Note on our solar system, some consequences of angular momentum conservation and angular

momentum puzzle

Here is a picture of the planetary orbits around our sun:

Each planet has orbital angular momentum (by virtue of it moving around the sun) whose axis is normal to
the orbital plane and spin angular momentum (by virtue of it spinning about an axis that passes through its
CM). It is interesting to note that the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, shown separately) as
well as the outer planets (with the exception of Pluto) are nearly in the same orbital plane. Note that the
orientation of the spin axis is also indicated for each planet. The actual tilts of each orbital plane and the
orientation of the spin axes are tabulated below.

Planetary Fact Sheet - Metric

NEPTUNE
MERCURY VENUS EARTH MOON MARS JUPITER SATURN URANUS PLUTO

Mass (1024kg) 0.330 4.87 5.97 0.073 0.642 1898 568 86.8 102 0.0146

Diameter (km) 4879 12,104 12,756 3475 6792 142,984 120,536 51,118 49,528 2370

Density (kg/m3) 5427 5243 5514 3340 3933 1326 687 1271 1638 2095

Gravity (m/s2) 3.7 8.9 9.8 1.6 3.7 23.1 9.0 8.7 11.0 0.7

Escape Velocity
4.3 10.4 11.2 2.4 5.0 59.5 35.5 21.3 23.5 1.3
(km/s)

Rotation Period
1407.6 -5832.5 23.9 655.7 24.6 9.9 10.7 -17.2 16.1 -153.3
(hours)

Length of Day
4222.6 2802.0 24.0 708.7 24.7 9.9 10.7 17.2 16.1 153.3
(hours)

Distance from Sun

57.9 108.2 149.6 0.384* 227.9 778.6 1433.5 2872.5 4495.1 5906.4
(106 km)

Perihelion (106 km) 46.0 107.5 147.1 0.363* 206.6 740.5 1352.6 2741.3 4444.5 4436.8

Aphelion (106 km) 69.8 108.9 152.1 0.406* 249.2 816.6 1514.5 3003.6 4545.7 7375.9

Orbital Period (days) 88.0 224.7 365.2 27.3 687.0 4331 10,747 30,589 59,800 90,560
 Orbital Velocity
47.4 35.0 29.8 1.0 24.1 13.1 9.7 6.8 5.4 4.7
(km/s)

Orbital Inclination
7.0 3.4 0.0 5.1 1.9 1.3 2.5 0.8 1.8 17.2
(degrees)

Orbital Eccentricity 0.205 0.007 0.017 0.055 0.094 0.049 0.057 0.046 0.011 0.244

Axial Tilt (degrees) 0.01 177.4 23.4 6.7 25.2 3.1 26.7 97.8 28.3 122.5

Mean Temperature
167 464 15 -20 -65 -110 -140 -195 -200 -225
(C)

Surface Pressure
0 92 1 0 0.01 Unknown* Unknown* Unknown* Unknown* 0
(bars)

Number of Moons 0 0 1 0 2 67 62 27 14 5

Ring System? No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Global Magnetic
Yes No Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown
Field?

NEPTUNE
MERCURY VENUS EARTH MOON MARS JUPITER SATURN URANUS PLUTO

(from Dr. David R. Williams, dave.williams@nasa.gov)

A possible scenario for the evolution of a self-gravitating (particles interacting only through their own
gravitational forces) gas:
A self-gravitating collection of particles acquires angular momentum (one possible mechanism can be due to
the torque that arises when the center of mass (CM) is not equal to the center of gravity (CG) when does
this happen?) in the initial phases of formation. By the time the two centers (CM and CG) coincide, the
angular momentum would have been built-up by the non-vanishing torque. Once CM equals CG, the torque
vanishes (no other external forces are present) and the angular momentum is conserved. This in turn leads
to particles, located perpendicular to the spin axis, acquiring increasing kinetic energies and competing with
gravitational potential energies (why?). The spinning gas cloud keeps contracting, due to gravity, more
preferentially along the spin axis (why?) and the gas cloud acquires a disc-like shape with a bulge at the
center. You will see many galaxies in our universe having this structure. Below is a picture of the real Milky
Way taken by the satellite COBE. The disk and center region of our Galaxy are readily recognizable. This
image makes the Milky Way appear much more galaxy-like and less like the smudge of stars we see
stretching across our night sky.

