Solar System Archives

June 27, 2017June 30, 2017 by Matt Williams

What is the Smallest Planet in the Solar System?

MESSENGER image of Mercury from its third flyby (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

The Solar Planets are a nice mixed bag of what is possible when it comes to planetary formation. Within the inner Solar System, you have the terrestrial planets – bodies that are composed primarily of silicate minerals and metals. And in the outer Solar System, you have the gas giants and bodies that are composed primarily of ice that lie just beyond in the Trans-Neptunian region.

Of these, the question of which planet is the smallest has been the subject of some controversy. Until recently, the smallest planet was considered to be Pluto. But with the 2006 IAU Resolution that put constraints on what the definition of a planet entails, that status has since passed to Mercury. So in addition to being the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury is also the smallest.

Size and Mass:

With a mean radius of 2440 km, Mercury is the smallest planet in our Solar System, equivalent in size to 0.38 Earths. And given that it has its experiences no flattening at the poles – like Venus, which means it is an almost perfectly spherical body – its radius is the same at the poles as it is the equator.

And while it is smaller than the largest natural satellites in our Solar System – such as Ganymede and Titan – it is more massive. At 3.3011×10²³ kg in mass (33 trillion trillion metric tons; 36.3 trillion trillion US tons), it is equivalent to 0.055 Earths in terms of mass.

*Mercury and Earth, size comparison. Credit: NASA / APL (from MESSENGER)*

Density, Volume:

On top of that, Mercury is significantly more dense than bodies its size. In fact, Mercury’s density (at 5.427 g/cm³) is the second highest in the Solar System, only slightly less than Earth’s (5.515 g/cm³). The result of this is a gravitational force of 3.7 m/s², which is 0.38 times that of Earth (0.38 g). In essence, this means that if you could stand on the surface of Mercury, you would weight 38% as much as you do on Earth.

In terms of volume, Mercury once again becomes a bit diminutive, at least by Earth standards. Basically, Mercury has a volume of 6.083×10¹⁰ km³ (60 billion cubic km; 14.39 trillion cubic miles) which works out to 0.056 times the volume of the Earth. In other words, you could fit Mercury inside Earth almost twenty times over.

Structure and Composition:

Like Earth, Venus and Mars, Mercury is a terrestrial planet, meaning that is primarily composed of silicate minerals and metals that are differentiated between a metallic core and a silicate mantle and crust. But in Mercury’s case, the core is oversized compared to the other terrestrial planets, measuring some 1,800 km (approx. 1,118.5 mi) in radius, and therefore occupying 42% of the planet’s volume (compared to Earth’s 17%).

*Internal structure of Mercury: 1. Crust: 100–300 km thick 2. Mantle: 600 km thick 3. Core: 1,800 km radius. Credit: MASA/JPL*

Another interesting feature about Mercury’s core is the fact that it has a higher iron content than that of any other major planet in the Solar System. Several theories have been proposed to explain this, the most widely-accepted being that Mercury was once a larger planet that was struck by a planetesimal that stripped away much of the original crust and mantle, leaving behind the core as a major component.

Beyond the core is a mantle that measures 500 – 700 km (310 – 435 mi) in thickness and is composed primarily of silicate material. The outermost layer is Mercury’s crust, which is composed of silicate material that is believed to be 100 – 300 km thick.

Yes, Mercury is a pretty small customer when compared to its brothers, sisters and distant cousins in the Solar System. However, it is also one of the densest, hottest and most irradiated. So while small, no one would ever accuse this planet of not being really tough!

We have written many interesting articles on Mercury and the Solar Planets here at Universe Today. Here’s What is the Biggest Planet in the Solar System?, What is the Second Largest Planet in the Solar System?, How Does Mercury Compare to Earth?, What is the Average Surface Temperature on Mercury?, How Long is a Day on Mercury?, and The Orbit of Mercury, How Long is a Year on Mercury?,

And here’s another take on the smallest planet in the Solar System, and here’s a link to NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide.

