Our Solar System

NEERAJ N (FACULTY FOR S&T) Page 1
Our Solar System: Overview

natural satellites such as the moon, asteroid belt, comets, and meteoroids. Our solar system is
part of a spiral galaxy known as the Milky Way. The sun, the center of our solar system,
holds eight planets and countless smaller objects in its orbit.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Our Solar System:
1. Our solar system is made up of the sun and everything that travels around it. This
includes eight planets and their natural satellites such as Earth's moon; dwarf planets
such as Pluto and Ceres; asteroids;
comets and meteoroids.
2. The sun is the center of our solar system. It contains almost all of the mass in our
solar system and exerts a tremendous gravitational pull on planets and other bodies.
3. Our solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
4. The four planets closest to the sun -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars -- are called
the terrestrial planets because they have solid, rocky surfaces.
5. Two of the outer planets beyond the orbit of Mars -- Jupiter and Saturn -- are known
as gas giants; the more distant Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants.
6. Most of the known dwarf planets exist in an icy zone beyond Neptune called the
Kuiper Belt, which is also the point of origin for many comets.
7. Many objects in our solar system have atmospheres, including planets, some dwarf
planets and even a couple moons.
8. Our solar system is located in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. There are
most likely billions of other solar systems in our galaxy. And there are billions of
galaxies in the Universe.
9. We measure distances in our solar system by Astronomical Units (AU). One AU is
equal to the distance between the sun and the Earth, which is about 150 million km
(93 million miles).
10. NASA's twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are the first spacecraft to explore
the outer reaches of our solar system.
Dwarf Planets: Overview
Dwarf planets are round and orbit the Sun just like the eight major planets. But unlike
planets, dwarf planets are not able to clear their orbital path so there are no similar objects at
roughly the same distance from the Sun. A dwarf planet is much smaller than a planet
(smaller even than Earth's moon), but it is not a moon. Pluto is the best known of the dwarf
planets.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Dwarf Planets:
1. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of a nickel and
dwarf planets Pluto and Eris, for example, would each be about the size of the head of
a pin.
2. Dwarf planets orbit our sun, a star. Most are located in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy
objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. Pluto, one of the largest and most famous dwarf
planets, is about 5.9 billion km (3.7 billion miles) or 39.48 AU away from the sun.
Dwarf planet Ceres is in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
3. Days and years vary on dwarf planets. One day on Ceres, for example, takes about
nine hours (the time it takes for Ceres to rotate or spin once). Ceres makes a complete
orbit around the sun (a year in Ceresian time) in about 4.60 Earth years.
4. Dwarf planets are solid rocky and/or icy bodies, The amount of rock vs. ice depends
on their location in the solar system.
5. Many, but not all dwarf planets have moons.
6. There are no known rings around dwarf planets.
7. Dwarf planets Pluto and Eris have tenuous (thin) atmospheres that expand when they
come closer to the sun and collapse as they move farther away. It is possible dwarf
planet Ceres has an atmosphere.
8. The first mission to a dwarf planet is Dawn (to Ceres).
9. Dwarf planets cannot support life as we know it.
10. Pluto was considered a planet until 2006. The discovery of a similar-sized worlds
deeper in the distant Kuiper Belt sparked a debate that resulted in a new official
definition of a planet that did not include Pluto.
Scientists expect to find more dwarf planets beyond the orbit of Neptune.
According to the International Astronomical Union, which sets definitions for planetary
science, a dwarf planet is a celestial body that:
Orbits the sun.
Has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape.
Has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
Is not a moon.
The main distinction between a dwarf planet and a planet is that planets have cleared the path
around the sun while dwarf planets tend to orbit in zones of similar objects that can cross
their path around the sun, such as the asteroid and Kuiper belts. Dwarf planets also are
generally smaller than the planet Mercury.
The first five recognized dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea.
Scientists believe there may be dozens or even more than 100 dwarf planets awaiting
discovery.
The IAU recognized Pluto's special place in our solar system by designating dwarf planets
that orbit the sun beyond Neptune as plutoids. Eris, which orbits far beyond Neptune, is a
plutoid while Ceres, which orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is a
dwarf planet.
Sun: Overview
The sun is a star, a hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar system. Its influence
extends far beyond the orbits of distant Neptune and Pluto. Without the sun's intense energy
and heat, there would be no life on Earth. And though it is special to us, there are billions of
stars like our sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.
10 Need-to-Know Things About the Sun:
1. The sun is a star. A star does not have a solid surface, but is a ball of gas (92.1 percent
hydrogen (H
2
) and 7.8 percent helium (He)) held together by its own gravity.
2. The sun is the center of our solar system
and makes up 99.8% of the mass of the
entire solar system.
3. If the sun were as tall as a typical front
door, Earth would be about the size of a
nickel.
4. Since the sun is not a solid body,
different parts of the sun rotate at
different rates. At the equator, the sun
spins once about every 25 Earth days,
but at its poles the sun rotates once on
its axis every 36 days.
5. The solar atmosphere is where we see features such as sunspots and solar flares on the
sun. The sun's outer atmosphere -- the corona -- extends beyond the orbit of dwarf-
planet Pluto.
6. The sun is orbited by eight planets, at least five dwarf planets, tens of thousands of
asteroids, and hundreds of thousands to three trillion comets and icy bodies.
7. The sun does not have any rings.
8. Spacecraft are constantly increasing our understanding of the sun -- from Genesis
(which collected samples of the solar wind and returned the particles to Earth) to
SOHO, STEREO THEMIS, and many more, which are examining the sun's features,
its interior and how it interacts with our planet.
9. Without the sun's intense energy there would be no life on Earth.
10. The temperature at the sun's core is about 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million
degrees Fahrenheit).
Mercury: Overview
MESSENGER spacecraft images have revealed portions of Mercury never seen by human eyes. Image
Earth compared to the sun.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Sun-scorched Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's moon. Like the moon, Mercury has
very little atmosphere to stop impacts and it is covered with craters. Mercury's dayside is
super-heated by the sun, but at night temperatures drop hundreds of degrees below freezing.
Ice may even exist in craters. Mercury's egg-shaped orbit takes it around the sun every 88
days.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Mercury:
1. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system -- only slightly larger than the
Earth's moon.
2. It is the closest planet to the sun at a distance of about 58 million km (36 million
miles) or 0.39 AU.
3. One day on Mercury (the time it takes for Mercury to rotate or spin once) takes 59
Earth days. Mercury makes a complete orbit around the sun (a year in Mercury time)
in just 88 Earth days.
4. Mercury is a rocky planet, also known
as a terrestrial planet. Mercury has a
solid, cratered surface, much like Earth's
moon.
5. Mercury's thin atmosphere, or
exosphere, is composed mostly of
oxygen (O
2
), sodium (Na), hydrogen
(H
2
), helium (He), and potassium (K).
Atoms that are blasted off the surface by
the solar wind and micrometeoroid
impacts create Mercury's exosphere.
6. Mercury has no moons.
7. There are no rings around Mercury.
8. Only two spacecraft have visited this
rocky planet: Mariner 10 in 1974-5 and
MESSENGER, which flew past Mercury three times before going into orbit around
Mercury in 2011.
9. No evidence for life has been found on Mercury. Daytime temperatures can reach 800
degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) and drop to -290 degrees Fahrenheit (-180
degrees Celsius) at night. It is unlikely life (as we know it) could survive on this
planet.
10. Standing on Mercury's surface at its closest point to the sun, the sun would appear
more than three times larger than it does on Earth.
MESSENGER
Goals: MESSENGER was designed to map the surface composition, study the magnetic field
and interior structure of our solar system's smallest and innermost planet -- Mercury. It
carries eight instruments to study Mercury's polar deposits, core and magnetic dynamo, crust
and mantle, magnetosphere, crustal composition, geologic evolution and exosphere.
MESSENGER: First to orbit
Mercury. Image Credit: Johns
Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory
Accomplishments: On 18 March 2011 (UTC), MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to
orbit Mercury. During a series of flybys that edged it closer to orbit insertion, the spacecraft
revealed more of Mercury than has ever been seen before. Images and data reveal Mercury as
a unique, geologically diverse world with a magnetosphere far different than the one first
discovered by Mariner 10 in 1975.
MESSENGER solved the decades-old question of whether there are volcanic deposits on the
planet's surface. MESSENGER orbital images have revealed volcanic vents measuring up to
25 kilometers (15.5 miles) across that appear to have once been sources for large volumes of
very hot lava that, after eruption, carved valleys and created teardrop-shaped ridges in the
underlying terrain.
The spacecraft also found Mercury has an unexpectedly complex internal structure.
Mercury's core is huge for the planet's size, about 85% of the planetary radius, even larger
than previous estimates. The planet is sufficiently small that at one time many scientists
thought the interior should have cooled to the point that the core would be solid. However,
subtle dynamical motions measured from Earth-based radar combined with parameters of the
gravity field, as well as observations of the magnetic field that signify an active core dynamo,
indicate that Mercury's core is at least partially liquid.
Venus: Overview
Venus is a dim world of intense heat and volcanic activity. Similar in structure and size to
Earth, Venus' thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway 'greenhouse effect.' The
scorched world has temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Glimpses below the clouds reveal
volcanoes and deformed mountains. Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction of most
planets.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Venus:
1. Venus is only a little smaller than Earth.
2. Venus is the second closest planet to the sun at a distance of about 108 million km (67
million miles) or 0.72 AU.
3. One day on Venus lasts as long as 243
Earth days (the time it takes for Venus
to rotate or spin once). Venus makes a
complete orbit around the sun (a year in
Venusian time) in 225 Earth days.
4. Venus is a rocky planet, also known as a
terrestrial planet. Venus' solid surface is
a cratered and volcanic landscape.
5. Venus' thick and toxic atmosphere is
made up mostly of carbon dioxide
(CO
2
) and nitrogen (N
2
), with clouds of
sulfuric acid (H
2
SO
4
) droplets.
6. Venus has no moons.
7. There are no rings around Venus.
8. More than 40 spacecraft have explored Venus. The Magellan mission in the early
1990s mapped 98 percent of the planet's surface.
9. No evidence for life has been found on Venus. The planet's extreme high
temperatures of almost 480 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit) make it seem an
unlikely place for for life as we know it.
10. Venus spins backwards (retrograde rotation) when compared to the other planets. This
means that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east on Venus.
Venus and Earth are similar in size, mass, density, composition, and gravity. There, however,
the similarities end. Venus is covered by a thick, rapidly spinning atmosphere, creating a
scorched world with temperatures hot enough to melt lead and surface pressure 90 times that
of Earth (similar to the bottom of a swimming pool 1-1/2 miles deep). Because of its
proximity to Earth and the way its clouds reflect sunlight, Venus appears to be the brightest
planet in the sky.
Like Mercury, Venus can be seen periodically passing across the face of the sun. These
"transits" of Venus occur in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. Transits
occurred in 1631, 1639; 1761, 1769; and 1874, 1882. On 8 June 2004, astronomers
worldwide watched the tiny dot of Venus crawl across the sun; and on 6 June 2012, the
second in this pair of transits occurred. The next transit is 11 December 2117. Observing
these transits helps us understand the capabilities and limitations of techniques used to find
and characterize planets around other stars.
Venus' atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets.
Only trace amounts of water have been detected in the atmosphere. The thick atmosphere
traps the sun's heat, resulting in surface temperatures higher than 470 degrees Celsius (880
degrees Fahrenheit). The few probes that have landed on Venus have not survived longer
than 2 hours in the intense heat. Sulfur compounds are abundant in Venus' clouds; the
corrosive chemistry and dense, moving
atmosphere cause significant surface weathering and erosion.
