Astronomy 161 - Introduction to Solar System Astronomy

Astronomy 161 - Introduction to Solar System Astronomy

By Richard PoggeEducationNatural Sciences
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Astronomy 161 - Introduction to Solar System Astronomy episodes

  • Lecture 46: ExoPlanets - Planets around Other Stars
    Are there planets around other stars? Are there Earth-like planets
    around other stars? Do any of those harbor life? Intelligent life?
    We'd like to know the answers to all of these questions, and in recent
    years we've made great progress towards at least answering the first.
    To date, more than 200 planets have been found around other stars, most in the
    interstellar neighborhood of the Sun, but a few at great distance. This
    lecture reviews the search for ExoPlanets, discussing the successful
    Doppler Wobble, Transit, and Microlensing techniques. What we have
    found so far are very suprising systems, especially Jupiter-size or
    bigger planets orbiting very close (few hundredths of an AU) from their
    parent stars. The existance of a significant population of so-called
    "Hot Jupiters" may be telling us that planetary migration can be much
    more extreme that we saw in our own Solar System, or that these
    planetary system formed in a very different way than ours. It seems
    appropriate to end this class with more questions than answers, but
    that's where the science becomes most exciting. Recorded 2006 Dec 1 in
    100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
    0 min
  • Lecture 45: Is Pluto a Planet?
    What is a planet? Is Pluto a planet? This lecture traces the debate on
    the nature of what it means to be a planet by taking an historical approach,
    looking at how the question has arisen with the discovery of the asteroids and
    later Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. Many of the issued raised at the 2006
    IAU General Assembly meeting were raised two centuries before after the
    discovery of Ceres and Pallas. We will end with the new definition of a
    planet, and why Pluto is better understood as a Dwarf Planet, among the
    two largest objects of the class of small icy bodies of the outer solar
    system, than as the smallest of the planets. Recorded 2006 Nov 30 in
    100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
    0 min
  • Lecture 44: Comets
    Comets are occasional visitors from the icy reaches of the outer Solar
    System. This lecture discusses the orbits, structure, and properties of
    comets, and introduces the "dirty snowball" model of a comet nucleus.
    The end of class was a demo where I created a model of a comet nucleus
    from common household and office materials. Imagine a twisted
    combination of Alton Brown and Emeril Lagasse with a PhD in Astrophysics
    and you get the idea. We were not able to arrange for a videographer to
    come, but we did get some stills before the batteries died on the
    digital camera. The pictures are on the lecture webpage. The lecture
    is slightly abbreviated because we did the student evaluation of
    instruction surveys before class started. Recorded 2006 Nov 29 in 100
    Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
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  • Lecture 43: Icy Worlds of the Outer Solar System
    Beyond the orbit of Neptune is the realm of the icy worlds, ranging in
    size from Triton, the giant moon of Neptune, and the dwarf planets Pluto
    and Eris, all the way down to the nuclei of comets. This lecture
    discussed the icy bodies of the Trans-Neptunian regions of the Solar
    System, discussing the basic properties of Triton (the best studied such
    object), Pluto, Eris, and the Kuiper Belt, introducing the dynamical
    families of Trans-Neptunian Objects that record in their orbits the slow
    migration of Neptune outwards during the early history of the Solar
    System. The Kuiper Belt is the icy analog of the main Asteroid Belt of
    the inner Solar System: both are shaped by their gravitational
    interaction with giant gas planets (Jupiter for the asteroids, Neptune
    for the KBOs), and are composed of leftover raw materials from the
    formation of their respective regions of the Solar System. Recorded
    2006 Nov 28 in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio
    State University.
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  • Lecture 42: Asteroids and Meteoroids
    Asteroids are the leftover rocky materials from the formation of the
    Solar System that reside mainly in a broad belt between the orbits of
    Mars and Jupiter. Meteoroids are fragments of asteroids or bits of
    debris from passing comets that occasionally pass through our atmosphere
    as meteors, and even more rarely survive the fiery passage to reach the
    ground as a meteorite. This lecture reviews the physical and dynamical
    (orbital) properties of Asteroids and Meteoroids, and discusses the role
    of Jupiter and orbital resonances in dynamically sculpting the Main
    Belt. Recorded 2006 Nov 27 in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus
    of The Ohio State University.
    0 min
  • Lecture 41: Planetary Rings
    All Jovian planets have rings. We are most familiar with the bright,
    spectacular rings of Saturn, but the other Jovian planets have rings
    systems around them. This lecture describes the different ring systems
    and their properties, and discusses their origin, formation, and the
    physics - resonances and shepherd moons - that govern their evolution.
    Recorded 2006 Nov 22 in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The
    Ohio State University.
    0 min
  • Lecture 40: The Saturn System
    Saturn is attended by a system of 56 known moons and bright, beautiful
    rings. The Moon system is the focus of our attention today. Saturn has
    one giant moon, Titan, which is the 2nd largest moon in the Solar
    System, and the only one with a heavy atmosphere. On Titan, the
    atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and methane, but the temperature and
    pressure are such that methane plays the same role that water plays on
    the Earth: it can be either a solid, gas, or liquid. I will review
    tantalizing evidence from the Cassini and Huygens probes that there is,
    in fact, liquid methane and maybe even liquid methane lakes on Titan.
    Most of the other moons are ancient, icy, and heavily cratered -
    geologically dead worlds - but one, Enceladus, is a big surprise. The
    shiniest object in the Solar System, Enceladus has spectacular fountains
    - cryovolcanos - that spew water vapor from reservoirs created in its
    tidally-heated interior. This ice repaves much of the surface of
    Enceladus, giving it a young, shiny surface, and builds the E ring of
    Saturn. Recorded 2006 Nov 21 in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus
    campus of The Ohio State University.
    0 min
  • Lecture 39: The Moons of Jupiter
    Jupiter is surrounded by a solar system in miniature of 63 known moons.
    Most (59) are tiny, irregular bodies that are a combination of captured
    asteroids and comets. The 4 largest are the giant Galilean Moons: Io,
    Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Each is a fascinating world of its own,
    with a unique history and properties: volcanically active Io, icy Europa
    which may hide an ocean of liquid water beneath the surface, the grooved
    terrain of Ganymede, and frozen dirty Callisto with the most ancient
    surface of the four. Recorded 2006 Nov 20 in 100 Stillman Hall on the
    Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
    0 min
  • Lecture 38: Uranus and Neptune
    Uranus and Neptune are the smallest and outermost of the 4 Jovian
    planets. While superficially similar to Jupiter and Saturn, there are
    substantial differences. Uranus and Neptune have smaller rocky cores
    surrounded by deep, slushy ice mantles and relatively thinner hydrogen
    atmospheres, quite different from the massive cores and deep metallic
    hydrogen mantles of Jupiter and Saturn. We will also ask why they
    appear blue, look at their internal energy and weather, and then review
    the properties of the Jovian planets as a group. Recorded 2006 Nov 16
    in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State
    University.
    0 min

Best of Astronomy 161 - Introduction to Solar System Astronomy

Ranked by our users in the last 21 days

  1. Number 1: Lecture 42: Asteroids and Meteoroids
  2. Number 2: Lecture 41: Planetary Rings
  3. Number 3: Lecture 3: The Starry Night

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