We have recorded a whole series of podcasts about the Solar System at Astronomy Cast.

Sources:

June 14, 2017 by Susie Murph

Carnival of Space #513

Carnival of Space. Image by Jason Major.

Welcome, come in to the 513th Carnival of Space! The Carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. I’m Susie Murph, part of the team at Universe Today and CosmoQuest. So now, on to this week’s stories!
Continue reading “Carnival of Space #513”

June 9, 2017July 22, 2020 by Fraser Cain

Construction Tips from a Type 2 Engineer: Collaboration with Isaac Arthur

By popular request, Isaac Arthur and I have teamed up again to bring you a vision of the future of human space exploration. This time, we bring you practical construction tips from a pair of Type 2 Civilization engineers.

To make this collaboration even better, we’ve teamed up with two artists, Kevin Gill and Sergio Botero. They’re going to help create some special art, just for this episode, to help show what some of these megaprojects might look like.

Continue reading “Construction Tips from a Type 2 Engineer: Collaboration with Isaac Arthur”

June 5, 2017June 5, 2017 by Matt Williams

How Big is Saturn?

Beyond the Solar System’s Main Asteroid Belt lies the realm of the giants. It is here, staring with Jupiter and extending to Neptune, that the largest planets in the Solar System are located. Appropriately named “gas giants” because of their composition, these planets dwarf the rocky (terrestrial) planets of the inner Solar System many times over.

Just take a look at Saturn, the gas giant that takes its name from the Roman god of agriculture, and the second largest planet in the Solar System (behind Jupiter). In addition to its beautiful ring system and its large system of moons, this planet is renowned for its incredible size. Just how big is this planet? Well that depends on what your frame of reference is.

Diameter:

First let’s consider how large Saturn is from one end to the other – i.e. it’s diameter. The equatorial diameter of Saturn is 120,536 km ± 8 km (74,898 ± 5 mi) – or the equivalent of almost 9.5 Earths. However, as with all planets, their is a difference between the equatorial vs. the polar diameter. This difference is due to the flattening the planet experiences at the poles, which is caused by the planet’s rapid rotation.

*Like all the giant planets, Saturn is many times the size of Earth and the other rocky planets. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.*

The poles are about 5,904 km closer to the center of Saturn than points on the equator. As a result, Saturn’s polar radius is about 108,728 ± 20 km (67,560 ± 12 mi) – or the equivalent of 8.5 Earths. That’s a pretty big difference, and you can actually see that Saturn looks a little squashed in pictures. Just for comparison, the equatorial diameter of Saturn is 9.4 times bigger than Earth, and it’s about 84% the diameter of Jupiter.

Volume and Surface Area:

In terms of volume and surface area, the numbers get even more impressive! For starters, the surface area of Saturn is 42.7 billion km² (16.5 billion sq miles), which works out to about 83.7 times the surface area of Earth. That’s smaller than Jupiter though, being only 68.7% of Jupiter’s surface area. Still, that is pretty astounding when put into perspective.

On the other hand, Saturn has a volume of 827.13 trillion km³ (198.44 trillion cubic miles), which effectively means you could fit Earth inside of it 763 times over and still have room enough for about twenty Moons! Again, Jupiter has it beat since Saturn has only 57.8% the volume of Jupiter. It’s big, but Jupiter is just that much bigger.

Mass and Density:

What about mass? Of course Saturn is much, much, MUCH more massive than Earth. In fact, it’s mass has been estimated to be a whopping 568,360,000 trillion trillion kg (1,253,000,000 trillion trillion lbs) – which works out to 95 times the mass of Earth. Granted, that only works out to about 30% the mass of Jupiter, but that’s still a staggering amount of matter.