Image Credit: The COBE Project, DIRBE, NASA

The Milky Way is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km (about 100,000 light years or about 30 kpc) across.
The Sun does not lie near the center of our Galaxy. It lies about 8 kpc from the center on what is known as
the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way.
Formation of solar system:
One of the earliest heliocentric models of solar system formation is termed the nebular theory, which may
be traced back to the seventeenth-century French philosopher Ren Descartes. In this model, a large cloud
of interstellar gas began to collapse under the influence of its own gravity. As it contracted, it became denser
and hotter, eventually forming a starthe Sunat its center. While all this was going on the outer, cooler,
parts of the cloud formed a giant swirling region of matter, creating the planets and their moons essentially
as by-products of the star-formation process. This swirling mass destined to become our solar system is
usually referred to as the solar nebula.

In 1796 the French mathematician-astronomer Pierre Simon de Laplace tried to develop the nebular model
in a quantitative way. He was able to show mathematically that the conservation of angular momentum
demands that an interstellar cloud like the hypothetical solar nebula must spin faster as it contracts. A
decrease in the size of a rotating mass must be balanced by an increase in its rotational speed.

The increase in rotation speed, in turn, must have caused the nebula's shape to change as it collapsed. The
rapidly spinning nebula tends to develop a bulge around its middle. It eventually flattened into a pancake-
shaped primitive solar system. If we now suppose that planets formed out of this spinning material, we can
already begin to understand the origin of some of the large-scale architecture observed in our planetary
system today, such as the circularity of the planets' orbits and the fact that they move in nearly the same
plane.

Angular Momentum in the Solar System

Data from The Nine Planets
Angular momentum is usually stated in kg m2 / sec, whereas the data is in km and days. To change days into
seconds, multiply by 24 60 60. To change km to meters, multiply by 1000. To change orbital radius into
distance, multiply by 2. The angular momentum L of an object of mass m moving in a circle of radius r, with
linear speed v is given by
L = 2 m r2 / v

Using this formula, we calculate the L column of this table from the given orbital data.

Orbital Angular Momentum

orbital radius orbital period mass
Body (km) (days) (kg) L
Mercury 58.e6 87.97 3.30e23 9.1e38
Venus 108.e6 224.70 4.87e24 1.8e40
Earth 150.e6 365.26 5.97e24 2.7e40
Mars 228.e6 686.98 6.42e23 3.5e39
Jupiter 778.e6 4332.71 1.90e27 1.9e43
Saturn 1429.e6 10759.50 5.68e26 7.8e42
Uranus 2871.e6 30685.00 8.68e25 1.7e42
Neptune 4504.e6 60190.00 1.02e26 2.5e42
Pluto 5914.e6 90800 1.27e22 3.6e38
3.1e43

Moon 384e3 27.32 7.35e22 2.9e34

Io 422e3 1.77 8.93e22 6.5e35

Europa 671e3 3.55 4.80e22 4.4e35
Ganymede 1070e3 7.15 1.48e23 1.7e36
Callisto 1883e3 16.69 1.08e23 1.7e36
The rotational angular momentum of a solid homogeneous sphere of mass m and radius r with rotational
rate v is given by
L = 4 m r2 / 5 v

When applied to gaseous bodies such as the Sun or Jupiter, this will yield an overestimate, because the
interiors of such gaseous bodies are denser than their outer layers.

Rotational Angular Momentum

radius rotational period mass
Body (km) (days) (kg) L
Sun 695000 24.6 1.99e30 1.1e42
Earth 6378 0.99 5.97e24 7.1e33
Jupiter 71492 0.41 1.90e27 6.9e38

So the rotational angular momentum of the Sun, which is 1.1e42, is less than 4% that of the total orbital
angular momentum of the planets, which is 3.1e43. Based on this calculation Jupiters orbital angular
momentum alone accounts for over 60% of the total angular momentum of the Solar system! The orbital
angular momentum of the Moon 2.9e34 is about four times that of the rotational angular momentum of the
Earth, which is 7.1e33. However, the total orbital angular momenta of the largest moons of Jupiter is less
than a hundredth the rotational angular momentum of the planet. ( 2001 Stevan White. All rights reserved.)

Angular momentum puzzle

While this nebular model incorporates more basic physics, there are several unsolved problems. The sun
ought to be spinning faster or have considerable spin angular momentum. However, a majority of the
angular momentum in the Solar System is held by the outer planets. For comparison, nearly 97% of the Solar
System's mass is in the Sun, but almost 97% of its angular momentum is in the planets! It is believed that the
solar wind or ejected mass lumps carried off the Sun's initially high angular momentum, allowing its spin to
slow to the rate observed today. But that is not the whole story

Tour of solar system

http://nineplanets.org/tour/
You can set the time of the year, watch the motion (simulated with data from NASA missions) on a choice of
time scales (days/months/years) peep into the future and travel back in time! Watch out for planetary
alignments.

Some discussion can be found at:

Berkeley Physics Course Vol. 1 Mechanics (Chapter on Linear and Angular Momentum)

Additional material can be found at:

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/nebular.html