The Venusian year (orbital period) is about 225 Earth days long, while the planet's rotation
period is 243 Earth days, making a Venus day about 117 Earth days long. Venus rotates
retrograde (east to west) compared with Earth's prograde (west to east) rotation. Seen from
Magellan: Mapping Venus
Venus, the sun would rise in the west and set in the east. As Venus moves forward in its solar
orbit while slowly rotating backwards on its axis, the top level of cloud layers zips around the
planet every four Earth days, driven by hurricane-force winds traveling at about 360
kilometers (224 miles) per hour. Speeds within the clouds decrease with cloud height, and at
the surface are estimated to be just a few kilometers per hour. How this atmospheric "super-
rotation" forms and is maintained continues to be a topic of scientific investigation.
Atmospheric lightning bursts, long suspected by scientists, were confirmed in 2007 by the
European Venus Express orbiter. On Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, lightning is associated with
water clouds, but on Venus, it is associated with sulfuric acid clouds.
Craters smaller than 1.5 to 2 kilometers (0.9 to 1.2 miles) across do not exist on Venus,
because small meteors burn up in the dense atmosphere before they can reach the surface. It
is thought that Venus was completely resurfaced by volcanic activity 300 to 500 million years
ago. More than 1,000 volcanoes or volcanic centers larger than 20 kilometers (12 miles) in
diameter dot the surface. Volcanic flows have produced long, sinuous channels extending for
hundreds of kilometers. Venus has two large highland areas - Ishtar Terra, about the size of
Australia, in the north polar region; and Aphrodite Terra, about the size of South America,
straddling the equator and extending for almost 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles). Maxwell
Montes, the highest mountain on Venus and comparable to Mount Everest on Earth, is at the
eastern edge of Ishtar Terra.
Venus has an iron core that is approximately 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) in radius. Venus
has no global magnetic field - though its core iron content is similar to that of Earth, Venus
rotates too slowly to generate the type of magnetic field that Earth has.
Missions to Venus
VeSpR
Goals: The Venus Spectral Rocket Experiment (VeSpR) will investigate the the escape of
water from Venus' atmosphere during the flight of a suborbital rocket. The sounding rocket
will carry a telescope above most of Earth's atmosphere where it can observe ultraviolet light
from Venus that would normally be absorbed by Earth's atmosphere. Total flight time is less
than 10 minutes. The telescope can be recovered and reused.
Accomplishments: VeSpR launched successfully from White Sands, N.M. with all systems
working well. Analysis of the data to follow.
Akatsuki
Goals: Akatsuki is Japan's first mission to Venus. The spacecraft was designed to orbit
Venus following the westward rotation of the atmosphere, mapping the circulation and
vertical structure of the planet's thick clouds.
Accomplishments: The spacecraft did not achieve Venus orbit insertion in December 2010
as planned. Mission planners are evaluating the spacecraft and determining the feasibility of
trying again when the spacecraft returns to Venus in six years.
Venus Express
Goals: The European Space Agency's Venus Express is designed to study the atmosphere of
Venus, from the surface to the ionosphere. The mission is reusing the same design as ESA's
Mars Express and spare parts from other deep space missions.
Accomplishments: Since it reached Venus in April 2006, Venus Express has logged many
firsts at our solar system's second planet. One of the most significant findings was signs
Venus has been volcanically active in the last three million years -- suggesting the planet may
still be geologically active.
The orbiter also made extensive meteorological maps of Venus, providing measurements of
wind fields and temperatures and the chemical composition of the atmosphere. The spacecraft
found a striking double-eyed atmospheric vortex that dominates the south pole. It detected
water molecules escaping into space, found concrete evidence for lightning in the Venusian
atmosphere, and provided infrared glimpses of the hot surface.
Magellan
Goals: Magellan was designed to make quality radar maps of at least 70 percent of Venus'
surface, providing a clear look at the topography below the planet's thick, perpetual cloak of
clouds.
Accomplishments:Magellan mapped 98 percent of Venus' surface at a resolution of 100 to
150 meters (about the length of a football or soccer field), using synthetic aperture radar, a
technique that simulates the use of a much larger radar antenna. It found that 85 percent of
the surface is covered with volcanic flows and showed evidence of tectonic movement,
turbulent surface winds, lava channels and pancake-shaped domes. Magellan also produced
high-resolution gravity data for 95 percent of the planet and tested a new maneuvering
technique called aerobraking, using atmospheric drag to adjust its orbit.
The spacecraft was commanded to plunge into Venus' atmosphere in 1994 as part of a final
experiment to gather atmospheric data.
Vega 2
Goals: The ambitious twin-spacecraft Vega project aimed to deliver advanced lander
modules on Venus, study the planet's atmosphere with balloons and then fly on for a close
encounter with comet Halley.
Accomplishments: Both Vega 2 and its twin Vega 1 were tremendously successful. Vega 2's
balloons drifted a third of the way around Venus, collecting valuable atmospheric data. The
balloon measured temperatures 6.5C (11.7F) lower than did the Vega 1 balloon. Vega 2's
set down 1,500 km (932 miles) SE of the Vega 1 lander, on a surface that was surprisingly
smooth for the region. Unlike its twin, this lander performed soil analysis successfully,
reporting a type of rock that is rare on Earth but found in lunar highlands.
Venera 16
Goals: The twin Venera 15 and 16 orbiters were designed to make detailed radar maps of
Venus' surface at a resolution of 1 to 2 km (or roughly one mile).
Accomplishments: The twin Soviet spacecraft flew in near-polar elliptical orbits and
succeeded in mapping the top half of the northern atmosphere (from the north pole to 30N
latitude, about 115 million square kilometers or 71 million square miles) by the end of the
main mission. An altimeter provided topographical data with a height resolution of 50 m (164
feet), and an East German instrument mapped surface temperature variations.
Earth: Overview
Earth, our home planet, is the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life - life that
is incredibly diverse. All the things we need to survive exist under a thin layer of atmosphere
that separates us from the cold, airless void of space.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Earth:
1. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of a nickel.
2. Earth is the third planet from the sun at a distance of about 150 million km (93 million
miles) or one AU.
3. One day on Earth takes 24 hours (this is
the time it takes the Earth to rotate or
spin once). Earth makes a complete
orbit around the sun (a year in Earth
time) in about 365 days.
4. Earth is a rocky planet, also known as a
terrestrial planet, with a solid and
dynamic surface of mountains, valleys,
canyons, plains and so much more.
What makes Earth different from the
other terrestrial planets is that it is also
an ocean planet: 70 percent of the
Earth's surface is covered in oceans.
5. The Earth's atmosphere is made up of 78 percent nitrogen (N
2
), 21 percent oxygen
(O
2
) and 1 percent other ingredients -- the perfect balance for us to breathe and live.
Many planets have atmospheres, but only Earth's is breathable.
6. Earth has one moon. Another name for a moon is satellite.
7. Earth has no rings.
8. Many orbiting spacecraft study the Earth from above as a whole system and together
aid in understanding our home planet.
9. Earth is the perfect place for life.
10. Earth's atmosphere protects us from incoming meteoroids, most of which break up in
our atmosphere before they can strike the surface as meteorites.
Earth's Moon: Overview
Our moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its
axis, leading to a relatively stable climate, and creating a tidal rhythm that has guided humans
for thousands of years. The moon was likely formed after a Mars-sized body collided with
Earth and the debris formed into the most prominent feature in our night sky.
Spacecraft study Earth from
above.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Earth's Moon:
the moon would the size of a green pea.
2. The moon is Earth's satellite and orbits the Earth at a distance of about 384 thousand
km (239 thousand miles) or 0.00257
AU.
3. The moon makes a complete orbit
around Earth in 27 Earth days and
rotates or spins at that same rate, or in
that same amount of time. This causes
the moon to keep the same side or face
towards Earth during the course of its
orbit.
4. The moon is a rocky, solid-surface
body, with much of its surface cratered
and pitted from impacts.
5. The moon has a very thin and tenuous
(weak) atmosphere, called an exosphere.
6. The moon has no moons.
7. The moon has no rings.
8. More than 100 spacecraft been launched to explore the moon. It is the only celestial a
body beyond Earth that has been visited by human beings (The Apollo Program).
9. The moon's weak atmosphere and its lack of liquid water cannot support life as we
know it.
10. Surface features that create the face known as the "Man in the moon" are impact
basins on the moon that are filled with dark basalt rocks.
Most Recent Missions to Moon
Chang'e 3 / Yutu
Goals: Chang'e 3 is China's first mission to set down a lander on the moon and deploy a
small rover named Yutu to explore the surface. The China National Space Administration
reports the landing target will be Sinus Iridium near Mare Imbrium.
Accomplishments: Chang'e 3 landed on the moon, making China the third nation to
successfully land a spacecraft on the moon. The primary mission is now in progress.
LADEE
Goals: The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) was designed to
study the Moon's thin exosphere and the lunar dust environment. Studying the Moon's
exosphere will help scientists understand other planetary bodies with exospheres too, like
Mercury and some of Jupiter's bigger moons.The mission tested several new technologies,
including a modular spacecraft design and demonstrate two-way high rate laser
communication for the first time from the Moon.
Twelve human beings have
walked on the moon.
Accomplishments: During an extended mission, LADEE gathered detailed information
about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere. Scientists hope to use the
data to address a long-standing question: Was lunar dust, electrically charged by sunlight,
responsible for the pre-sunrise glow seen above the lunar horizon during several Apollo
missions?
LADEE also succeeded in key engineering tests. The mission proved the effectiveness of the
new modular common spacecraft bus, or body, an innovation which could drastically reduce
the cost of spacecraft development. It also hosted NASA's first dedicated system for two-way
communication using laser instead of radio waves. The Lunar Laser Communication
Demonstration (LLCD) made history using a pulsed laser beam to transmit data over the
239,000 miles from the moon to the Earth at a record-breaking download rate of 622
megabits-per-second (Mbps). In addition, an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps was
transmitted from the ground.
LADEE's final first before its planned impact on the lunar surface was completing more than
100 orbits at extremely low altitudes.
GRAIL
Goals: GRAIL flew twin spacecraft -- named Ebb and Flow -- in tandem around the moon to
precisely measure and map variations in the moon's gravitational field. The goal was to reveal
differences in density of the Moon's crust and mantle and will help answer fundamental
questions about the Moon's internal structure, thermal evolution and history of collisions with
asteroids.
Accomplishments: The twin GRAIL probes orbiting Earth's moon generated the highest
resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The gravity field map revealed an
abundance of features never before seen in detail, such as tectonic structures, volcanic
landforms, basin rings, crater central peaks and numerous simple, bowl-shaped craters. Data
also show the moon's gravity field is unlike that of any terrestrial planet in our solar system.
The map will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar
system formed and evolved.
At the end of an extended mission, Ebb and Flow were sent purposely into the lunar surface
because their low orbit and low fuel levels preclude further scientific operations. They
impacted at mountain near Goldschmidt crater on the lunar near side.
LCROSS
Goals: The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was launched to
determine if water-ice exists in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon's South Pole.
LCROSS will excavate the permanently dark floor of a crater with back-to-back impacts. The
impacts will create a plume that specialized instruments will be able to analyze for the
presence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft was
launched with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.
Accomplishments: LCROSS and its Centaur stage impacted the Moon on schedule on 9 Oct.
2009. The twin impacts of LCROSS and a companion rocket stage in the moon's Cabeus
crater on Oct. 9, 2009, lifted a plume of material that might not have seen direct sunlight for
billions of years. As the plume traveled nearly 10 miles above the rim of Cabeus, instruments
aboard LCROSS and LRO made observations of the crater and debris and vapor clouds. After
the impacts, grains of mostly pure water ice were lofted into the sunlight in the vacuum of
space.
