Blog Post 3 Creation and Composition of the Solar System

Posted on March 21, 2022 by isaachuggins

The creation of our planet, the Earth, was achieved by the forces of gravity over millions of years, melding together different rocks into a sphere. This process, known as accretion, let the Earth grow into the size it is today, with the help of Thea, a large planet that turned into our moon.

These rocks were not all uniform in composition, with some being silicate rocks and others were icy rocks. Some were even metal. During the formation of Earth, the materials inside the planet shifted in a process known as differentiation, where the denser materials shifted down into the core while the less dense materials shifted up to the surface. It is just like oil and water being mixed together then separating after time. This is the reason why we have a rocky surface on the earth and crust, while the core of our planet is composed of denser metals such as iron and nickel.

Example of the effects of differentiation, where denser materials fall closer to the center of the planet due to gravity, credit to Wikipedia

This can also be shown on a larger scale to the solar system. The solar system started out as a cloud of cosmic dust that started to spin, flatten, and heat up. This is the birth of our star, but also the birth of the rocks that will become our planets. In a sense, this collection of mass in a disk is similar to accretion.

Furthermore, the heat near the center of the early solar system is much more intense compared to the outskirts. This causes a difference in what rocks can feasibly condense. Metals and rocks have higher melting temperatures, so they can exist closer to the center of the sun. These metal building blocks can also exist farther away from the sun, but there are also icy rocks and gasses that have cooled to a solid state. This means that the center of the solar system can have planets made of only denser materials, while the outer planets have less dense materials making up their composition. This process, although dictated by temperature and condensation rather than gravity, is very akin to differentiation.

In both cases, the density of the material, which influences relative position from other materials as well as melting temperature, has shaped both our planets’ and solar system’s layout.

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Let’s Talk About Super-Earths

Posted on March 21, 2022 by jordanekstein

Super-Earths refer to planets discovered that are more massive than earth, yet lighter than ice giants like Neptune or Uranus. These super-earths can be composed of rock, gas or both and they must be between can be between 2 and ten times the size of earth.

Despite their category name, this type of planet is not referring to potentially-habitable planets (at least exclusively that is although some are considered to be so). Instead, super-earth is solely referring to an exoplanet’s size. So far, 1,568 of these super-earths have been found.

While we don’t know a whole lot across the board about super-earths as a whole we do speculate that they can be extremely unique. Here’s a list of some fascinating super-earth exoplanets and some of the predictions surrounding them.

Kepler-452b: the first Earth-size planet discovered around a nearby twin solar system

Kepler-22b: a super-earth thought to be covered in a super ocean

TOI-270b: likely a rocky super-earth 25% larger than earth. This exoplanets orbits its sun every 3.4 days and is 13 times closer to its sun that mercury.

55 Cancri e: only 41 light years away this super-earth orbits its sun every 18 hours and, due to its proximity, has one side considered to be the day-side and one the night-side like our moon. By studying the star with infrared vision with 80 hours, multiple orbits, it was able to be concluded that there was a temperature difference of 1,300 Kelvin from one side to the other with the hottest side nearly 2,700 Kelvin and the cooler side 1,400 Kelvin.

Above is the TOI 270 System including the aforementioned TOI-270b exoplanet along with two other super-earths.
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History of our Solar System

Posted on March 21, 2022 by jschorr21
Formation of the Solar System

Approx. 13.8 billion years ago, everything we know and love in the universe was formed with The Big Bang. Fast-forwarding 9.2 billion years, we can start to see the formation of our Solar System. 4.6 billion years ago, what we call the Solar System was nothing but a large cloud of debris, gas, and dust in the Milky Way. Gravity starts to pull a chunk of this cloud closer and closer together until it collapses and forms the beginning of our sun. 4.56 billion years ago, the mass that did not become part of the Sun begin to orbit the Sun, and tiny planets start forming. 4.5 billion years ago, Jupiter forms as the first planet, followed by Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. Then, the sun becomes hot and dense enough to begin nuclear fusion, and the universe is lit up. Starting with Venus and Earth, the inner planets form. A Mars-sized planet called Theia crashes into earth, and the debris forms the Moon. ~4.3 billion years ago, the Sun starts to separate from the other protesters. ~4 billion years ago, water and organics make it to Earth as the Giant planets’ orbits shift. 3-4 billion years ago, the inner planets experience extreme conditions and lots of volcanism. Life begins on earth approx. 3.7 billion years ago, and 3 billion years ago, Mars lost most of its atmosphere and almost all of its water. 2.5 billion years ago, organisms that can perform photosynthesis dominate the earth filling our atmosphere with oxygen. 1 billion years ago, The moon stops its volcanism. Just as complex animals were beginning to be prominent on Earth, the Cambrian Extinction wipes out almost all life. Saturn obtains its rings 100 million years ago. 65 million years ago, a huge astroid strikes earth wiping out the dinosaurs. ~2000 years ago, the first models of the Solar System are created by the Greeks with the Earth as the Center. ~500 years ago, Nicolas Copernicus creates the Heliocentric model of the universe–the first astronomer to claim the Earth to not be the center of the universe. ~300 years ago, Sir William Herschel discovers Uranus. ~200 years ago, John Couch Adams discovers Neptune after finding evidence of ‘dark’ mass in the Solar System. ~100 years ago, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto. ~15 years ago, Pluto is declared to be a dwarf planet.

