter: 75,000 miles
• Orbital Period: 29 years
• Moons: 47
Cassini Images of Saturn rings
Moon in ring gap
Cassini Images of Saturn Moons
Hyperion
Enceladus
Evidence of atmosphere and
liquid ocean under ice.
Cassini images of Saturn’s moon Titan
Continents visible?
Dense atmosphere
Huygen’s Probe descent to surface of Jupiter’s moon Titan
Cassini images of Saturn’s moon Titan
Titan surface from under the clouds
(during Huygens Probe descent)
River Channels showing evidence of liquid flow
Huygens Probe image from
the Surface of Titan
Uranus
Uranus
• Distance From Sun:
1.8 Billion Miles
o
• Average Temp: -319 F
• Diameter: 32,000 miles
• Orbital Period: 84 years
• Moons: 27
Neptune
Neptune
• Distance From Sun:
2.8 Billion Miles
o
• Average Temp: -328 F
• Diameter: 31,000 miles
• Orbital Period:
165 years
• Moons: 13
Pluto
Pluto and Charon
• Distance From Sun: 3.7 Billion Miles
o
• Average Temp: -400 F
• Diameter: 1,500 miles
• Orbital Period: 248 years
• Moons: 3
More recent Pluto news:
•
•
•
1978: Pluto’s moon Charon discovered
2005: Two more Pluto moons? (Charon, Nix and Hydra)
2006: Pluto demoted from planet to Dwarf Planet
Quaoar
New Horizons
(Pluto - Kuiper Belt Mission)
Mission at a Glance
Launched:
Jan 17, 2006
Pluto & Charon Flyby:
2015
Reach Kuiper Belt:
2026
2000 - 2003: Varuna, Ixion, Quaoar, and Sedna discovered
Astronomers have discovered super-size balls of ice
and rock — half the size of the planet Pluto — lurking
roughly 4 billion miles from the Sun at the edge of our
solar system.
A year on Quaoar takes 286 Earth years. It follows a
circular orbit around the sun and has a temperature of
minus 381 degrees Fahrenheit.
"If Pluto deserves to be a planet, then I
would think that Quaoar does too," says
astronomer Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution in
Washington, D.C.
Orbit: 280 - 300 years
Orbit Shape: Circular
Distance from Sun: 4 billion miles
Pluto distance: 3 billion miles
Sedna
How do we find planets?
Telescope photo of a region in space.
There is a Dwarf Planet in this photo!!
Did any dots move?
Photo 1
Photo 2
(90 min later)
Photo 3
(90 min later yet)
Moving dot is circled in each image!
Photo 1
Photo 2
(90 min later)
Photo 3
(90 min later)
Now overlay
All 3 photos overlaid onto each other.
The new object, circled in white, moves across a field of stars
on Oct. 21, 2003.
The three photos were taken about 90 minutes apart.
The object was discovered by the Samuel Oschin Telescope at
the Palomar Observatory on Jan. 8, 2005.
January 8, 2005: Xena Eris
Orbit: 557 years
Orbit Shape: Highly Eliptical
Distance from Sun: 7.3 billion miles
comets
Comets
(Dirty Snow Balls from the Oort Cloud)
Temple 1
Wild 2
In what galaxy is our solar system located?
In what galaxy is our solar system located?
The Milky Way is a thin disk containing an estimated 200 billion to 700 billion
stars
We lie in a spiral band called the Orion-Cygnus arm which is made up of the
collection of younger and middle-aged stars. Our Solar System is located
about 27,000 light-years from galactic center and 20,000 light-years from the
outer edge.
Milky Way Galaxy
HUBBLE Space Telescope
1st of 4 Great Observatories
Launched 24 April 1990
HUBBLE Photo of Cat’s Eye Nebula
So……….How good is Hubble?
So……How good is Hubble?
We had hubble look where the red square is.
Hubble Deep Field
This image was
obtained by pointing the
Hubble Telescope at a
spot near the Big Dipper
where no known stars
existed.
Exposure: 11 days
Over 1,000 new
galaxies were identified
in this image.
CHANDRA
X-ray Observatory
2nd of 4 Great Observatories
Launched 23 July 1999
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated
X-ray observatory built to date.
Chandra is designed to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the
remnants of exploded stars.
CHANDRA image of exploding
supernova remnant
Galex
GALEX
Galaxy Evolution Explorer
UV (Ultra-Violet) imaging and
spectroscopic survey mission designed
to map the global history and probe the
causes of star formation and its
evolution.