The missions found evidence that the lunar soil within shadowy craters is rich in useful
materials, and the moon is chemically active and has a water cycle. Scientists also confirmed
the water was in the form of mostly pure ice crystals in some places.
Chandrayaan-1
Goals: Chandrayaan-1 is an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) orbiter designed to
test India's technological capabilities and return scientific information about the geological,
mineralogical and topographical characteristics of the Moon. It also carried NASA's Moon
Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument to the Moon.
Accomplishments: Despite loss of contact only a year into its planned two-year mission,
Chandrayaan-1 played a key role in the groundbreaking 2009 discovery of water molecules
on the Moon. Data from NASA's M3 instrument on Chandrayaan-1 was combined with
observations made by Cassini and Deep Impact-EPOXI to confirm the discovery. The orbiter
also successfully fired an impact probe into the Moon's south pole.
Chandrayaan-1 was an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) mission designed to orbit
the Moon over a two year period with the objectives of upgrading and testing India's
technological capabilities in space and returning scientific information on the lunar surface.
It was based on the India's Kalpansat meteorological satellite. Power was provided by a solar
array which generates 750 W and charges lithium ion batteries. A bipropellant propulsion
system was used to transfer Chandrayaan-1 into lunar orbit and maintain attitude. The
spacecraft was a 3-axis stabilized by using attitude control thrusters and reaction wheels.
Telecommand communications were in S-band and science data transmission in X-band.
The spacecraft carried instruments provided by India, the United States and the European
Space Agency.
Chandrayaan-1 also carried an 34 kg Moon Impact Probe (MIP) equipped with a video
camera, a radar altimeter, and a mass spectrometer. The side panels of the box-like probe
were painted with the Indian flag.
The spacecraft launched on a PSLV C11 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) from the Satish
Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on the southeast coast of India on 22 October 2008 at
00:52 UT. The PSLV injected Chandrayaan-1 into a 255 x 22860 km transfer orbit with an
inclination of 17.9 degrees. Reaching lunar transfer trajectory involved five firings of the
LAM increasing the eccentricity of the orbit around the Earth to a final apogee of 380,000 km
on 4 November. On 8 November Chandrayaan was put into a 7502 x 504 km lunar polar
orbit, and then lowered into a 100 km circular polar orbit. On 14 November at 14:36:54 UT
the Moon Impact Probe was released and hit the lunar surface at 15:01 UT near the Moon's
south pole. All three instruments returned data before the crash.
The Indian Space Research Organization announced on 31 August that the Chandrayaan 1
mission has been officially terminated after contact was lost abruptly at 20:00 UT on 28
August.
Mars: Overview
Mars is a cold desert world. It is half the diameter of Earth and has the same amount of dry
land. Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons and weather, but its
atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for long on the surface. There are signs of
ancient floods on Mars, but evidence for water now
exists mainly in icy soil and thin clouds.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Mars
1. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door,
Earth would be the size of a nickel, and Mars
would be about as big as an aspirin tablet.
2. Mars orbits our sun, a star. Mars is the fourth
planet from the sun at a distance of about 228
million km (142 million miles) or 1.52 AU.
3. One day on Mars takes just a little over 24
hours (the time it takes for Mars to rotate or
spin once). Mars makes a complete orbit around
the sun (a year in Martian time) in 687 Earth days.
4. Mars is a rocky planet, also known as a terrestrial planet. Mars' solid surface has been
altered by volcanoes, impacts, crustal movement, and atmospheric effects such as dust
storms.
5. Mars has a thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide (CO
2
), nitrogen (N
2
)
and argon (Ar).
Explore Mars in 3D
6. Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos.
7. There are no rings around Mars.
8. More than 40 spacecraft have been launched for Mars, from flybys and orbiters to
rovers and landers that touched surface of the Red Planet. The first true Mars mission
success was Mariner 4 in 1965.
9. At this time in the planet's history, Mars' surface cannot support life as we know it. A
key science goal is determining Mars' past and future potential for life.
10. Mars is known as the Red Planet because iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize, or
rust, causing the soil -- and the dusty atmosphere -- to look red.
Mars: Moons (Phobos & Daimos)
Color image of Phobos taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008.
Phobos, gouged and nearly shattered by a giant impact crater and beaten by thousands of
meteorite impacts, is on a collision course with Mars.
Phobos is the larger of Mars' two moons and is 27 by 22 by 18 km in diameter. It orbits Mars
three times a day, and is so close to the planet's surface that in some locations on Mars it
cannot always be seen.
Phobos is nearing Mars at a rate of 1.8 m every hundred years; at that rate, it will either crash
into Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring. Its most prominent feature is the 6-mile
crater Stickney, its impact causing streak patterns across the moon's surface. Stickney was
seen by Mars Global Surveyor to be filled with fine dust, with evidence of boulders sliding
down its sloped surface.
Phobos and Deimos appear to be composed of C-type rock, similar to blackish carbonaceous
chondrite asteroids. Observations by Mars Global Surveyor indicate that the surface of this
small body has been pounded into powder by eons of meteoroid impacts, some of which
started landslides that left dark trails marking the steep slopes of giant craters.
Measurements of the day and night sides of Phobos show such extreme temperature
variations that the sunlit side of the moon rivals a pleasant winter day in Chicago, while only
a few kilometers away, on the dark side of the moon, the climate is more harsh than a night in
Antarctica. High temperatures for Phobos were measured at 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4
degrees Celsius) and lows at -170 degrees Fahrenheit (-112 degrees Celsius). This intense
heat loss is likely a result of the fine dust on Phobos' surface, which is unable to retain heat.
Phobos has no atmosphere. It may be a captured asteroid, but some scientists show evidence
that contradicts this theory.
chunk of rock and debris, Deimos circles Mars every 30 hours.
Deimos is the smaller of Mars' two moons. Being only 15 by 12 by 11 km in size, Deimos
whirls around Mars every 30 hours.
Like Phobos, Deimos is a small lumpy, heavily cratered object. Its craters are generally
smaller than 2.5 km in diameter, however, and it lacks the grooves and ridges seen on
Phobos. Typically when a meteorite hits a surface, surface material is thrown up and out of
the resulting crater. The material usually falls back to the surface surrounding the crater.
However, these ejecta deposits are not seen on Deimos, perhaps because the moon's gravity
is so low that the ejecta escaped to space. Material does appear to have moved down slopes.
Deimos also has a thick regolith, perhaps as deep as 100 m, formed as meteorites pulverized
the surface.
Deimos is a dark body that appears to be composed of C-type surface materials, similar to
that of asteroids found in the outer asteroid belt.
Missions to Mars
MAVEN
Goals: MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) will obtain critical
measurements of the Martian atmosphere to help understand dramatic climate change on the
Red Planet over its history. MAVEN will provide information on how, and how, fast
atmospheric gases are being lost to space today, and infer from those detailed studies what
happened in the past. Studying how the Martian atmosphere was lost to space can reveal
clues about the impact that change had on the Martian climate, geologic and geochemical
conditions over time, all of which are important in understanding whether Mars had an
environment able to support life.
Accomplishments: On 18 November 2013 (1:28 p.m. EST) the MAVEN spacecraft began its
10-month journey to Mars orbit, launching aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)
Goals: India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is the country's first mission to the Red Planet.
The mission aims to test key technologies for interplanetary exploration and to use its five
science instruments to study the Martian surface and atmosphere from orbit.
Accomplishments: This spacecraft is en route to Mars.
Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity
Goals: NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission set down a large, mobile laboratory - the
rover Curiosity - using precision landing technology that makes many of Mars' most
intriguing regions viable destinations for the first time.
During a 23 month prime mission, Curiosity will analyze dozens of samples drilled from
rocks or scooped from the ground as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars
rover. Its assignment: Investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life
and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.
Accomplishments: The technology test was a success. The rover was delivered safely to the
surface of Mars and immediately began sending back stunning images and science. The top
findings after a year on Mars:
Ancient Mars could have the right chemistry to be a suitable home for life.
The rover found evidence of an ancient streambed where water once flowed knee-
deep.
During the trip to Mars, the mission found radiation levels that could pose health risks
to astronauts.
Curiosity found no evidence of methane in the Martian air. Methane could be a sign
of life. The search continues.
The landing site was rich in different environments, all clues to Mars' watery past.
Phoenix
Goals: Phoenix was sent to Mars to search for evidence of past or present microbial life and
to study geology and climate on the icy arctic plains of the Martian north pole. The lander's
robotic arm could dig up to half a meter (20 inches) into the Martian soil and return it for
analysis to a special bake-and-sniff oven.
Accomplishments: Phoenix verified the presence of water-ice in the Martian subsurface,
which NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter first detected remotely in 2002. Phoenix's cameras also
returned more than 25,000 pictures from sweeping vistas to near the atomic level using the
first atomic force microscope ever used outside Earth. The findings advance the goal of
studying whether Mars could ever have been favorable to microbial life.
Asteroids: Overview
This picture of Eros, the first of an asteroid taken from an orbiting spacecraft, is a mosaic of
four images obtained by NASA's NEAR mission immediately after the spacecraft's insertion
into orbit.
Asteroids are rocky, airless worlds that orbit our sun, but are too small to be called planets.
Tens of thousands of these minor planets are gathered in the main asteroid belt, a vast
doughnut-shaped ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids that pass close to
Earth are called near-earth objects.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Asteroids:
1. If all of the asteroids were combined into a ball, they would still be much smaller than
Earth's moon. If the sun was as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of
a nickel, the moon would be about as big as a green pea and Ceres (the largest object
in the main asteroid belt) would be as
small as a sesame seed.
2. Most Asteroids orbit our sun, a star, in a
region of space between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter known as the Asteroid
Belt.
3. Days and years vary by asteroid. A day
on asteroid Ida, for example, takes only
4.6 hours (the time it takes to rotate or
spin once). Ida makes a complete orbit
around the sun (a year in this asteroid's
time) in 4.8 Earth years.
4. Asteroids are solid, rocky and irregular
bodies.
5. Asteroids do not have atmospheres.
6. More than 150 asteroids are known to have a small companion moon (some have two
moons). The first discovery of an asteroid-moon system was of asteroid Ida and its
moon Dactyl in 1993.
7. One asteroid, named Chariklo, is known to have two dense and narrow rings.
8. More than 10 spacecraft have explored asteroids. NEAR Shoemaker even landed on
an asteroid (Eros). The Dawn mission is the first mission to orbit (2011) a main belt
asteroid (Vesta).
9. Asteroids cannot support life as we know it.
10. Ceres, the first and largest asteroid to be discovered (1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi) and
the closest dwarf planet to the sun, encompasses over one-third of the estimated total
mass of all the asteroids in the asteroid belt.
Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets, are rocky remnants left over from the early
formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.
Most of this ancient space rubble can be found orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter
within the main asteroid belt. Asteroids range in size from Ceres - the largest at about 950
kilometers (590 miles) in diameter and also identified as a dwarf planet- to bodies that are
less than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) across. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is less
than that of Earth's Moon.
Asteroid Classifications
Main asteroid belt: The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter, generally with not very elongated orbits. The belt is estimated to contain
between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) in diameter, and
millions of smaller ones. Early in the history of the solar system, the gravity of newly formed
Jupiter brought an end to the formation of planetary bodies in this region and caused the
Dawn: First to orbit an asteroid
small bodies to collide with one another, fragmenting them into the asteroids we observe
today.
Trojans: These asteroids share an orbit with a larger planet, but do not collide with it because
they gather around two special places in the orbit (called the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points).
There, the gravitational pull from the sun and the planet are balanced by a trojan's tendency to
otherwise fly out of the orbit. The Jupiter trojans form the most significant population of
trojan asteroids. It is thought that they are as numerous as the asteroids in the asteroid belt.