*Diagram of Saturn’s interior. Credit: Kelvinsong/Wikipedia Commons*

Looking at the numbers, you may notice that this seems like a bit of a discrepancy. If you could actually fit 763 Earth-sized planets inside Saturn with room to spare, how is it that it is only 95 times Earth’s mass? The answer to that has to do with density. Since Saturn is a gas giant, its matter is distributed less densely than a rocky planet’s.

Whereas Earth has a density of 5.514 g/cm³ (or 0.1992 lb per cubic inch), Saturn’s density is only 0.687 g/cm³ (0.0248 lb/cu in). Like all gas giants, Saturn’s is made up largely of gases that exist under varying degrees of pressure. Whereas the density increases considerably the deeper one goes into Saturn’s interior, the overall density is less than that of water – 1 g/cm³ (0.0361273 lb/cu in).

Yes, Saturn is quite the behemoth. And yet, ongoing investigations into extra-solar planets are revealing that even it and its big brother Jupiter can be beaten in the size department. In fact, thanks to the Kepler mission and other exoplanet surveys, astronomers have found a plethora of “Super-Jupiters” in the cosmos, which refers to planets that are up to 80 times the mass of Jupiter.

I guess the takeaway from this is that there’s always a bigger planet out there. So watch your step and remember not to throw your weight (or mass or volume) around!

We have written many articles about Saturn for Universe Today. Here’s Ten Interesting Facts About Saturn, The Orbit of Saturn, how Long is a Year on Saturn?, What are Saturn’s Rings Made Of?, How Many Moons Does Saturn Have?, What’s the Weather Like on Saturn?, and What is the Atmosphere Like on Saturn?

If you want more information on Saturn, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases about Saturn. And here’s a link to the homepage of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which is orbiting Saturn.

We have also recorded an entire episode of Astronomy Cast all about Saturn. Listen here, Episode 59: Saturn.

Sources:

May 24, 2017 by Evan Gough

Scientists Propose a New Kind of Planet: A Smashed Up Torus of Hot Vaporized Rock

Artist's impression of a Mars-sized object crashing into the Earth, starting the process that eventually created our Moon. Credit: Joe Tucciarone

There’s a new type of planet in town, though you won’t find it in well-aged solar systems like our own. It’s more of a stage of formation that planets like Earth can go through. And its existence helps explain the relationship between Earth and our Moon.

The new type of planet is a huge, spinning, donut-shaped mass of hot, vaporized rock, formed as planet-sized objects smash into each other. The pair of scientists behind the study explaining this new planet type have named it a ‘synestia.’ Simon Lock, a graduate student at Harvard University, and Sarah Stewart, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis, say that Earth was at one time a synestia.

Rocky planets like Earth are accreted from smaller bodies over time. Objects with high energy and high angular momentum could form a synestia, a transient stage in planetary formation where vaporized rock orbits the rest of the body. In this image, each of the three stages has the same mass. Image: Simon Lock, Harvard University

The current theory of planetary formation goes like this: When a star forms, the left-over material is in motion around the star. This left-over material is called a protoplanetary disk. The material coagulates into larger bodies as the smaller ones collide and join together.

As the bodies get larger and larger, the force of their collisions becomes greater and greater, and when two large bodies collided, their rocky material melts. Then, the newly created body cools, and becomes spherical. It’s understood that this is how Earth and the other rocky planets in our Solar System formed.

Lock and Stewart looked at this process and asked what would happen if the resulting body was spinning quickly.

When a body is spinning, the law of conservation of angular momentum comes into play. That law says that a spinning body will spin until an external torque slows it down. The often-used example from figure skating helps explain this.

If you’ve ever watched figure skaters, and who hasn’t, their actions are very instructive. When a single skater is spinning rapidly, she stretches out her arms to slow the rate of spin. When she folds her arms back into her body, she speeds up again. Her angular momentum is conserved.

This short video shows figure skaters and physics in action.

If you don’t like figure skating, this one uses the Earth to explain angular momentum.

