Transcript Diameter: 1.4 million km Mass

The Solar System
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The big hot thing at the centre
Rocky bits
Goldilocks
Bloated giants
Frozen dwarfs
Sun
Diameter: 1.4 million km
Mass: ~2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
At its core 14 million degrees C
Surface 6,000 degrees C
Its light takes almost 8 minutes to travel the 150 million km
to reach us
The sun calmly rises each morning in the east,
just like clockwork.
Credit: the SolarMax IMAX film
Our Solar System
The Sun is the center of our solar
system. All the planets and
comets, everything in the solar
system revolves around it. At any
given time about half the Earth
sees the Sun and half is in
darkness.
Speaking of size. . .
planets
Star sizes
The changing Sun
The Sun, like all
stars, is a busy
star. It is always
active, always
changing. The
more we learn
about it, the
more we learn
about all stars.
Where the action is
• Nuclear activity occurs
in the Sun’s core
• Hydrogen atoms
combine to form helium
and release huge
amounts of energy,
radiation and light
• It takes over 10,000
years for the light to get
to the Sun’s surface
• The temperature there
is about 15 million
degrees C.
The average sunspot is about the size of Earth, though
the largest can be 20 times the size of Earth.
Our Solar
System
Mercury
Orbit: 60m km
88 days
Diameter: 4,880km
Temperature: -180 to 450oC
Venus
Distance: 108m km
~225 days
Diameter: 12,104km
Temperature: ~500oC
Pressure: ~90 atmospheres
Distance: 150m km
365.24 days
Diameter: 12,756 km
Goldilocks…
Martians – the good,
the bad and the ugly...
Mars
Orbit: 225m km
~687 days
Diameter: 6,794 km
Temperature: -100 to +20oC
Asteroids
Rock, metal
Where are the asteroids?
Jupiter
Orbit: 780m km
11.9 years
Diameter: 143,000 km
Temperature: -110oC
63 moons (so far)
90% Hydrogen
10% Helium
Tiny fraction other
Saturn
Orbit: 1425m km
29.4 years
Diameter: 120,000 km
Temperature: -180oC
>61 moons
96% Hydrogen
3% Helium
1% other
Uranus
Orbit: 2880m km
84 years
Diameter: 51,120 km
(4 Earth)
Temperature: -220oC
Neptune
Orbit: 4515m km
165 years
Diameter: 49,528 km
(3.9 Earth)
Temperature: -220oC
Pluto
Dwarf planet
Orbit: 5925m km
~249 years
Diameter: 2,290km
Temperature: -223oC
Our Solar
System