3rd of 4 Great Observatories
Launched: April 28, 2003
Mission Length: 29 months
Science: 80% of history of star
formation is in UV region.
Technical: 50 cm telescope
Galex photos:
Messier 83
Cartwheel Galaxy
Spitzer Space Telescope
Infrared Telescope Facility
4th of 4 Great Observatories
Launched: 25 August 2003
Flown from SSC Denver SSB 3rd
Floor Mission Operations Center
First to use Earth trailing orbit
The Spitzer Space Telescope Facility - was launched into space by a Delta rocket from Cape
Canaveral, Florida on August 25, 2003.
Most of this infrared radiation is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere and cannot be observed from the
ground.
Consisting of a 0.85-meter telescope and three cryogenically-cooled science instruments, Spitzer
will be the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space.
Spitzer photo of Galaxy: M81
Deep Impact
The first look inside a Comet
Peering inside a comet could give us clues to
the early formation of the Solar System, the
Earth and human life.
Deep Impact's July 4, 2005 impact on Comet
Tempel 1 by a 820 lb. impactor is expected to
produce a football field-sized crater, seven to
fourteen stories deep.
Launched 1/12/2005
Deep Impact
Stardust
Mission to sample
space dust and
comet Wild 2
Launched: 2/6/99
Collected Dust: Mar-May/00
July-Dec/02
Flew through dust of Comet Wild 2: Jan 2, 2004
Package Landed in Utah 1/15/2006
Spacecraft now on mission to Tempel 1.
Stardust photos of comet Wild 2 taken Jan 2, 2004
Comet is 2.5 miles in diameter
Stardust
Aerogel Collector
catching particles
traveling at 45,000 mph
Look what we caught!!
Comet Particle Removal
Special 'needles' mounted on micro-manipulators
controlled by computer to carefully and precisely cut
out sections of aerogel that contain cometary samples.
Look what we caught!!
Gem of a Comet Particle
NASA Study Finds
New Kind of Organics
in Stardust Mission
"A portion of the organic material in the
samples is unlike anything seen before in
extraterrestrial materials," said Scott Sandford,
the study's lead author and a scientist from
NASA's Ames Research Center in California's
Silicon Valley. "Capturing the particles in
aerogel was a little bit like collecting BBs by
shooting them into Styrofoam."
The comet organics collected by the Stardust
spacecraft are more "primitive" than those seen
in meteorites and may have formed by
processes in nebulae, either in space clouds
between the stars, or in the disk-shaped cloud
of gas and dust from which our solar system
formed, the study's authors found.
This image shows a comet particle collected by the Stardust
spacecraft. The particle is made up of the silicate mineral forsterite,
which can found on Earth in gemstones called peridot. It is
surrounded by a thin rim of melted aerogel, the substance used to
collect the comet dust samples.
The particle is about 2 micrometers across.
Rosetta
Mission to Comet
67P/Churyumov Gerasimenko
03.02.04:
Aug 2014:
Nov 2014:
Status:
Launch (07:17 UT)
Comet Orbit Insertion
Comet Landing
En Route to Comet
Rosetta is on a 10-year mission to explore comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It
will orbit Churyumov-Gerasimenko and make observations for about two years as
the comet approaches the Sun.
Rosetta will also release a small lander packed with scientific instruments to make
the first-ever landing on the surface of a comet.
New Horizons
(Pluto - Kuiper Belt Mission)
Mission at a Glance
Launched:
Jan 17, 2006
Pluto & Charon Flyby:
2015
Reach Kuiper Belt:
2026
Update on Manned Missions
Old: Space Shuttle to
retire by 2010
New: Orion to be
operational by 2014
Orion terra landing w air bags
International Space Station (ISS)
NASA’s Top Priority:
Complete the International Space Station by 2010.
Future Missions
Future Mars Missions
Phoenix Mars Scout Lander:
Mars Science Lab:
Mars Sample Return
Mars Smart Lander
Mars Deep Drilling Lab
Mars Network Landers
SAR Recon Orbiter
Man on Moon
Moon Base
Man on Mars
2007
2009
2011
Other Planned Missions:
Herschel Space Observatory (far IR) 2008
James Webb Space Telescope 2013
Space Interferometry Mission 2015
Terestrial Planet Finder
and more
Space Interferometry Mission