2013

The Solar System

Juan Villa GEO 103 9/18/2013

Villa 1 The solar system is a system of eight planets, their respective orbiting moons, and some asteroids/comets, all revolving around one the sun. The eight planets that make up the solar system are: Mars, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The first four are categorized as terrestrial planets, while the other four are known as gas giants. These eight planets all differ in sizes, characteristics and interior composition. But, they are all primarily affected by sun. The sun is the essential motor of the solar system, which runs on the engine of gravity. (Dalrymple, 1991) The solar system has been noted to be formed within the Milky Way galaxy about 4.6 billion years ago. The solar system is just an extremely small fragment of the Milky Way galaxy, and an unbelievably minutely small section of the theorized universe. The solar system is located in the southern section of the Milky Way galaxy, when referring to the center of the Milky Way. The solar system got composed as the decay of a small section of a large molecular cloud left essential gasses like hydrogen and Helium and some remaining dust particles. By the process of combining and attracting, the dust and the elements began to form a mass-like object, over a period of millions of years. As this mass of gasses and dust got denser and denser it got hotter, and with the help of gravity it eventually ended up becoming our Sun. Now once the sun, the heaviest and only start in the solar system, was formed, all other masses of less gravitational force got hooked onto the gravitational pull of the sun. These masses began to evolve over millions of years, having interactions with other masses, asteroids containing different elements, etc, until forming uniform masses that we refer to as today as planets. Other smaller remains of mass collisions and interactions became known as moons, asteroids and comets. This entire process of the creation of the sun, the planets, moons and asteroids/comets all took billions and billions of years to happen, it was not a fast process at all. (Dalrymple, 1991) Each of these planets circulates with reference to the sun at various velocities, and also rotates upon their on axis due to their different masses and distances from the sun. All of the planets move on a circular motion thanks to the centripetal force that the sun impacts the planets with. The centripetal force

Villa 2 of that one body puts on another body in circular motion takes into account its mass, velocity and distance between masses. For example, Earth is at a perfect radial distance from the sun of about 93 million miles away. This ideal distance provides Earth with the perfect conditions for any living organism to live and survive: reason why living organism like humans, animals and insects exist today. It moves at a velocity of and it weights about. The distance from the sun to the planet is the main factor for organisms to live and thrive on it, reason why Venus (a planet too close) and Neptune, (a planet too far) cannot sustain any living organisms. (USGS, 2007) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, commonly known as NASA, are responsible for many of the facts and discoveries that we know about the solar system. NASA has been on a quest to find other earth-like planets around the universe since its foundation. We as humans have always wondered whether we are actually all alone in this ever-growing galaxy. The NASA reflected that same interest of the common human being by sending out a telescope, called Kepler on the search of any habitable planets within our Milky Way galaxy. (Johnson, 2011). Are we really alone? Well, the answer to this question might have been answered thanks to NASA. NASAs Kepler Mission has confirmed the first planet in a habitable zone surrounding a Sun-like star. This ground breaking discovery had been researched from May 2009 to September 2010 by the Kepler mission. The discovery of this earth like planet had opened the eyes, and raised the eyebrows of all scientific minds in the world. This planet, called Kepler-22b is one of the 2,300 candidates that could potentially be earth-like. Other candidates needed confirmation before being declared a planet. The planet Kepler 22-b is about 2.5 the size of the radius of earth and it is located 600 light-years away. While the planet is larger than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our world. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type, although it is a bit smaller than and not as hot as our sun. (Johnson, 2011).

Villa 3 "This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."(Johnson, 2011). As said by Douglas Hudgins, this is an amazingly influential big first step to the journey of finding our earths twin. I personally hope that NASA continues to investigate the characteristics of Kepler 22-b. I want to see the day where we can say that weve found a planet in which other humans can populate and use, since weve been harshly destroying our current one.

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Work Cited "AGE OF THE EARTH."Geologic Time: Age of the Earth. 09 July 2007. USGS. 17 Sept. 2013 <http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html>. Dalrymple, G. Brent. The Age of the Earth. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1991. Johnson, Michele. "Solar System Exploration: News & Events: News Archive: NASA's Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star." Solar System Exploration: News & Events: News Archive: NASA's Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star. 06 Dec. 2011. NASA Ames Research Center. 17 Sept. 2013 <http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=39204>.