There are Mars and Neptune trojans, and NASA announced the discovery of an Earth trojan
in 2011.
Near-Earth asteroids: These objects have orbits that pass close by that of Earth. Asteroids
that actually cross Earth's orbital path are known as Earth-crossers. As of June 19, 2013,
10,003 near-Earth asteroids are known and the number over 1 kilometer in diameter is
thought to be 861, with 1,409 classified as potentially hazardous asteroids - those that could
pose a threat to Earth.
Most asteroids are irregularly shaped, though a few are nearly spherical, and they are often
pitted or cratered. As they revolve around the sun in elliptical orbits, the asteroids also rotate,
sometimes quite erratically, tumbling as they go. More than 150 asteroids are known to have
a small companion moon (some have two moons). There are also binary (double) asteroids, in
which two rocky bodies of roughly equal size orbit each other, as well as triple asteroid
systems.
The three broad composition classes of asteroids are C-, S-, and M-types. The C-type
(chondrite) asteroids are most common, probably consist of clay and silicate rocks, and are
dark in appearance. They are among the most ancient objects in the solar system. The S-types
("stony") are made up of silicate materials and nickel-iron. The M-types are metallic (nickel-
iron). The asteroids' compositional differences are related to how far from the sun they
formed. Some experienced high temperatures after they formed and partly melted, with iron
sinking to the center and forcing basaltic (volcanic) lava to the surface. Only one such
asteroid, Vesta, survives to this day.
Here are a few that have been targeted for exploration:
4 Vesta
433 Eros
243 Ida
Most Recent Missions
WISE (NEOWISE)
Goals: The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will provide a vast storehouse of
knowledge about the solar system, the Milky Way and the Universe. Among the objects
WISE plans to study are asteroids, the coolest and dimmest stars, and the most luminous
galaxies.
Accomplishments: WISE scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light about 1.5 times. It
captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to
asteroids and comets close to Earth. After completing its prime science mission, the
spacecraft ran out of the frozen coolant that keeps its instrumentation cold. However, two of
its four infrared cameras remained operational. These two channels were still useful for
asteroid hunting, so NASA extended the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission by four
months, with the primary purpose of hunting for more asteroids and comets, and to finish one
complete scan of the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft was then placed in hibernation in case
another science opportunity arose.
Beginning in September 2013, WISE will be revived with the goal of discovering and
characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs). NASA anticipates WISE will use its 40-cm (16-
inch) telescope and infrared cameras to discover about 150 previously unknown NEOs and
characterize the size, albedo and thermal properties of about 2,000 others.
Dawn
Goals: Dawn is designed to study the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest
epoch by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their
formations. The orbiter will visit both the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, two main
asteroid belt worlds that followed very differently evolutionary paths.
Accomplishments: Dawn arrived in orbit at asteroid Vesta on 16 June 2011 and departed for
Ceres on 5 September 2012. Dawn is the first spacecraft to orbit a main belt asteroid.
Rosetta
Goals: The European Space Agency's Rosetta is designed to make a detailed study of a comet
from orbit and from its surface, but it's 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-
Gerasimenko has provided opportunities to fly by two main belt asteroids.
Accomplishments: Rosetta made the first close observations of an E-type asteroid during its
asteroid Steins flyby in 2008. The small class of asteroids are rare and are mostly found in the
inner part of the main asteroid belt. They may be pieces of larger asteroids. The spacecraft's
2010 flyby of asteroid 21 Lutetia returned the first close-up images of the asteroid revealing it
as a battered survivor from the violent birth of our solar system.
Hayabusa
Goals: Japan built Hayabusa to test new technologies, including an ion engine, and to collect
the first samples from the surface of an asteroid. It also carried a small 600 gram (1.3 pound)
mini-lander named MINERVA, which was designed to hop around the asteroid's surface.
Accomplishments: Hayabusa studied and photographed Itokawa for more than two months.
Both Hayabusa and MINERVA experienced complications during landing attempts,
Hayabusa landed on the asteroid and sucked a small amount of debris into a sample
container. MINERVA probably drifted off into space instead of landing.
The Hayabusa sample capsule returned to Earth and was recovered. Many of the tiny
particles recovered from the sample return capsule were identified as pieces of what appears
to be a very primitive asteroid. In addition to returning the first samples from the surface of
asteroid, Hayabusa also is the first spacecraft to successfully land and take off from the
surface of an asteroid.
Meteors & Meteorites: Overview
NASA's Opportunity rover found this meteorite on Mars. It is about the size of a basketball.
Little chunks of rock and debris in space are called meteoroids. They become meteors -- or
shooting stars -- when they fall through a planet's atmosphere; leaving a bright trail as they
are heated to incandescence by the friction of the atmosphere. Pieces that survive the journey
and hit the ground are called meteorites.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Meteors and Meteorites:
1. Meteoroids become meteors -- or shooting stars -- when they interact with a planet's
atmosphere and cause a streak of light in the sky. Debris that makes it to the surface
of a planet from meteoroids are called meteorites.
2. Meteorites may vary in size from tiny grains to large boulders. One of the largest
meteorite found on Earth is the Hoba meteorite from southwest Africa, which weighs
roughly 54,000 kg (119,000 pounds).
3. Meteor showers are usually named after a star or constellation which is close to the
radiant (the position from which the
meteor appears to come).
4. Meteors and meteorites begin as
meteoroids, which are little chunks of
rock and debris in space.
5. Most meteorites are either iron, stony or
stony-iron.
6. Meteorites may look very much like
Earth rocks, or they may have a burned
appearance. Some may have
depressioned (thumbprint-like),
roughened or smooth exteriors.
7. Many of the meteor showers are
associated with comets. The Leonids are
associated with comet Tempel-Tuttle; Aquarids and Orionids with comet Halley, and
the Taurids with comet Encke.
8. When comets come around the sun, they leave a dusty trail. Every year the Earth
passes through the comet trails, which allows the debris to enter our atmosphere
where it burns up and creates fiery and colorful streaks (meteors) in the sky.
9. Leonid MAC (an airborne mission that took flight during the years 1998 - 2002)
studied the interaction of meteoroids with the Earth's atmosphere.
10. Meteoroids, meteors and meteorites cannot support life. However, they may have
provided the Earth with a source of amino acids: the building blocks of life.
Shooting stars, or meteors, are bits of interplanetary material falling through Earth's
atmosphere and heated to incandescence by friction. These objects are called meteoroids as
they are hurtling through space, becoming meteors for the few seconds they streak across the
sky and create glowing trails.
Meteorites may resemble Earth rocks, but they usually have a burned exterior. This fusion
crust is formed as the meteorite is melted by friction as it passes through the atmosphere.
There are three major types of meteorites: the "irons," the "stones," and the stony-irons.
Although the majority of meteorites that fall to Earth are stony, more of the meteorites that
are discovered long after they fall are irons - these heavy objects are easier to distinguish
from Earth rocks than stony meteorites. Meteorites also fall on other solar system bodies.
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity found the first meteorite of any type on another planet
when it discovered an iron-nickel meteorite about the size of a basketball on Mars in 2005,
and then found a much larger and heavier iron-nickel meteorite in 2009 in the same region. In
all, Opportunity has discovered six meteorites during its travels on Mars.
More than 50,000 meteorites have been found on Earth. Of these, 99.8 percent come from
asteroids. Evidence for an asteroid origin includes orbits calculated from photographic
observations of meteorite falls projected back to the asteroid belt; spectra of several classes of
meteorites match those of some asteroid classes; and they are very old, 4.5 to 4.6 billion
years. However, we can only match one group of meteorites to a specific asteroid - the
eucrite, diogenite, and howardite igneous meteorites come from the third-largest asteroid,
Vesta. Asteroids and the meteorites that fall to Earth are not pieces of a planet that broke
apart, but instead are the original diverse materials from which the planets formed. The study
of meteorites tells us much about the earliest conditions and processes during the formation
and earliest history of the solar system, such as the age and composition of solids, the nature
Scientists believe this rock was
blasted from Mars to the Earth.
of the organic matter, the temperatures achieved at the surface and interiors of asteroids, and
the degree to which materials were shocked by impacts.
The remaining 0.2 percent of meteorites is split roughly equally between meteorites from
Mars and the moon. The over 60 known martian meteorites were blasted off Mars by
meteoroid impacts. All are igneous rocks crystallized from magma. The rocks are very much
like Earth rocks with some distinctive com-positions that indicate martian origin. The nearly
80 lunar meteorites are similar in mineralogy and composition to Apollo mission moon rocks,
but distinct enough to show that they have come from other parts of the moon. Studies of
lunar and martian meteorites complement studies of Apollo Moon rocks and the robotic
exploration of Mars.
Jupiter: Overview
The most massive planet in our solar system -- with dozens of moons and an enormous
magnetic field -- Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. It resembles a star in
composition, but did not grow big enough to ignite. The planet's swirling cloud stripes are
punctuated by massive storms such as the Great Red Spot, which has raged for hundreds of
years.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Jupiter:
1. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, the Earth would be the size of a nickel
and Jupiter would be about as big as a
basketball.
2. Jupiter orbits our sun, a star. Jupiter is
the fifth planet from the sun at a
distance of about 778 million km (484
3. One day on Jupiter takes about 10 hours
(the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate or
spin once). Jupiter makes a complete
orbit around the sun (a year in Jovian
time) in about 12 Earth years (4,333
Earth days).
4. Jupiter is a gas-giant planet and
therefore does not have a solid surface.
However, it is predicted that Jupiter has an inner, solid core about the size of the
Earth.
5. Jupiter's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen (H
2
) and helium (He).
6. Jupiter has 50 known moons, with an additional 17 moons awaiting confirmation of
their discovery -- that is a total of 67 moons.
7. Jupiter has a faint ring system that was discovered in 1979 by the Voyager 2 mission.
8. Many missions have visited Jupiter and its system of moons. The Juno mission will
arrive at Jupiter in 2016.
9. Jupiter cannot support life as we know it. However, some of Jupiter's moons have
oceans underneath their crusts that might support life.
10. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a gigantic storm (about the size of two to three Earths) that
has been raging for hundreds of years.
Jupiter: Moons
Juno: Next generation Jupiter
explorer
Illustration of Jupiter and the Galilean satellites.
The planet Jupiter's four largest moons are called the Galilean satellites, after Italian
astronomer Galileo Galilei, who observed them in 1610. The German astronomer Simon
Marius claimed to have seen the moons around the same time, but he did not publish his
observations and so Galileo is given the credit for their discovery. These large moons,
named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, are each distinctive worlds.
Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Io's surface is covered by sulfur
in different colorful forms. As Io travels in its slightly elliptical orbit, Jupiter's immense
gravity causes "tides" in the solid surface that rise 100 m (300 feet) high on Io, generating
enough heat for volcanic activity and to drive off any water. Io's volcanoes are driven by hot
silicate magma.
Europa's surface is mostly water ice, and there is evidence that it may be covering an ocean
of water or slushy ice beneath. Europa is thought to have twice as much water as does Earth.
This moon intrigues astrobiologists because of its potential for having a "habitable zone."
Life forms have been found thriving near subterranean volcanoes on Earth and in other
extreme locations that may be analogues to what may exist on Europa.
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (larger than the planet Mercury), and is
the only moon known to have its own internally generated magnetic field.
Callisto's surface is extremely heavily cratered and ancient -- a visible record of events from
the early history of the solar system. However, the very few small craters on Callisto
indicate a small degree of current surface activity.
