The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the natural satellites—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic.
The Solar System also contains smaller objects. The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly discovered population of sednoids. Within these populations, some objects are large enough to have rounded under their own gravity, though there is considerable debate as to how many there will prove to be. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets. The only certain dwarf planet is Pluto, with another trans-Neptunian object, Eris, expected to be, and the asteroid Ceres at least close to being a dwarf planet. In addition to these two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds, freely travel between regions. Six of the planets, the six largest possible dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after the Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects.
The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a bubble-like region in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere. The heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium; it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. The Solar System is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Homework Statement
(a) What is the minimum speed, relative to the Sun, necessary for a spacecraft to escape the solar system if it starts at the Earth's orbit?
(a) What is the minimum speed, relative to the Sun, necessary for a spacecraft to escape the solar system if it starts at the...
Hey guys so this question I'm kind of stuck on,
Our solar system, starting from Saturn's orbit.
So I know the formula is v = sqrt(2GM/r)
But not sure what to put for the mass and radius, am i including saturn and planets like uranus and neptune only or all the satellites and stuff to like...
Well, how big things can exist unseen?
We did see Pluto - but very importantly managed to not see Eris till very recently. What else may we not see?
Eris at 95 a. u. was found recently. The total luminosity of a reflective object decreases with fourth power of distance, so that we could...
Hi. I've been wondering, how could I calculate the escape velocity for a body of mass m which is a certain distance r from the center of the Earth to escape the entire solar system, assuming the distance from the center of mass (aprox. from the sun because it's about 99% of the mass of the solar...
Hi all.
I have been working, off and on, on a Solar System simulator (in MS Excel) for many months. I am using the Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg 8/9 8th-order integrator and JPL's initial conditions to try to reproduce an accurate model of planetary motions.
This, of course, involves modeling the...
Homework Statement
Assuming that the sun lies at the principal focus of the solar system, and given that the semi-major axis and eccentricity of Mars is 1.5237 AU and 0.0934 respectively, calculate:
The distance (in AU) when Mars is closest to the Sun (known as perihelion). The angle θ=0°...
Just a thought experiment. Imagine you made scale models of the sun and the planets with the relational standard of measure being a sun the size of a basketball. Now assume that the sun and the planets were all built to scale with the appropriate diameters, densities and masses of the actual 8...
Voyager spacecraft finds solar system is bigger than thought:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/telecon20121203.html
http://us.cnn.com/2012/12/03/us/space-voyager-solar-system/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Hello fellow aerospace engineers and physicists, I am currently working on a project and trying to figure this out. I was wondering if you guys could help me out.
Here is the problem statement:
A nuclear waste disposal spacecraft is to be sent from Earth in order to carry radioactive waste...
Orphan or 'rogue' planets may be common, rather than an exception, at least in the galaxy.
http://news.yahoo.com/orphan-alien-planet-found-nearby-without-parent-star-122308193.html
But how common?
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
Exoplanet Orbit Database | Exoplanet Data Explorer
Numerous planets outside the Solar System have been discovered, and for some curious reason, a large number of them are around Jupiter's mass, but much closer in than one would expect. The usual theory...
I've heard many times that the universe was the size of our solar system after 1 sec. But how is this possible if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light? Are there any theories on this?
Homework Statement
Formation of the Solar System
The distance of Venus is about 0.7 AU, and the orbital radius of Jupiter is about 5.2 AUs. How many times hotter is the region where Venus formed compared to the region where Jupiter formed? Enter numbers and decimal point only. Round off...
Hi all,
As many of you have seen, I am thinking about spaceship trajectories. This next question falls under the same subject, but it is an entirely different question from the previous questions I have asked.
Spaceships of the near future will fly in the plane of the solar system. Suppose if...
Hi all,
I had an exhaustive time looking on the web for software (either free or commercial) that allows someone to simulate trips into the solar system from planets. I'm looking for something that can simulate spaceship flybys in Hohman Transfer Orbits, Gravity Assists, Oberth Effects...
What avg density [kg/m^3] may I attribute to solar system space dust? Halliday & Resnick give
E-18 to E-21 [kg/^3]. This will allow me to compute solar system density, if I know solar system radius[m], ie, distance from edge of solar system to centre-of-mass of our Sun.
By 'space dust' I mean...
After reading this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120802133653.htm I was wondering if the shock wave from the super nova could still be detected? If so, could we figure out what region the supernova came from?
I understand that our solar system was created from the ejected matter from a super nova. Is it possible to find the location of the black hole or neutron star that formed as a result of this super nova?
Einstein tells us time and space are linked, could redshift be caused by a change in time rather than space?
Including uncertainties how close is the start of this period of universal expansion to the start of the solar system? Could the 2 coincide?
Per NASA's press release ( http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/voyager20120614.html ) of 14 June 2012, interstellar cosmic rays are striking the spacecraft at an increased rate. Voyager 1 has already encountered solar wind moving laterally with respect to the solar surface, and even in...
i doing the solar system design.
seem like everything is on track now,
but just the cable loss i not really know how to calculate,
can anyone help me.
i has formula on this
(resistance on the cable (Ω/km)x length of the cable(L) x current of the solar panel(A)).
for the equation above , is...
I'm doing the solar system design now .
so far seem like everything is on track,
but now i face a problem on the DC cable loss.
is that has any formula to calculate the dc cable loss,
i has using this formula is
(losses of the cable (Ω/km)x length X current produce by the solar panel...