Now take the example from a pair of figure skaters. When they’re both turning, and the two of them join together by holding each other’s hands and arms, their angular momentum is added together and conserved.

Replace two figure skaters with two planets, and this is what the two scientists behind the study wanted to model. What would happen if two large bodies with high energy and high angular momentum collided with each other?

If the two bodies had high enough temperatures and high enough angular momentum, a new type of planetary structure would form: the synestia. “We looked at the statistics of giant impacts, and we found that they can form a completely new structure,” Stewart said.

“We looked at the statistics of giant impacts, and we found that they can form a completely new structure.” – Professor Sarah Stewart, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

As explained in a press release from the UC Davis, for a synestia to form, some of the vaporized material from the collision must go into orbit. When a sphere is solid, every point on it is rotating at the same rate, if not the same speed. But when some of the material is vaporized, its volume expands. If it expands enough, and if its moving fast enough, it leaves orbit and forms a huge disc-shaped synestia.

Other theories have proposed that two large enough bodies could form an orbiting molten mass after colliding. But if the two bodies had high enough energy and temperature to vaporize some of the rock, the resulting synestia would occupy a much larger space.

“The main issue with looking for synestias around other stars is that they don’t last a long time. These are transient, evolving objects that are made during planet formation.” – Professor Sarah Stewart, UC Davis.

These synestias likely wouldn’t last very long. They would cool quickly and condense back into rocky bodies. For a body the size of Earth, the synestia might only last one hundred years.

The synestia structure sheds some light on how moons are formed. The Earth and the Moon are very similar in terms of composition, so it’s likely they formed as a result of a collision. It’s possible that the Earth and Moon formed from the same synestia.

These synestias have been modelled, but they haven’t been observed. However, the James Webb Space Telescope will have the power to peer into protoplanetary disks and watch planets forming. Will it observe a synestia?

“These are transient, evolving objects that are made during planet formation.” – Professor Sarah Stewart, UC Davis

In an email exchange with Universe Today, Dr. Sarah Stewart of UC Davis, one of the scientists behind the study, told us that “The main issue with looking for synestias around other stars is that they don’t last a long time. These are transient, evolving objects that are made during planet formation.”

“So the best bet for finding a rocky synestia is young systems where the body is close to the star. For gas giant planets, they may form a synestia for a period of their formation. We are getting close to being able to image circumplanetary disks in other star systems.”

Once we have the ability to observe planets forming in their circumstellar disks, we may find that synestias are more common than rare. In fact, planets may go through the synestia stage multiple times. Dr. Stewart told us that “Based on the statistics presented in our paper, we expect that most (more than half) of rocky planets that form in a manner similar to Earth became synestias one or more times during the giant impact stage of accretion.”

May 6, 2017May 7, 2017 by Matt Williams

Only 10 Light-Years Away, there’s a Baby Version of the Solar System

Artist's impression of the Epsilon Eridani system, showing Epsilon Eridani b (a Jupiter-mass planet) and a series of asteroid belts and comets. Credit: NASA/SOFIA/Lynette Cook.

Astronomers are understandanly fascinated with the Epsilon Eridani system. For one, this star system is in close proximity to our own, at a distance of about 10.5 light years from the Solar System. Second, it has been known for some time that it contains two asteroid belts and a large debris disk. And third, astronomers have suspected for many years that this star may also have a system of planets.

On top of all that, a new study by a team of astronomers has indicated that Epsilon Eridani may be what our own Solar System was like during its younger days. Relying on NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft, the team conducted a detailed analysis of the system that showed how it has an architecture remarkably similar to what astronomer believe the Solar System once looked like.

Led by Kate Su – an Associate Astronomer with the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona – the team includes researchers and astronomers from the Department of Physics & Astronomy of Iowa State University, the Astrophysical Institute and University Observatory at the University of Jena (Germany), and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center.