The interiors of Io, Europa and Ganymede have a layered structure (as does Earth). Io has a
core, and a mantle of at least partially molten rock, topped by a crust of solid rock coated
with sulfur compounds. Europa and Ganymede both have a core; a rock envelope around the
core; a thick, soft ice layer; and a thin crust of impure water ice. In the case of Europa, a
global subsurface water layer probably lies just below the icy crust. Layering at Callisto is
less well defined and appears to be mainly a mixture of ice and rock.
Three of the moons influence each other in an interesting way. Io is in a tug-of-war with
Ganymede and Europa, and Europa's orbital period (time to go around Jupiter once) is twice
Io's period, and Ganymede's period is twice that of Europa. In other words, every time
Ganymede goes around Jupiter once, Europa makes two orbits and Io makes four orbits. The
moons all keep the same face towards Jupiter as they orbit, meaning that each moon turns
once on its axis for every orbit around Jupiter.
Pioneers 10 and 11 (1973 to 1974) and Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 (1979) offered striking
color views and global perspectives from their flybys of the Jupiter system. From 1995 to
2003, the Galileo spacecraft made observations from repeated elliptical orbits around
Jupiter, passing as low as 261 km (162 miles) over the surfaces of the Galilean moons.
These close approaches resulted in images with unprecedented detail of selected portions of
the surfaces.
Close-up images taken by the Galileo spacecraft of portions of Europa's surface show places
where ice has broken up and moved apart, and where liquid may have come from below and
frozen smoothly on the surface. The low number of craters on Europa leads scientists to
believe that a subsurface ocean has been present in recent geologic history and may still
exist today. The heat needed to melt the ice in a place so far from the sun is thought to come
from inside Europa, resulting primarily from the same type of tidal forces that drive Io's
volcanoes.
Tenuous rings of fine dust particles encircle Jupiter in a ring system apparently created by
small moons.
All four giant planets in our solar system, including Jupiter, possess a system of rings. Unlike
the brilliant, icy rings of Saturn, Jupiter's rings are tenuous, dusty structures. And although
Saturn's iconic rings were first spied by Galileo in 1610, Jupiter's faint rings were not spied
until the 1970s, when spacecraft first visited the Jupiter system.
Jupiter's ring system has three main components: a pair of very faint outer rings called the
gossamer rings; a 6500-kilometer (4000-mile) wide, flat main ring; and a thick inner ring
called the halo.
The rings appear to be created by dust thrown off by impacts on small moons that orbit
within them. The gossamer rings actually outline the orbits of the moons Amalthea and
Thebe. The moons Adrastea and Metis skirt through the outer edges of the main ring.
The doughnut-shaped halo is approximately 20,000 to 40,000 kilometers (12,400 to 25,000
miles) in overall thickness, although most of its material lies within a few hundred kilometers
of the ring plane. Its shape is thought to be due to electromagnetic forces within Jupiter's
magnetosphere acting on the dust particles of the ring. Otherwise, the halo is made of
essentially the same particles that comprise the main ring.
Juno
Goals: NASA's Juno Mission will study how Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system,
formed and became the dynamic world we see today. The solar-powered spacecraft will map
the gravity field, magnetic field and atmospheric structure of Jupiter from a unique polar
orbit. Juno's observations will lead to a better understanding of the formation of our solar
system and planetary systems discovered around other stars.
Accomplishments: This mission is en route to its primary science target.
New Horizons
Goals: New Horizons used Jupiter for a gravity assist to speed its journey to the outer solar
system. The flyby also provided scientists a chance to check out the spacecraft's instruments.
Accomplishments: The powerful slingshot-like gravity assist trimmed three years off the
spacecraft's journey to Pluto and beyond. During the Jupiter flyby, New Horizons observed
lightning near the gas giant's poles, the creation of fresh ammonia clouds, and boulder-size
clumps speeding through Jupiter's faint rings. The spacecraft also collected data on volcanic
eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io, and the path of charged particles moving back and forth
across the -- previously unexplored -- length of Jupiter's long magnetic tail. New Horizons
also collected information that supports the theory that Jupiter's moon Europa has an ocean of
liquid water underneath its icy crust.
Ulysses
Goals: Ulysses primary science target was our Sun, but since existing rocket engines weren't
powerful enough to boost a spacecraft above the Ecliptic Plane (where most planets and
spacecraft orbit the Sun), Ulysses used Jupiter's gravity to hurl it into a solar-polar orbit.
Accomplishments: During the Jupiter flybys, scientists use Ulysses' instruments to study the
giant planet and its influence on the solar system, which is second only to the Sun.
Galileo
Goals: Galileo was designed to make the first study of Jupiter and its moons and
magnetosphere from orbit. The orbiter carried 10 science instruments and a atmospheric
probe.
Accomplishments: Like the famed astronomer for which it was named, the Galileo
spacecraft logged quite a few firsts during its 14-year mission to Jupiter. Among its
discoveries: an intense radiation belt above Jupiter's cloud tops, helium in about the same
concentration as the Sun, extensive and rapid resurfacing of the moon Io because of
volcanism, and evidence for liquid water oceans under the moon Europa's icy surface.
The orbiter carried a small probe that became the first to sample the atmosphere of a gas
planet. The probe measured temperature, pressure, chemical composition, cloud
characteristics, sunlight and energy internal to the planet, and lightning. During its 58-minute
life, the probe penetrated 200 km (124 miles) into Jupiter's violent atmosphere before it was
crushed, melted, and/or vaporized by the pressure and temperature of the atmosphere.
Voyager 1
Goals: Voyager 1 and 2 were designed to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment to
explore the outer solar system. Voyager 1 targeted Jupiter and Saturn before continuing on to
chart the far edges of our solar system.
During the Jupiter leg of its journey, Voyager 1 was to explore the giant planet, its
magnetosphere and moons in greater detail than the Pioneer spacecraft that preceded it.
Voyager 1 was not only to study Jupiter, but to use it as a springboard to Saturn, using the
gravity-assist technique.
Accomplishments: Voyager 1 succeeded on all counts, with the single exception of
experiments using its photopolarimeter, which failed to operate. Jupiter's atmosphere was
found to be more active than during the visits of Pioneer 10 and 11, sparking a rethinking of
the earlier atmospheric models which could not explain the new features. The spacecraft
imaged the moons Amalthea, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, showing details of their
terrain for the first time.
Possibly the most stunning of Voyager 1's discoveries was that Io has extremely active
volcanoes, powered by heat generated by the stretching and relaxing the moon endures every
42 hours as its elliptical orbit brings it closer to and then farther from Jupiter. This finding
revolutionized scientists' concept of the moons of the outer planets. The spacecraft also
discovered a thin ring around the planet (then making it the second planet known to have a
ring), and two new moons: Thebe and Metis.
Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in August 2012.
Voyager 2
explore the outer solar system. Voyager 2 targeted Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Like
it's sister spacecraft, Voyager 2 also was designed to study the edge of our solar system
beyond the planets.
Accomplishments: During the Jupiter leg of its journey, Voyager 2 was to explore the giant
planet, its magnetosphere and moons in greater detail than had the Pioneer spacecraft that
preceded it. Voyager 2 was not only to study Jupiter, but to use it as a springboard to Saturn,
using the gravity-assist technique.
Voyager 2 succeeded on all counts. It returned spectacular photos of the entire Jovian system,
and time-lapse movies made from its images of Jupiter showed how the planet had changed
since Voyager 1's visit. Its images of Io revealed changes in the moon's surface and the
persistence of its volcanic eruptions. The spacecraft resolved the streaks Voyager 1 had
shown on Europa into a collection of cracks in a thick and remarkably smooth icy crust. It
also discovered a 14th moon and revealed a third component to the planet's rings.
Pioneer 11
Goals: On its way to Saturn, Pioneer 11 was to become the second spacecraft to fly by
Jupiter.
Accomplishments: Pioneer 11 flew three times closer to Jupiter than Pioneer 10, but was
exposed to less radiation because of its high speed. The spacecraft provided the first look at
Jupiter's polar regions. The spacecraft also found Jupiter's vast magnetosphere changes as it is
buffeted by the solar wind.
The dormant spacecraft is now headed out of our solar system in the general direction of
Sagittarius, toward the center of the galaxy. Both Pioneers 10 and 11 carry a plaque with a
message for any intelligent beings that might find them.
Saturn: Overview
In this rare image taken on 19 July 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini
spacecraft has captured Saturn's rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame.
Adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, Saturn is unique among the planets. All four
gas giant planets have rings -- made of chunks of ice and rock -- but none are as spectacular
or as complicated as Saturn's. Like the other gas giants, Saturn is mostly a massive ball of
hydrogen and helium.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Saturn:
and Saturn would be about as big as a
basketball.
2. Saturn orbits our sun, a star. Saturn is
the sixth planet from the sun at a
distance of about 1.4 billion km (886
3. One day on Saturn takes 10.7 hours (the
time it takes for Saturn to rotate or spin
once). Saturn makes a complete orbit
around the sun (a year in Saturnian
time) in 29 Earth years.
4. Saturn is a gas-giant planet and does not
have a solid surface.
5. Saturn's atmosphere is made up mostly
of hydrogen (H
2
) and helium (He).
6. Saturn has 53 known moons with an additional 9 moons awaiting confirmation of
their discovery.
7. Saturn has the most spectacular ring system of all our solar system's planets. It is
made up of seven rings with several gaps and divisions between them.
8. Five missions have been sent to Saturn. Since 2004, Cassini has been exploring
Saturn, its moons and rings.
9. Saturn cannot support life as we know it. However, some of Saturn's moons have
conditions that might support life.
10. When Galileo Galilei looked at Saturn through a telescope in the 1600s, he noticed
strange objects on each side of the planet and drew in his notes a triple-bodied planet
system and then later a planet with arms or handles. The handles turned out to be the
rings of Saturn.
Cassini spacecraft's view of Saturn in 2009.
Saturn: Rings
The rings of Saturn have puzzled astronomers since Galileo Galilei discovered them with his
telescope in 1610. Detailed study by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s
only increased the mystery.
There are billions of ring particles in the entire ring system. The ring particle sizes range from
tiny, dust-sized icy grains to a few particles as large as mountains. Two tiny moons orbit in
gaps (Encke and Keeler gaps) in the rings and keep the gaps open. Other particles (10s to
100s of meters) are too tiny to see, but create propeller-shaped objects in the rings that let us
Cassini: Long-lived Saturn
Explorer
know they are there. The rings are believed to be pieces of comets, asteroids or shattered
moons that broke up before they reached the planet. Each ring orbits at a different speed
around the planet. Information from NASA's Cassini mission will help reveal how they
formed, how they maintain their orbit and, above all, why they are there in the first place.
While the other three gas planets in the solar system -- Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune -- have
rings orbiting around them, Saturn's are by far the largest and most spectacular. With a
thickness of about one kilometer (3,200 feet) or less, they span up to 282,000 km (175,000
miles), about three quarters of the distance between the Earth and its Moon.
Named alphabetically in the order they were discovered, the rings are relatively close to each
other, with the exception of the Cassini Division, a gap measuring 4,700 km (2,920 miles).
The main rings are, working outward from the planet, known as C, B and A. The Cassini
Division is the largest gap in the rings and separates Rings B and A. In addition a number of
fainter rings have been discovered more recently. The D Ring is exceedingly faint and closest
to the planet. The F Ring is a narrow feature just outside the A Ring. Beyond that are two far
fainter rings named G and E. The rings show a tremendous amount of structure on all scales;
some of this structure is related to gravitational perturbations by Saturn's many moons, but
much of it remains unexplained.
To enter Saturn's orbit, Cassini flew through the gap between the F and G rings, which is
farther from the planet than the Cassini Division. As a safety measure, during the crossing of
the ring plane, instruments and cameras onboard the spacecraft were shut off temporarily.
