A Field Guide to the Planets

Description

Professor Biography Course Scope Lecture 1—How the Solar System Family Is Organized Organizing the Solar System Water in the Solar System Cooling Collisions Lecture 2—Mercury, the Extreme Little Planet Orbit and Rotation Surface Features Core and Magnetic Field Structure and Composition Atmosphere Lecture 3—Venus, the Veiled Greenhouse Planet Atmosphere Greenhouse Effect Sulfuric Acid Clouds and Winds Upside-Down Rotation Surface and Interior Lecture 4—Earth: How Plate Tectonics Sets Up Life Plate Tectonics Plate Tectonics and Climate Plate Tectonics and Life Lecture 5—Orbiting Earth: Up through the Atmosphere Troposphere Stratosphere Mesosphere Thermosphere Exosphere Magnetosphere Lecture 6—Exploring the Earth-Moon System Comparing the Moon and Earth The Moon’s Orbit and Phases Lunar Tides The Moon’s Effect on Earth’s Rotation Stability The Formation of the Moon Quiz for Lectures 1-6 Lecture 7—Humans on the Moon: A Never-Ending Story The Apollo Program Geology of the Moon Craters Lunar Swirls Lava Channels and Tubes Water on the Moon The Interior of the Moon Lecture 8—Exploring Mars from Space and the Ground Mars’s Orbit, Rotation, and Seasons Mars’s Atmosphere Mars’s Polar Caps Mars’s Moons: Phobos and Deimos Mars’s Surface and Interior Lecture 9—Water on Mars and Prospects for Life Water and Life Geomorphic Evidence Aqueous Mineralogy Mars’s D/H Ratio Searching for Water and Life on Mars: The Way Forward Lecture 10—Near-Earth Asteroids and the Asteroid Belt What Is an Asteroid? Near-Earth Asteroids Visiting the Asteroid Belt Other Asteroids Lecture 11—Mighty Jupiter, The Ruling Gas Giant Composition Atmosphere Interior Magnetic Field Jupiter in Solar System Context Lecture 12—Jupiter’s Planetlike System of Moons The Galilean Satellites Io Europa Ganymede Callisto The Smaller Moons Quiz for Lectures 7-12 Lecture 13—Saturn and the Rings: Gravity’s Masterpiece The Ring System The Cassini Mission How the Rings Formed Atmosphere Magnetic and Gravity Fields Ring Seismology Lecture 14—Saturn’s Moons: Titan to Enceladus The Saturnian Moons Titan Rhea Dione Iapetus Enceladus Tethys Mimas Lecture 15—Uranus: A Water World on Its Side What Is an Ice Giant? Unusual Rotation Atmosphere Interior Magnetic Field Moons Rings Lecture 16—Neptune: Windy with the Wildest Moon First Contact Atmosphere Interior Triton Rings Lecture 17—Pluto and Charon: The Binary Worlds Pluto The New Horizons Mission Charon Dwarf Planet Status Lecture 18—Comets, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud Comets The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud Quiz for Lectures 13-18 Lecture 19—How Our Sun Defines Our Solar System Gravity, Light, and Heat Solar Magnetic Field The Solar Wind Solar Storms Lecture 20—A Solar System Time Machine and Meteorites Clue 1: Orbits in the Solar System Clue 2: Planet Composition Clue 3: Few and Isolated Planets Clue 4: Where the Tiny Things Are Clue 5: Planet Structure Clue 6: Moon Systems Clue 7: Planetary Catastrophes Timing of Solar System Formation: Meteorites and Isotopes Lecture 21—What the Biggest Exoplanets Reveal Pulsar Planets Planets around Main-Sequence Stars Hot Jupiters The Radial Velocity Method The Transit Method Direct Imaging Lecture 22—Closing in on Earthlike Exoplanets Earthlike Criterion 1: Mass or Size Earthlike Criterion 2: Composition Earthlike Criterion 3: Habitability Earthlike Criterion 4: Atmosphere Earthlike Criterion 5: A Moon Exoplanet Statistics Lecture 23—Planets Migrated in Our Early Solar System! Evidence for the Late Heavy Bombardment Potential Causes of the LHB How Planet Migration Could Lead to the LHB: The Nice Model The Grand Tack Model Criticism of the LHB Lecture 24—Human Futures in the Solar System Getting to the Planets New Ways to Explore Planets Magnetic Shielding Giant Telescopes Astrobiology Quiz for Lectures 19-24 Answers Bibliography