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Persevering through the trials of landing on Mars

Posted on March 21, 2022 by timmyshaheen
Animation of Perseverance landing on Mars (NASA JPL)

Space rovers can cost a space program billions of dollars to make; in fact, Perseverance cost NASA 2.7 billion dollars. (Planetary) With that much money, time, and effort being put into a project, it makes sense that those behind it, wish to actually see their hard work successfully operate. For this to happen, the rover must successfully land on the planet that it is meant to explore.

In December of 1999, NASA’s Mars Polar Lander crashed into the southern pole of the planet at around 400 miles an hour, a disastrous failed landing. (SpaceRef) Perseverance used a new, autonomous system to land on Mars. After breaking through the atmosphere, the largest parachute ever used on Mars helped slow its descent. Then the heat shield fell away allowing for the sky crane to deploy. Using thrusters to steer away from the rest of the descent vehicle, the sky crane lowered the rover. Finally, it released the rover off of the cables, and flew away. (Space.com)

The pure ingenuity of the landing was its live adjustments. The landing vehicle was able to capture images of the planet and compare them to satellite photos, making adjusting its course in real time so that it could land as close to its predetermined spot as possible. Additionally, it was able to avoid hazardous locations amidst landing. This allowed for NASA to land the rover much closer to its scientific objectives than any of its previous projects.

With technology like this, astronomical research will continue to expand, allowing us to unlock more of the secrets of the solar system.

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The Different Atmospheres in our Solar System

Posted on March 21, 2022 by jordanekstein

An atmosphere consists of the gases surrounding a planet. Atmospheres are created by volcanism (outgassing of volcanoes involves eruptions that take gasses from the earth’s interior and put them into the atmosphere), evaporation (of compounds such as water), and life (outgassing of carbon dioxide and oxygen). Life is an interesting component of an atmosphere as it only exists and contributes to the atmosphere of earth. Despite earth’s clear unique atmospheric composition, the terrestrial planets have similar atmospheres to each other and the gas giants do as well.

Terrestrial planets are known for having gases in their atmospheres such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen and argon. The gas giants on the other hand have primarily helium and hydrogen in theirs. Below is a list of all the planets atmospheric attributes:

Mercury: thin, nearly undetectable atmosphere consisting of mainly sodium and potassium gas

Venus: mainly carbon dioxide with minor amounts of nitrogen and trace amounts of helium, neon and argon

Earth: mainly composed of nitrogen and oxygen with smaller amounts of carbon dioxide, ozone, argon and helium

Mars: thin atmosphere, mainly composed of carbon dioxide. Smaller concentration of nitrogen and argon with traces of oxygen and water vapor

Jupiter: mainly helium and hydrogen with trace amounts of water, ammonia, methane and other carbon compounds. Jupiter’s outermost atmosphere contains three layers of clouds with the lowest being made of water/ice, the mid-level clouds of crystals formed by a compound of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide and the highest clouds of ammonia ice

Saturn: mainly composed of helium and hydrogen with smaller amounts of methane and ammonia

Uranus: mainly hydrogen based with small amounts of helium as well as methane. Methane is the basis of most of the clouds seen on Uranus making the planet appear blue (likewise with Neptune) as methane absorbs light of other wavelengths

Neptune: mainly hydrogen and helium with about 2.5-3% of its atmosphere being methane

Breakdown of the planetary atmospheric compositions
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Blog 4: Black Holes

Posted on March 21, 2022 by camsto42
An artist's representation of a supermassive black hole.
“Supermassive Black Hole”

Black holes have always been a topic that interests me, and this article gives some very cool insight to a possible cause for the formation of these black holes. Most black holes have been found to form as the result of stars collapsing, and then when matter in multiple black holes collides, these black holes grow. This provides a good explanation for the forming of the large black holes, but how supermassive black holes for so rapidly is still not answered. A new thought is that the supermassive black holes might have formed during, and as a result of, the universe cooling from its “hot, dense state“. This would involve the combination of dark matter to have these black holes grow in size. This would’ve occurred before galaxies were formed.

The term supermassive black hole refers to the gigantic black holes that sit at the center of most galaxies. Around these supermassive black holes a particle has been discovered: the ultralight boson. This is thought to be a cause of the universes dark matter and it swirls around these black holes. These particles swirl around each other and explode, possibly expanding the black holes.

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Earth’s Atmosphere and Life

Posted on March 21, 2022 by solarelizabeth
The Greenhouse Effect!