However, the spectacular crossing into Saturn's orbit brought incredible information, images
and footage. The instruments onboard Cassini are still collecting unique data that may answer
many questions about the rings' composition.
Saturn: Moons
Cassini delivers this stunning vista showing small, battered Epimetheus and smog-
enshrouded Titan, with Saturn's A and F rings stretching across the scene.
Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds.
From the cloud-shrouded surface of Titan to crater-riddled Phoebe, each of Saturn's moons
tells another piece of the story surrounding the Saturn system.
Christiaan Huygens discovered the first known moon of Saturn. The year was 1655 and the
moon was Titan. Giovanni Domenico Cassini made the next four discoveries: Iapetus (1671),
Rhea (1672), Dione (1684), and Tethys (1684). Mimas and Enceladus were both discovered
by William Herschel in 1789. The next two discoveries came at intervals of 50 or more years
-- Hyperion (1848) and Phoebe (1898).
As telescopic resolving power increased through the 19th century, Saturn's family of known
moons grew. In 1966 Epimetheus and Janus were discovered. By the time Cassini-Huygens
was launched in 1997, Saturn's moon count had reached 18. The number of known moons
soon increased with high-resolution imaging techniques used on ground-based telescopes.
The Cassini mission has discovered several more moons since its arrival at Saturn.
We've discovered a total of 53 natural satellites orbiting Saturn. Each of Saturn's moons bears
a unique story. Two of the moons orbit within gaps in the main rings. Some, such as
Prometheus and Pandora, interact with ring material, shepherding the ring in its orbit. Some
small moons are trapped in the same orbits as Tethys or Dione. Janus and Epimetheus
occasionally pass close to each other, causing them to periodically exchange orbits.
Here's a sampling of some of the unique aspects of the moons:
Titan is so large that it affects the orbits of other near-by moons. At 5,150 km (3,200
miles) across, it is the second largest moon in the solar system. Titan hides its surface
with a thick nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Titan's atmosphere is similar to the Earth's
atmosphere of long ago, before biology took hold on our home planet. Titan's
atmosphere is approximately 95% nitrogen with traces of methane. While the Earth's
atmosphere extends about 60 km (37 miles) into space, Titan's extends nearly 600 km
(ten times that of the Earth's atmosphere) into space.
Iapetus has one side as bright as snow and one side as dark as black velvet, with a
huge ridge running around most of its dark-side equator.
Phoebe orbits the planet in a direction opposite that of Saturn's larger moons, as do
several of the more recently discovered moons.
Mimas has an enormous crater on one side, the result of an impact that nearly split the
moon apart.
Enceladus displays evidence of active ice volcanism: Cassini observed warm fractures
where evaporating ice evidently escapes and forms a huge cloud of water vapor over
the south pole.
Hyperion has an odd flattened shape and rotates chaotically, probably due to a recent
collision.
Pan orbits within the main rings and helps sweep materials out of a narrow space
known as the Encke Gap.
Tethys has a huge rift zone called Ithaca Chasma that runs nearly three-quarters of the
way around the moon.
Four moons orbit in stable places around Saturn called Lagrangian points. These
places lie 60 degrees ahead of or behind a larger moon and in the same orbit. Telesto
and Calypso occupy the two Lagrangian points of Tethys in its orbit; Helene and
Polydeuces occupy the corresponding Lagrangian points of Dione.
Sixteen of Saturn's moons keep the same face toward the planet as they orbit. Called
"tidal locking," this is the same phenomenon that keeps our Moon always facing
toward Earth.
Cassini
Goals: Cassini was designed to explore the Saturnian system from orbit: the planet and its
atmosphere, rings and magnetosphere, and its moons, particularly Titan and the icy satellites.
Cassini also carried Europe's Huygens probe to its rendezvous with Titan.
Accomplishments: After successfully completing the first in-depth, up-close study of Saturn
and its realm from orbit, Cassini is on an extended mission to follow up on the many
discoveries made during its primary 4-year mission. Among the most surprising discoveries
were geysers erupting on Enceladus and the dynamic effects of it and other moons on
Saturn's rings. Cassini's observations of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, have given scientists a
glimpse of what our home planet might have been like before life evolved on Earth.
Huygens
Goals: The 318 kg (852 pound) probe was designed to study the smog-like atmosphere of
Saturn's largest moon Titan as it parachuted to the surface. It also carried cameras to
photograph the moon's surface. Huygen's traveled to Saturn aboard NASA's Cassini orbiter.
Accomplishments: The Huygens probe successfully touched down on Titan in January 2005
-- the first spacecraft landing in the outer solar system and the farthest from Earth. The probe
provided a detailed study Titan's atmosphere during a 2 hour and 27 minute descent and
relayed data and images from Titan's muddy surface for another hour and 10 minutes.
Voyager 1
explore the outer solar system. Voyager 1 targeted Jupiter and Saturn before continuing on to
chart the far edges of our solar system.
Voyager 1 was to become the second spacecraft to visit Saturn. Its mission there was to
explore the planet and its rings, moons, and magnetic field in greater detail than was possible
for its predecessor, Pioneer 11.
Accomplishments: Voyager 1 met all of its goals except for the experiments planned for its
photopolarimeter, which failed to operate. The spacecraft found three new moons:
Prometheus and Pandora, the "shepherding" moons that keep the F ring well-defined, and
Atlas which similarly shepherds the A ring. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, was found to have a
thick atmosphere which hides its surface from visible-light cameras and telescopes.
Spacecraft instruments showed it to be mostly nitrogen, like Earth's atmosphere, but with a
surface pressure 1.6 times as high as ours.
The spacecraft also imaged the moons Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea; revealed
the fine structures of Saturn's complex and beautiful ring system; and added the G ring to the
list of known rings.
Just as it used Jupiter's gravity to help it reach Saturn, Voyager 1 used a gravity assist at
Saturn to alter its course and increase its speed, giving it a trajectory to take it out of the solar
system. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in August 2012.
Voyager 2
beyond the planets.
Accomplishments: Voyager 2 was to become the third spacecraft to visit Saturn. Its mission
there was to follow up on the pictures and data returned by Voyager 1.
Voyager 2 gave us another close-range look at Saturn and its moons. Using its
photopolarimeter, an instrument that had failed on Voyager 1, Voyager 2 was able to observe
the planet's rings at much higher resolution and to discover many more ringlets. It also
provided more detailed images of the ring spokes and kinks, and of the F-ring and its
shepherding moons. Finally, it employed a gravity-assist maneuver at Saturn to help it reach
its next destination, Uranus.
Pioneer 11
Goals: Pioneer 11 was the first mission to explore Saturn and the second spacecraft in
humanity's early reconnaissance of the outer solar system. The spacecraft carried instruments
to study magnetic fields, the solar wind and the atmospheres, moons and other aspects of
Jupiter and Saturn.
Accomplishments: Among Pioneer 11's many discoveries are Saturn's F ring and a new
moon. It recorded the planet's overall temperature at -180C, indicating that it emits 2.5 times
as much heat as it receives from the Sun. Photographs revealed a more featureless
atmosphere than that of Jupiter, and calculations based on data from Pioneer 11 suggested
that Saturn is primarily liquid hydrogen with a core of about 10 Earth masses.
The dormant spacecraft is now headed out of our solar system in the general direction of
Sagittarius, toward the center of the galaxy. Both Pioneers 10 and 11 carry a plaque with a
message for any intelligent beings that might find them.
Uranus: Overview
Uranus' moon Ariel (white dot) and its shadow (black dot) were caught crossing the face of
Uranus in this Hubble Space Telescope image.
Uranus is the only giant planet whose equator is nearly at right angles to its orbit. A collision
with an Earth-sized object may explain the unique tilt. Nearly a twin in size to Neptune,
Uranus has more methane in its mainly hydrogen and helium atmosphere than Jupiter or
Saturn. Methane gives Uranus its blue tint.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Uranus:
Uranus would be about as big as a
baseball.
2. Uranus orbits our sun, a star. Uranus is
the seventh planet from the sun at a
distance of about 2.9 billion km (1.8
billion miles) or 19.19 AU.
3. One day on Uranus takes about 17 hours
(the time it takes for Uranus to rotate or
spin once). Uranus makes a complete
orbit around the sun (a year in Uranian
time) in about 84 Earth years.
4. Uranus is an ice giant. Most (80 percent
or more) of the planet's mass is made up
of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials water (H
2
O), methane (CH
4
). and ammonia
(NH
3
) above a small rocky core.
5. Uranus has an atmosphere which is mostly made up of hydrogen (H
2
) and helium
(He), with a small amount of methane (CH
4
).
6. Uranus has 27 moons. Uranus' moons are named after characters from the works of
William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.
Uranus: The Sideways Planet
7. Uranus has faint rings. The inner rings are narrow and dark and the outer rings are
brightly colored.
8. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus.
9. Uranus cannot support life as we know it.
10. Like Venus, Uranus has a retrograde rotation (east to west). Unlike any of the other
planets, Uranus rotates on its side, which means it spins horizontally.
Like Venus, Uranus rotates east to west. Uranus' rotation axis is tilted almost parallel to its
orbital plane, so Uranus appears to be rotating on its side. This situation may be the result of a
collision with a planet-sized body early in the planet's history, which apparently radically
changed Uranus' rotation. Because of Uranus' unusual orientation, the planet experiences
extreme variations in sunlight during each 20-year-long season.
Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to visit Uranus, imaged a bland-looking sphere in 1986. When
Voyager flew by, the south pole of Uranus pointed almost directly at the sun because Uranus
was near its southern summer solstice, with the southern hemisphere bathed in continuous
sunlight and the northern hemisphere radiating heat into the blackness of space.
Uranus reached equinox in December 2007, when it was fully illuminated as the sun passed
over the planet's equator. By 2028, the north pole will point directly at the sun, a reversal of
the situation when Voyager flew by. Equinox also brings ring-plane crossing, when Uranus'
rings appear to move more and more edge-on as seen from Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii captured detailed images
of Uranus as the planet approached equinox. While Voyager 2 saw only a few discrete
clouds, more recent observations reveal that Uranus exhibits dynamic clouds as it approaches
equinox, including rapidly evolving bright features and a new Great Dark Spot like those
seen on Neptune.
Uranus is one of the two ice giants of the outer solar system (the other is Neptune). The
atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of
water and ammonia. Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas in the atmosphere.
Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back out by Uranus' cloud tops.
Methane gas absorbs the red portion of the light, resulting in a blue-green color. The bulk (80
percent or more) of the mass of Uranus is contained in an extended liquid core consisting
mostly of icy materials (water, methane, and ammonia).
For nearly a quarter of the Uranian year (equal to 84 Earth years), the sun shines directly over
each pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a long, dark winter.
While magnetic fields are typically in alignment with a planet's rotation, Uranus' magnetic
field is tipped over: the magnetic axis is tilted nearly 60 degrees from the planet's axis of
rotation, and is also offset from the center of the planet by one-third of the planet's radius.
The magnetic fields of both Uranus and Neptune are very irregular.
Uranus has two sets of rings. The inner system of nine rings, discovered in 1977, consists
mostly of narrow, dark rings. Voyager 2 found two additional inner rings. An outer system of
two more-distant rings was discovered in Hubble Space Telescope images in 2003. In 2006,
Hubble and Keck observations showed that the outer rings are brightly colored. Uranus has
27 known moons, named for characters from the works of William Shakespeare or Alexander
Pope. Miranda is the strangest-looking Uranian moon: its complex surface may indicate
partial melting of the interior, with icy material drifting to the surface.
Uranus: Rings
When two teams of scientists set up to watch Uranus pass in front of star SAO 158687 in
1977, they expected a rare chance to observe a distant planet. Instead, they made a major
discovery: Uranus, like Saturn, is encircled with a band of rings.