Thanks again to all who participated in the Hand Grenade in Solar Orbit discussion. Here's a related question that was prompted in my mind from that discussion:
Suppose we could magically insert a new nano-planet (we'll call it "Bob") into our existing solar system. Let's suppose that...
I've been building a solar system integrator using C++, OpenGL for graphics, Qt for UI and I would like some info about the choice of integrator. The project is at a pretty advanced stage now and I'm currently adding all moons since graphically it's doing well, I can move about the whole system...
Specifically, could Venus have otherwise formed as one, while leaving the rest of the structure of the solar system pretty much intact?
Failing that, could one have formed anywhere in the solar system?
Dear Forum Users,
I am looking for a database of proton fluxes. I have found already the SOHO database:
http://umtof.umd.edu/pm/
but I need also the database for energy range of 1keV to 100 keV range.
Does someone could send me some hints where to search?
nykon
Hi,
ive been studying formation of solar system and couldn't find an
explanation for why the sun didn't absorb heavy elements from
early solar system? why they remained around the sun and formed
planets and not get absorbed to the centre?
thanks in advance
Anyone heard of the "solar snake" Solar system theory?
hello this is my first post and i am far from being a physicist or an astronomy major so please bear with me
A friend sent me this link
Mod note: link removed
this man named Dr. Bhat wrote a book explaining how the solar system is not on...
Hey guys. This is my first post here and I hope many more will follow. Now on to the topic at hand…
I’ve been doing some research into the solar system’s formation and evolution. As many of you are probably aware, the solar system’s heavier elements are believed to be the remnants of a...
I am a 17 year old high school student in Alabama, and after my astronomy test today, I decided to calculate the mass of all interstellar gas and dust in our solar system (under the assumption that the solar system extends to 55,000 AU in all directions) and I calculated the mass to be a...
So I was talking with a guy last night who was trying to tell me this: Our galaxy is stirring up as it spins and this might cause another planet to come along and collide with earth. My first comment was that the stuff in the galaxy is all caught up in the same "stirring" motion, so it's not...
The panels are up. 7kW system will be 110% of our electrical needs. Grid intertie, no batteries, no pile of money up front: $109/month for the next 15 years.
Plus dig the new deck I built last summer.
--Chi "Happy Homeowner" Meson
And directly related to that: How can we be sure of the speed of light? I've been searching for a good answer as to how we measure the SOL and am yet to have someone give me a solid explanation. Today we shine a laser at a mirror on the moon and time how long it takes to get back. What it...
Homework Statement
Consider a planet in some solar system which has a mass double the mass of Earth and same density as of Earth . What is the weight of object on the planet in terms of 'W' , where 'W' is weight of object on Earth
Homework Equations
W=mg ... density = M / V . ...
Hi everyone,
i'm looking for a website that can show me how the solar system was in place the minute i was born. November 6, 1982 6:32 a.m.
I found this website but i don't know how precise it is.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
please let me know!
thanks.
Has anyone figured out or tried this:
It seems to me that since light is bent by G fields, that looking close enough to the side of a black hole, some of that light near the event horizon may have escaped its G field after its trajectory has changed significantly... possibly redirected enough...
Hi !
Somewhere I read about our solar system is going slowly out of our galaxy (moving backward from the center, but then I can also read our solar system is approaching center with sonic speed. So how is our solar system actually moving toward the centre of milky way (beside rotation around...
Hi, I am wondering how to describe a position of our solar system to some other extraterrestrial intelligence in some distant galaxy to find us? Is it possible or not?
i mean if such guidance exist for any galaxy or they have to track back movement of your probe or spaceship etc. and some...
For years I have accepted the common wisdom that "the elements making up the Earth are 4.5 bn years old, therefore the Earth is 4.5 bn years old."
But, upon thinking on this during Professor Brian Cox's excellent program about the evolution of things and the fact that the solar system is...
I've coded a physics simulator that simulates the solar system. Essentially it just calculates gravity between bodies and attracts them together, the most basic simulation.
But obviously just feeding in positions for the sun and the planets will just have them all fall into directly each other...
How accurate are "simple" models of the solar system?
Exactly how much effect does the perturbation of other planets have on planetary orbits? That is, if we were to take a naive model of the solar system, just applying Kepler's laws to each planet individually, with no planet-planet...
Hi,
i'm attempting to simulate the Solar System in Java.
I'm particularly interested in simulating orbits of celestial bodies that might enter our solar system. Therefore I need real data for my simulation.
That is: x,y,z coordinates of planets with respect to the Sun (taking the sun to...
I've been reading about terraforming and really stuck with it. Which planet /moon has the most convenient conditions, such as mass, magnetic field, gravity, intensity of sunlight for possible terraform. Venus, Moon or Mars or some else? Which one do you think? And would it be possible?
Basic...
This article http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-big-edge-solar.html" tells about discovery of magnetic bubbles at the edge of solar system.
As I understand they are around 100AU from Sun and around the size of 1AU. That makes them roughly 3.6° angular size.
Shouldn't these bubbles cause...
Are there any usable simulation in the literature on the formation of a solar system?
It is possible for example that a solar system has 100 big planets?
The Hubble law v=Hd is basic to Cosmology. Among other good things, it teaches us an absolute criterion for motion and idea of time ("universe time") that are useful in Cosmology.
The Law refers to distances d between stationary observers---observers at rest relative to the Background of...
Hi, for all of you we´ve made new user-friendly interactive 3D model of solar system and night sky with real-time planet´s positions.
http://www.solarsystemscope.com/ (requires flash)
Application in a simple way helps students and laymen to understand the movements of the planets and...