Outer Planets Part 4

The Outer Planets Part 4
(5th
grade) April 2017

The outer planets are referred
to as “Jovian” planets. Why?

The word Jovian
means “of Jove”. Jove
is Latin for “father god”.
The Romans believed
the father god was
Jupiter. The Greeks
called him “Zeus”.

So, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune are called “outer”
planets and “Jovian” planets.
They have another nickname:
Gas Giants

Why this name?
- “Gas” because they are mostly made of
gases.
- “Giants” because they are MUCH larger
than the terrestrial planets.

To give you an idea of how big Jupiter is,
1,320 Earths would fit inside of it.

The gas giants are composed mainly
of gases (hydrogen and helium).

In fact, the Sun is made of
mostly hydrogen and helium.
This means that the gas giants
are star-like!

Interesting fact: If Jupiter had
been 80 times more massive
than it is, it would have become
a small star.

Jupiter is the largest planet, making up 70%
of all planetary matter in our solar system.
Jupiter
All other
planets,
moons, and
asteroids

The atmosphere of Jupiter is
basically the entire planet.

Jupiter is covered in thick red, brown,
yellow, and white clouds of gas. The clouds
make the planet look like it has stripes.

Watch this video to see Jupiter’s str

Since, we talked about the stripes of
Jupiter, let’s discuss another well known
feature on Jupiter’s surface - its great red
spot.

It is a storm that is larger than Earth! Similar to a
hurricane on Earth, Jupiter’s storm has swirling
winds that blow up to hundreds of kilometers per
hour. On Earth, hurricanes usually weaken as
they pass over land. Jupiter has no land to
weaken the storm.

Since humans first
started using
telescopes to look at
the solar system, the
red spot has been
seen. That means
that the storm has
been raging for more
than 350 years!

There is evidence that the giant
red spot is shrinking.

Saturn’s atmosphere also
contains storms and clouds, but
they are not as big as Jupiter’s.

So, if Jupiter is made of gases,
does that mean a space probe
could fly straight through the
center of it and out the other
side?

No. Remember that gravity is
pulling all of the atoms towards
the center.

That means that the pressure
gets stronger and stronger as
one gets closer to the core.

And, what happens to gas when
it is under a lot of pressure?

Right, it turns into the liquid state.

The hydrogen close to the center of the
core is under so much pressure, that it
behaves a little like molten metal.

Even if a space probe could get through
all of that thick liquid hydrogen, Jupiter
most likely has a small iron core.

Jupiter is massive. Because of this, it exerts a
much stronger gravitational force than any
other planet in our solar system.

So much so that if
you weigh 100 lbs.
on Earth...

...you would weigh 253 lbs. on
Jupiter!

You would weigh about the
same on Saturn...106 lbs.

On Uranus, you would weigh not
much less than you would on
Earth...89 lbs.

And lastly, you would weigh 113 lbs
on Neptune, again, similar to what
you would weigh on Earth.

You learned that Jupiter’s gases are under a lot of
pressure because of its strong gravity. This means
that Jupiter has a very thick atmosphere. In fact, all
of the gas giants have thick atmospheres.

Like Venus, the atmospheres on
Jupiter and Saturn would crush
a space probe.

The most distinctive attribute of
Saturn is its rings.

The first
astronomer to
notice this
unique feature
of Saturn was
Galileo Galilei.
This was in
1610.

However, his telescope wasn’t that
powerful. He saw Saturn as 3 blobs.
He thought the 2 smaller blobs might be
moons.

It wasn’t until 1659 that astronomer
Christiaan Huygens discovered that the
blobs were really rings. He was able to see
it more clearly because his telescope was
more powerful.

Why does Saturn have rings, and
what are they made of?

Rings are made of small chunks of ice and
rock, each traveling in its own orbit around
Saturn.

Astronomers aren’t certain how the rings were formed, but the most
recent theory is this:
Robin Canup proposed that the rings are the icy remnants of a bygone
moon.
When Saturn and its satellites (moons) formed, one of Saturn’s large
moons formed too close to the planet to maintain a stable orbit.
This moon started spiraling inward, and as it did, Saturn’s gravity
ripped away its icy outer layers and flung them into orbit to create the
rings we see today.
What was left of this moon finally crashed into Saturn and
crumbled.After 10,000 years of this denuding, the moon's leftover rocky
core finally crashed into Saturn and crumbled.

Watch this short video to hear
another theory:
https://youtu.be/_taZfzF-RXM

Saturn has 7 main ring groups. The Voyager
spacecrafts, which flew by them in 1980 and 1981,
showed that these 7 ring groups are made up of
thousands of smaller rings. The exact number is not
known.

Is Saturn the only planet that
has rings?

All of the gas giants have rings!

Jupiter has 1 ring that is thin
and dark. It can be seen here
with special photography.

Uranus has 9 dark rings around
it.

Neptune’s 5 rings are also dark,
but have a few bright spots.

Trivia: Astonomers have
actually given each ring of the
gas giants a name.

So far, you know that the outer
planets are giant compared to
Earth...

...are mostly made of gases
(unlike the terrestrial planets)...