As the observers in the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and the Perth Observatory in Australia
watched, the star appeared to blink out briefly several times. The blinking was caused by the
rings blocking the starlight. The Australian team was so surprised they missed three rings as
they tried to figure out why the starlight signal kept disappearing.
The Kuiper team had a better vantage point and were first to publish the surprising news that
Uranus was encircled by five narrow rings, which they named Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta
and Epsilon in order of increasing distance from the planet. The Perth team identified six
distinct dips in the starlight, which they named rings 1 through 6.
After careful analysis and a closer view courtesy of the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986,
scientists have now identified 13 known rings around Uranus. In order of increasing distance
from the planet, they are 1986U2R, 6, 5, 4, Alpha, Beta, Eta, Gamma, Delta, Lambda,
Epsilon, Nu and Mu. Some of the larger rings are surrounded by belts of fine dust.
Uranus: Missions
Voyager 2
beyond the planets.
Accomplishments: Following its flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 was to become the
first spacecraft to visit Uranus.
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have flown by Uranus. The planet displayed little detail,
but gave evidence of an ocean of boiling water about 800 km below the cloud tops.
Curiously, the average temperature of its sun-facing pole was found to be the same as that of
the equator. The spacecraft discovered 10 new moons, two new rings, and a strangely tilted
magnetic field stronger than that of Saturn. A gravity assist at Uranus propelled the spacecraft
toward its next destination, Neptune.
Neptune: Overview
Voyager 2 captured this image of Neptune in 1989.
Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, Neptune is the last of the hydrogen and helium
gas giants in our solar system. More than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth, the planet
takes almost 165 Earth years to orbit our sun. In 2011 Neptune completed its first orbit since
its discovery in 1846.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Neptune:
and Neptune would be about as big as a
baseball.
2. Neptune orbits our sun, a star. Neptune
is the eighth planet from the sun at a
distance of about 4.5 billion km (2.8
billion miles) or 30.07 AU.
3. One day on Neptune takes about 16
hours (the time it takes for Neptune to
rotate or spin once). Neptune makes a
complete orbit around the sun (a year in
Neptunian time) in about 165 Earth
years (60,190 Earth days).
4. Neptune is a sister ice giant to Uranus.
Neptune is mostly made of a very thick,
very hot combination of water (H
2
O), ammonia (NH
3
), and methane (CH
4
) over a
possible heavier, approximately Earth-sized, solid core.
Vertical relief in Neptune's bright
cloud streaks.
5. Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen (H
2
), helium (He) and methane
(CH
4
).
6. Neptune has 13 confirmed moons (and 1 more awaiting official confirmation of
discovery). Neptune's moons are named after various sea gods and nymphs in Greek
mythology.
7. Neptune has six rings.
8. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune.
9. Neptune cannot support life as we know it.
10. At times during the course of Neptune's orbit, dwarf planet Pluto is actually closer to
the sun, and us, than Neptune. This is due to the unusual elliptical (egg) shape of
Pluto's orbit.
The ice giant Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical predictions rather
than through regular observations of the sky. (Galileo had recorded it as a fixed star during
observations with his small telescope in 1612 and 1613.) When Uranus didn't travel exactly
as astronomers expected it to, a French mathematician, Urbain Joseph Le Verrier, proposed
the position and mass of another as yet unknown planet that could cause the observed
changes to Uranus' orbit. After being ignored by French astronomers, Le Verrier sent his
predictions to Johann Gottfried Galle at the Berlin Observatory, who found Neptune on his
first night of searching in 1846. Seventeen days later, its largest moon, Triton, was also
discovered.
Neptune has six known rings. Voyager 2's observations confirmed that these unusual rings
are not uniform but have four thick regions (clumps of dust) called arcs. The rings are
thought to be relatively young and short-lived.
Neptune has 13 known moons, six of which were discovered by Voyager 2. A 14th tiny, very
dim, moon was discovered in 2013 and awaits official recognition. Triton, Neptune's largest
moon, orbits the planet in the opposite direction compared with the rest of the moons,
suggesting that it may have been captured by Neptune in the distant past. Triton is extremely
cold - temperatures on its surface are about -235 degrees Celsius (-391 degrees Fahrenheit).
Despite this deep freeze at Triton, Voyager 2 discovered geysers spewing icy material
upward more than 8 kilometers (5 miles). Triton's thin atmosphere, also discovered by
Voyager, has been detected from Earth several times since, and is growing warmer - although
scientists do not yet know why.
Neptune: Rings
Evidence for incomplete arcs around Neptune first arose in the mid-1980s, when stellar
occultation experiments were found to occasionally show an extra "blink" just before or after
the planet occulted the star. Images by Voyager 2 in 1989 settled the issue, when the ring
system was found to contain several faint rings, the outermost of which, named Adams,
contains three prominent arcs now named Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The existence of
arcs is very difficult to understand because the laws of motion would predict that arcs spread
out into a uniform ring over very short timescales. The gravitational effects of Galatea, a
moon just inward from the ring, are now believed to confine the arcs.
Several other rings were detected by the Voyager cameras. In addition to the narrow Adams
Ring 63,000 km from the center of Neptune, the Leverrier Ring is at 53,000 km and the
broader, fainter Galle Ring is at 42,000 km. A faint outward extension to the Leverrier Ring
has been named Lassell; it is bounded at its outer edge by the Arago Ring at 57,000 km.
Neptune: Moons
We don't know with what beverage William Lassell may have celebrated his discovery of
Neptune's moon, Triton, but beer made it possible.
Lassell was one of 19th century England's grand amateur astronomers, using the fortune he
made in the brewery business to finance his telescopes. He spotted Triton on 10 October 1846
-- just 17 days after a Berlin observatory discovered Neptune.
Curiously, a week before he found the satellite, Lassell thought he saw a ring around the
planet. That turned out to be a distortion caused by his telescope. But when NASA's Voyager
2 visited Neptune in 1989, it revealed that the gas giant does have rings, though they're far
too faint for Lassell to have seen them.
Since Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea, its moons were named for various
lesser sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.
Triton (not to be confused with Saturn's moon, Titan), is far and away the largest of
Neptune's satellites. Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper (for whom the Kuiper Belt
was named) found Neptune's third-largest moon, Nereid, in 1949. He missed Proteus, the
second-largest, because it's too dark and too close to Neptune for telescopes of that era.
Proteus is a slightly non-spherical moon, and it is thought to be right at the limit of how
massive an object can be before its gravity pulls it into a sphere.
Proteus and five other moons had to wait for Voyager 2 to make themselves known. All six
are among the darker objects found in the solar system. Astronomers using improved ground-
based telescopes found more satellites in 2002 and 2003, bringing the known total to 13.
Voyager 2 revealed fascinating details about Triton. Part of its surface resembles the rind of a
cantaloupe. Ice volcanoes spout what is probably a mixture of liquid nitrogen, methane and
dust, which instantly freezes and then snows back down to the surface. One Voyager 2 image
shows a frosty plume shooting 8 km (5 miles) into the sky and drifting 140 km (87 miles)
downwind.
Triton's icy surface reflects so much of what little sunlight reaches it that the moon is one of
the coldest objects in the solar system, about -400 degrees Fahrenheit (-240 degrees Celsius).
Triton is the only large moon in the solar system that circles its planet in a direction opposite
to the planet's rotation (a retrograde orbit), which suggests that it may once have been an
independent object that Neptune captured. The disruptive effect this would have had on other
satellites could help to explain why Nereid has the most eccentric orbit of any known moon --
it's almost seven times as far from Neptune at one end of its orbit as at the other end.
Neptune's gravity acts as a drag on the counter-orbiting Triton, slowing it down and making it
drop closer and closer to the planet. Millions of years from now, Triton will come close
enough for gravitational forces to break it apart -- possibly forming a ring around Neptune
bright enough for Lassell to have seen with his telescope.
Triton's thin atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen with small amounts of methane.
This atmosphere most likely originates from Triton's volcanic activity, which is driven by
seasonal heating by the Sun. Triton, Io and Venus are the only bodies in the solar system
besides Earth that are known to be volcanically active at the present time.
Triton is one of the coolest objects in our solar system. It is so cold that most of Triton's
nitrogen is condensed as frost, giving its surface an icy sheen that reflects 70 percent of the
sunlight that hits it.
NASA's Voyager 2 -- the only spacecraft to fly past Neptune and Triton -- found surface
temperatures of -235C (-391F). During its 1989 flyby, Voyager 2 also found Triton has
active geysers, making it one of the few geologically active moons in our solar system.
Voyager 2
beyond the planets.
Accomplishments: Voyager 2 is the only human-made object to have flown by Neptune. In
the closest approach of its entire tour, the spacecraft passed less than 5,000 km above the
planet's cloud tops. It discovered five moons, four rings, and a "Great Dark Spot" that
vanished by the time the Hubble Space Telescope imaged Neptune five years later. Neptune's
largest moon, Triton, was found to be the coldest known planetary body in the solar system,
with a nitrogen ice "volcano" on its surface. A gravity assist at Neptune shot Voyager 2
below the plane in which the planets orbit the sun, on a course which will ultimately take the
spacecraft out of our solar system.
Comets: Overview
This image of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory near
Tucson, Ariz. in 2004.
Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust roughly the size of a small town.
When a comet's orbit brings it close to the sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a
giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches
away from the sun for millions of kilometers.
10 Need-to-Know Things About Comets:
1. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of a nickel,
dwarf planet Pluto would be the size of a head of a pin and the largest Kuiper Belt
comet (about 100 km across, which is about one twentieth the size of Pluto) would
only be about the size of a grain of dust.
2. Short-period comets (comets that orbit
the sun in less than 200 years) reside in
the icy region known as the Kuiper Belt
beyond the orbit of Neptune from about
30 to 55 AU. Long-period comets
(comets with long, unpredictable orbits)
originate in the far-off reaches of the
Oort Cloud, which is five thousand to
100 thousand AUs from the sun.
3. Days on comets vary. One day on comet
Halley varies between 2.2 to 7.4 Earth
days (the time it takes for comet Halley
to rotate or spin once). Comet Halley makes a complete orbit around the sun (a year in
this comet's time) in 76 Earth years.
4. Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust.
5. A comet warms up as it nears the sun and develops an atmosphere, or coma. The
coma may be hundreds of thousands of kilometers in diameter.
6. Comets do not have moons.
Rosetta: Comet Chaser
7. Comets do not have rings.
8. More than 20 missions have explored comets from a variety of viewpoints.
9. Comets may not be able to support life themselves, but they may have brought water
and organic compounds -- the building blocks of life -- through collisions with Earth
and other bodies in our solar system.
10. Comet Halley makes an appearance in the Bayeux Tapestry from the year 1066,
which chronicles the overthrow of King Harold by William the Conqueror at the
Battle of Hastings.
We now know that comets are leftovers from the dawn of our solar system around 4.6 billion
years ago, and consist mostly of ice coated with dark organic material. They have been
referred to as "dirty snowballs." They may yield important clues about the formation of our
solar system. Comets may have brought water and organic compounds, the building blocks of
life, to the early Earth and other parts of the solar system.
As theorized by astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951, a disc-like belt of icy bodies exists
beyond Neptune, where a population of dark comets orbits the sun in the realm of Pluto.
These icy objects, occasionally pushed by gravity into orbits bringing them closer to the sun,
become the so-called short-period comets. Taking less than 200 years to orbit the sun, in
many cases their appearance is predictable because they have passed by before. Less
predictable are long-period comets, many of which arrive from a region called the Oort Cloud
about 100,000 astronomical units (that is,?100,000 times the distance between Earth and the
Sun) from the Sun. These Oort Cloud comets can take as long as 30 million years to complete
one trip around the Sun.