Earth’s atmosphere is conducive to life in a way other terrestrial worlds’ atmospheres are not. 

This is because of the greenhouse effect, which keeps Earth warm and allows water to exist in its liquid form. Other planets such as Mercury which do not have an atmosphere or the greenhouse effect are extremely hot during the day and frigid at night. Earth, however, has a much more regulated temperature because of its atmospheric composition, which is conducive to the greenhouse effect. 

The sun gives off energy that warms the Earth, mostly in the form of visible light. This energy is absorbed by Earth’s surface and some is reflected back into space as infrared light (planets are not hot enough to emit visible light). Greenhouse gasses such as water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide absorb and reemit these infrared photons. Emitted photons are absorbed by other greenhouse gas molecules and then reemitted.The escape of infrared light into space is slowed and this passing around of the molecules heats the atmosphere. It’s interesting to consider that though Earth’s atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen and oxygen, the small proportion of greenhouse gases still has a meaningful impact on temperature regulation. On the other hand, Venus has a much stronger greenhouse effect than Earth because it has a much larger portion of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in its atmosphere. Venus is scorching hot all of the time because of its greenhouse effect. Earth is not as hot because its atmosphere has a smaller composition of greenhouse gases.

Do you think the daytime and nighttime temperatures would be more different for a planet with a greenhouse effect or without a greenhouse effect?

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Blog 3: Climate Change

Posted on March 21, 2022 by camsto42
NPR Carbon Footprint

Astronomy has been around for many many years, as we have learned in class. Astronomy used to be a hobby for the wealthy, now it is an occupation for the smartest to learn about the universe we are in. One major facet that astronomers have observed and questioned is climate change. Recently, it has become evident that the new telescopes we use are contributing to the climate problems. This is a huge problem because as we search for answers to the serious problem we have in our world, we make the problem exponentially worse. The most expensive observatories, such as the one that houses the James Webb telescope, are the ones that cause the most emission, and these observatories are those that gather the most data. This is an example of a compounding problem, and many different solutions are being explored. Two solutions that are presenting themselves are the use of solar power, and the use of greener energy. Both of these are better options, as the cause less emission, and observatories around the world are slowly going to adopt these policies.

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The moon’s origin

Posted on March 21, 2022 by joubertklopper

Earth’s moon is unique for several reasons. Earth’s moon relevant to its planet’s size, Earth is the largest in our solar system and that fact has drawn my curiosity to the subject of the moon’s origins and what makes it so unique.

It is speculated that the moon originated when another terrestrial planet, Theia crashed into earth. This theory is called the giant-impact theory. The giant-impact theory hypothesizes that Theia was about the size of Mars and collided with earth and caused a huge impact. The theory furthermore says that Theia was completely destroyed while Earth obviously survived. The impact made Earth spin so fast that the days shortly after impact were around 5 hours. Most of Thea was completely destroyed; however some of the debris of the collision remained and orbited earth and through that the Moon was formed.

The giant impact which formed the Moon

This theory is supported by the fact that the rocks collected from the moon from the Apollo missions were very similar to the rocks that could be found on earth. What was different however, was that the Moon’s rocks were much drier than the rocks from Earth. A giant energy occurrence must have happened on the Moon with the Moon heating up to extraordinary levels causing the rocks to completely dry out. The giant-impact theory accurately explains this.

The YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2lRpiediP8 does a great job explaining the collusion and the visuals are super interesting and fun to watch!

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Earth and Venus: Zach and Cody?

Posted on March 21, 2022 by joubertklopper

Scientists argue that Venus is earth’s astronomical twin for a number on reasons. Like Zach and Cody from the Disney Channel sitcom, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody their physical similarities and dependance on each other cannot be overlooked.

Looking at Earth and Venus’ similarities, the similar diameter comes to mind. The diameter of Venus is 12,103.6 km. That’s only 95% of the Earth’s diameter of 12,756.2 km. If we were to place the two twins next to each other we would struggle to distinguish between the sizes of both terrestrial worlds. Second, because of their similar size, their internal content are also pretty similar. Both have a similar sized core made up of mostly metal, their crust is also a similar size and is mostly mad out of rock. Needless to say due to their similar, large size heat escapes at a slower pace keeping both Earth and Venus’ interiors warm and therefore has a thin lithosphere.

Earth and its twin

Venus might be a twin in a lot of aspects, but in some Venus is vastly different than Earth. Venus’ temperature is around 93 times that of the temperature experienced on Earth. Due to these high temperatures Venus is almost completely dry. The high temperatures, lack of water combined with the lack of oxygen on Venus explains why we have yet to discover any signs of life on Earth’s twin planet.

Venus looking at Earth having moderate temperatures, water and oxygen like…

Looking at what was said from above, the biggest similarity between Earth and Venus is their composition and the biggest difference is Earth’s environment encourages life while Venus’ doesn’t.

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