Do the outer planets have
anything else in common?

Yes. All of the gas giants have many moons.

Jupiter’s largest moons are:

Ganymede is the largest of Jupiter’s
moons. Here is how Ganymede
compares to Earth and our moon.

Saturn has 53 moons, and
that’s not counting all of the
rocks that orbit Saturn in its
rings.

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is larger than
the planet Mercury. Titan even has its own
atmosphere, which is very unusual for a
moon.

Watch this brief video of the
Huygens probe landing on
Titan!
https://youtu.be/CNiO1b0ewy0

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, but
there are 4 other moons of Saturn that
are over 1,000 km in diameter each.

Uranus has 27 moons that we know of. Some of
them are half made of ice. Uranus’s 5 largest moons
have icy, cratered surfaces. They also have lava
flows on their surfaces, suggesting that material has
erupted from inside each moon at some time.

Lastly, Neptune has 13 moons. One of
them, Triton, is as big as the dwarf planet
Pluto.

Let’s talk more about Uranus
and Neptune...
Uranus Neptune

Besides being called gas giants, they are
also called “ice giants”. This is because
their atmospheres are mostly composed of
ices – water ice, ammonia ice, and methane
ice.

Uranus
Uranus is about 4 times
the diameter of Earth, but
is still much smaller than
Jupiter and Saturn.
Uranus is very far from the
sun, making it colder than
Saturn.

In fact, Uranus has the distinction of having
the coldest atmosphere of any planet in the
solar system. The temperature can be as
cold as minus 370 degrees.

Uranus is a greenish blue color because its
atmosphere is made up of hydrogen, helium and
methane. The methane in Uranus' upper
atmosphere absorbs the red light from the Sun but
reflects the blue light from the Sun back into
space, which is what we see.

Although Uranus looks to be a solid shade
of bluish-green, it contains stripes like Jupiter
and Saturn. But the bands are faint, and are
only seen with enhanced images.

Uranus’s axis of rotation is tilted at an angle
of about 90 degrees from the vertical (so, it
rotates on its side!).
Artist’s rendering.

The theory is that Uranus was knocked on its side
by a collision soon after its formation. Instead of
spinning as it revolves around the Sun, it appears
to roll around it. formation. With its equator down,
the planet appears to roll around the sun.

NEPTUNE
Neptune is a cold, blue
planet. Its atmosphere
contains visible clouds.
Scientists think that
Neptune is slowly
shrinking, causing the
interior to heat up. As
this energy rises to
Neptune’s surface, it
produces clouds and
storms in the planet’s
atmosphere.

Like Jupiter’s giant
red spot, Neptune
also had a great dark
spot at one time.
The great dark spot
was probably a
storm; however the
storm did not last
very long. Since
then, other small
spots and regions of
clouds on Neptune
also seem to come
and go.

Neptune is blue for the same
reason as Uranus...methane.

To remember the order of the planets,
remember this saying:
My Very Eager Mother Just
Served Us Nachos

Have you heard of the Asteroid Belt? It is
orbiting in the space between Mars’s orbit
and Jupiter’s orbit.

Several of our space probes have safely
navigated through the asteroid belt, because
the asteroids are so spread out.

There is another asteroid belt called the
“Kuiper Belt”. It is a collection of asteroids
that orbit the Sun past Neptune. Pluto is in
the Kuiper Belt.

You know that Pluto got
demoted to “dwarf planet”. Do
you know how many dwarf
planets are in our solar system?

Scientists believe there may be dozens or even
more than 100 dwarf planets awaiting discovery.
Below are the ones we know about.

There is evidence of a 9th
large
planet in the far outer solar
system.

The name Uranus is comes from the
Greek word “Ouranos”. According to
Greek mythology, Ouranos was the
god of the sky and father of the Titans.
His Roman name is Caelus.

The name Neptune comes from Neptunus,
the Roman god of the sea. He was the
brother of Jupiter. The Greeks called him
“Poseidon”.

Jupiter is the Roman king of the
gods. His Greek name is Zeus.

Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture.
According to Roman mythology, he taught
the people how to grow crops. His Greek
name was Cronus.

Question:
How many planets are in our
solar system?

Question:
What is the order of the
planets?

Answer:
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

Question:
What is the smallest planet and
what is the largest?

Answer:
Mercury is the smallest and
Jupiter is the largest.

Question:
Name 5 things that Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
have in common.

Answer:
1. They are all “outer planets”.
2. They are all large planets.
3. They are mostly made of gases.
4. They all have rings.
5. They all have many moons.

Question:
What are 2 nicknames for the
outer planets?

Answer:
Gas Giants
The Jovian Planets

Question:
What is a nickname for Uranus
and Neptune?

Question:
Which planet has the largest
moon in the solar system?

Answer:
Jupiter’s moon Ganymede

Question:
Which moon has its own
atmosphere?

Answer:
Saturn’s moon Titan.

Much thanks to Kyrene School
District. This is a modified
version of their PowerPoint:
www.kyrene.org/cms/lib2/AZ01001083/Centricity/.../outer%20planets%20ppt.pptCachedSimilar

Outer Planets Part 4

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