Each comet has a tiny frozen part, called a nucleus, often no larger than a few kilometers
across. The nucleus contains icy chunks, frozen gases with bits of embedded dust. A comet
warms up as it nears the Sun and develops an atmosphere, or coma. The sun's heat causes the
comet's ices to change to gases so the coma gets larger. The coma may extend hundreds of
thousands of kilometers. The pressure of sunlight and high-speed solar particles (solar wind)
can blow the coma dust and gas away from the Ssun, sometimes forming a long, bright tail.
Comets actually have two tails - a dust tail and an ion (gas) tail.
Most comets travel a safe distance from the sun - comet Halley comes no closer than 89
million kilometers (55 million miles). However, some comets, called sungrazers, crash
straight into the Sun or get so close that they break up and evaporate.
Scientists have long wanted to study comets in some detail, tantalized by the few 1986
images of comet Halley's nucleus. NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft flew by comet Borrelly
in 2001 and photographed its nucleus, which is about 8 kilometers (5 miles) long.
NASA's Stardust mission successfully flew within 236 kilometers (147 miles) of the nucleus
of Comet Wild 2 in January 2004, collecting cometary particles and interstellar dust for a
sample return to Earth in 2006. The photographs taken during this close flyby of a comet
nucleus show jets of dust and a rugged, textured surface. Analysis of the Stardust samples
suggests that comets may be more complex than originally thought. Minerals formed near the
Sun or other stars were found in the samples, suggesting that materials from the inner regions
of the solar system traveled to the outer regions where comets formed.
Another NASA mission, Deep Impact, consisted of a flyby spacecraft and an impactor. In
July 2005, the impactor was released into the path of the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 in a
planned collision, which vaporized the impactor and ejected massive amounts of fine,
powdery material from beneath the comet's surface. En route to impact, the impactor camera
imaged the comet in increasing detail. Two cameras and a spectrometer on the flyby
spacecraft recorded the dramatic excavation that helped determine the interior composition
and structure of the nucleus.
After their successful primary missions, the Deep Impact spacecraft and the Stardust
spacecraft were still healthy and were retargeted for additional cometary flybys. Deep
Impact's mission, EPOXI (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Deep Impact Extended
Investigation), comprised two projects: the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI),
which encountered comet Hartley 2 in November 2010, and the Extrasolar Planet
Observation and Characterization (EPOCh) investigation, which searched for Earth-size
planets around other stars on route to Hartley 2. NASA returned to comet Tempel 1 in 2011,
when the Stardust New Exploration of Tempel 1 (NExT) mission observed changes in the
nucleus since Deep Impact's 2005 encounter.
Comets: List of Comets
Comet ISON as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope on 30 April 2013.
Comets, like asteroids and dwarf planets, have been altered very little in the 4.6 billion years
since they first formed. Their relatively pristine state makes them ideal natural laboratories to
learn about what conditions were like in the early solar system. They can reveal secrets about
our origins, chronicling the processes and events that led to the birth of our world.
There are more than 3,000 known comets and likely countless more out there waiting to be
discovered. The comets listed on this page are a representative sample of these intriguing
space travelers.
FORTIS
Goals: The Far-ultraviolet Off Rowland-circle Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy
(FORTIS) is a NASA sounding rocket mission that will obtain ultra-violet spectra of comet
ISON as it nears the sun. The ultra-violet region contains particularly rich information about
comet chemistry. In a suborbital flight that lasts only minutes, FORTIS can observe the
comet much closer to the sun than other orbiting observatories.
Accomplishments: Launch was successful.
BRRISON
Goals: BRRISON - or Balloon Rapid Response for ISON - is a stratospheric science balloon
designed to capture unique images and data from comet ISON as it passes through the inner
solar system. The balloon will carry a telescope and science instruments 37 km (23 miles)
above the Earth's surface to scan the passing comet for clues to the origins of our solar
system. The one day flight also will be a test to demonstrate the capability of science balloons
to contribute to planetary science from high altitude.
Accomplishments: The science payload suffered an anomaly following launch, preventing
the payload from collecting mission data. About two and a half hours after BRRISON's
launch, the 0.8-meter telescope on the gondola returned to a stowed position too rapidly,
driving the telescope past a stow latch. The telescope was unable to be redeployed despite
numerous attempts. The cause of the anomaly is under investigation.
WISE (NEOWISE)
Goals: The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will provide a vast storehouse of
knowledge about the solar system, the Milky Way and the Universe. Among the objects
WISE plans to study are asteroids, the coolest and dimmest stars, and the most luminous
galaxies.
Accomplishments: WISE scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light about 1.5 times. It
captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to
asteroids and comets close to Earth. After completing its prime science mission, the
spacecraft ran out of the frozen coolant that keeps its instrumentation cold. However, two of
its four infrared cameras remained operational. These two channels were still useful for
asteroid hunting, so NASA extended the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission by four
months, with the primary purpose of hunting for more asteroids and comets, and to finish one
complete scan of the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft was then placed in hibernation in case
another science opportunity arose.
Beginning in September 2013, WISE will be revived with the goal of discovering and
characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs). NASA anticipates WISE will use its 40-cm (16-
inch) telescope and infrared cameras to discover about 150 previously unknown NEOs and
characterize the size, albedo and thermal properties of about 2,000 others.
Deep Impact (EPOXI)
Goals: Deep Impact's primary mission was to probe beneath the surface of a comet. The
spacecraft delivered a special impactor into the path of Tempel 1 to reveal never before seen
materials and provide clues about the internal composition and structure of a comet.
Accomplishments: After almost nine years in space that included an unprecedented 4th of
July impact and subsequent flyby of a comet, an additional comet flyby, and the return of
approximately 500,000 images of celestial objects, NASA's Deep Impact mission ended in
September 2013.
Deep Impact, history's most traveled deep-space comet hunter, provided many significant
results for the science community. Here are the mission team's top five:
1. First determination that a comet's surface layer (few to 10 meters or so) is very porous
(greater than 75 percent empty space)
2. First direct evidence showing chemical diversity of outgassing associated with
different parts of the cometary nucleus
3. Discovered that hyperactive comets (5-10 percent of all comets) are driven by carbon
dioxide and that the observed excess water is from icy grains in the coma. The
processes of hyperactive comets are very different from those in normal comets.
4. Observations led to re-thinking where in the solar system comets formed. Contrary to
all thinking, for the last half century, the Jupiter family comets must have formed
closer to the sun than did the Oort cloud comets.
5. Enabled the subsequent exciting results from the Stardust NExT mission that changes
theories on how comets evolve.
Rosetta
Goals: The European Space Agency's Rosetta is the first mission designed to orbit and land
on a comet. It consists of an orbiter and a lander -- called Philae. The two spacecraft carry 20
science instruments to make a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for two
years as it approaches our sun.
Accomplishments: In August 2014, Rosetta became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet
when it joined comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on it's journey around the sun.
Rosetta is named for the Rosetta Stone, an ancient script that provided the key to deconding
Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Rosetta was initially going to visit another comet, but a launch delay caused it to miss its
rendezvous window.
The team plans to fly past one asteroid during Rosetta's complex 10-year journey to the
comet.
Rosetta gets its name from the famous Rosetta stone (below), that led to the deciphering of
Egyptian hieroglyphics almost 200 years ago.
The lander is named for Philae, an island in the river Nile on which an obelisk was found that
gave historians the final clues to decipher the Rosetta stone.
Rosetta is the most detailed study of a comet planned to date.
CONTOUR
Goals: CONTOUR (COmet Nucleus TOUR) was designed to make a detailed study of the
interior of two very different comets, Encke and Schwassmann-Wachmann-3, as they made
their periodic visits to the inner solar system.
Accomplishments: None. Contact with the spacecraft was lost after an 15 Aug. 2002 engine
burn that was intended to propel it out of Earth orbit. A mishap investigation board
determined that overheating during the engine burn caused the spacecraft to break apart.
Stardust
Accomplishments: On 2 January 2004, Stardust flew within 236 km of comet Wild 2 and
captured thousands of particles in its aerogel collector. It then returned those samples to Earth
inside an Apollo-like capsule in January 2006 -- the first collection of extraterrestrial samples
from beyond the orbit of the Moon. The samples, primordial material from a cometary
nucleus, unchanged since the birth of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, produced a
wealth of scientific data. The mission revealed comets were more complex than previously
thought and carried with them the basic building blocks of life.
NASA retasked the spacecraft to perform a bonus mission to fly past comet Tempel 1 to
collect images and other scientific data. Stardust traveled about 21 million km (13 million
miles) in its journey about the sun in the weeks following the comet Tempel 1 flyby, making
the grand total from launch to its final rocket burn about 5.69 billion km (3.54 billion miles).
The spacecraft also made a close flyby of asteroid Annefrank. Stardust's encounter with
asteroid Annefrank was used as a dress rehearsal to prepare for its primary mission to study
comet Wild 2. The spacecraft made its final transmission to Earth on 24 March 2011.
Leonid MAC
Goals: Leonid MAC is NASA's first Astrobiology mission. Leonid MAC, a series of five
missions that took flight in aircraft during the years 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 to
study Leonid meteors, which come from comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. Its mission was to learn
how extraterrestrial materials may have been brought to Earth at the time of the origin of life.
In addition, the interaction of meteoroids with the atmosphere generates molecules that may
have played a role in the origin of life on Earth.
Accomplishments: The Leonid Mac missions observed, studied, imaged, and made
measurements of the Leonid meteors. Among the discoveries and firsts made were: The
ability to weigh meteors by measuring the amount of iron atoms that ablate from the meteor.
The measurement of the properties and characteristics of meteor dust trails. The first
detection of mid-infrared emissions from relatively faint meteors and the first mid-infrared
spectroscopy of persistent meteor trains. Leonid MAC also detected, and later confirmed, the
existence of a halo and shadow surrounding the head of bright Leonid meteors.
SOHO
Goals: The primary mission of the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) spacecrast is to study the solar atmosphere, helioseismology and solar
wind, but it has also proved very useful for spotting comets.
Accomplishments: SOHO has found more comets than any other spacecraft -- or person -- to
date. The mission logged its 2,000th comet discovery in December 2010. SOHO also has
observed comet 96P Machholz three times during its regular trip around the sun roughly
every six years.
The SOHO and Cluster missions, part of ESA's Solar Terrestrial Science Programme (STSP),
are ESA's contributions to the Inter-Agency Solar Terrestrial Physics (IASTP) program.
NASA contributed three instruments on SOHO as well as launch and flight operations
support.
About two months after launch, on 14 February 1995, SOHO was placed at a distance of 1.5
million km from Earth at the L1 Libration Point. The spacecraft returned its first image on 19
December 1995 and was fully commissioned for operations by 16 April 1996.
SOHO finished its planned two-year study of the sun's atmosphere, surface, and interior in
April 1998. Communications with the spacecraft were interrupted for four months beginning
on 24 June 1998, but, after intensive search efforts, controllers managed to regain full control
by 16 September.
Barring three instruments, the spacecraft was functional and was declared fully operational
once again by mid-October 1998. SOHO's original lifetime was three years (to 1998), but
ESA and NASA jointly decided to prolong the mission, enabling the spacecraft to compare
the sun's behavior during low dark sunspot activity (1996) to the peak (around 2000).
The team -- and everyday people who just watch the website -- have also discovered dozens
of comets, many of which are destroyed by the sun's powerful gravity and energy. One of
SOHO's most important discoveries has been locating the origin of the fast solar wind at the
corners of honeycomb-shaped magnetic fields surrounding the edges of large bubbling cells
located near the sun's poles.
SOHO remains in its halo orbit, circling L1 once every six months.

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