Artist’s diagram showing the similar structure of the Epsilon Eridani to the Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

For the sake of their study – the results of which were published in The Astronomical Journal under the title “The Inner 25 AU Debris Distribution in the Epsilon Eri System” – the team relied on data obtained by a flight of SOFIA in January 2015. Combined with detailed computer modeling and research that went on for years, they were able to make new determinations about the structure of the debris disk.

As already noted, previous studies of Epsilon Eridani indicated that the system is surrounded by rings made up of materials that are basically leftovers from the process of planetary formation. Such rings consist of gas and dust, and are believed to contain many small rocky and icy bodies as well – like the Solar System’s own Kuiper Belt, which orbits our Sun beyond Neptune.

Careful measurements of the disk’s motion has also indicated that a planet with nearly the same mass as Jupiter circles the star at a distance comparable to Jupiter’s distance from the Sun. However, based on prior data obtained by the NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists were unable to determine the position of warm material within the disk – i.e. the dust and gas – which gave rise to two models.

In one, warm material is concentrated into two narrow rings of debris that orbit the star at distances corresponding respectively to the Main Asteroid Belt and Uranus in our Solar System. According to this model, the largest planet in the system would likely be associated with an adjacent debris belt. In the other, warm material is in a broad disk, is not concentrated into asteroid belt-like rings, and is not associated with any planets in the inner region.

*NASA’s SOFIA aircraft before a 2015 flight to observe a nearby star. Credit: Massimo Marengo.*

Using the new SOFIA images, Su and her team were able to determine that the warm material around Epsilon Eridani is arranged like the first model suggests. In essence, it is in at least one narrow belt, rather than in a broad continuous disk. As Su explained in a NASA press release:

“The high spatial resolution of SOFIA combined with the unique wavelength coverage and impressive dynamic range of the FORCAST camera allowed us to resolve the warm emission around eps Eri, confirming the model that located the warm material near the Jovian planet’s orbit. Furthermore, a planetary mass object is needed to stop the sheet of dust from the outer zone, similar to Neptune’s role in our solar system. It really is impressive how eps Eri, a much younger version of our solar system, is put together like ours.”

These observations were made possible thanks to SOFIA’s on-board telescopes, which have a greater diameter than Spitzer – 2.5 meters (100 inches) compared to Spitzer’s 0.85 m (33.5 inches). This allowed for far greater resolution, which the team used to discern details within the Epsilon Eridani system that were three times smaller than what had been observed using the Spitzer data.

In addition, the team made use of SOFIA’s powerful mid-infrared camera – the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST). This instrument allowed the team to study the strongest infrared emissions coming from the warm material around the star which are otherwise undetectable by ground-based observatories – at wavelengths between 25-40 microns.

*This artist’s conception of the Epsilon Eridani system, the closest star system who’s structure resembles a young Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech*

These observations further indicate that the Epsilon Eridani system is much like our own, albeit in younger form. In addition to having asteroid belts and a debris disk that is similar to our Main Belt and Kuiper Belt, it appears that it likely has more planets waiting to be found within the spaces between. As such, the study of this system could help astronomers to learn things about the history of our own Solar System.

Massimo Marengo, one of he co-authors of the study, is an Associate Professor with the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Iowa State University. As he explained in a University of Iowa press release:

“This star hosts a planetary system currently undergoing the same cataclysmic processes that happened to the solar system in its youth, at the time in which the moon gained most of its craters, Earth acquired the water in its oceans, and the conditions favorable for life on our planet were set.”

At the moment, more studies will need to be conducted on this neighboring stars system in order to learn more about its structure and confirm the existence of more planets. And it is expected that the deployment of next-generation instruments – like the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in October of 2018 – will be extremely helpful in that regard.

“The prize at the end of this road is to understand the true structure of Epsilon Eridani’s out-of-this-world disk, and its interactions with the cohort of planets likely inhabiting its system,” Marengo wrote in a newsletter about the project. “SOFIA, by its unique ability of capturing infrared light in the dry stratospheric sky, is the closest we have to a time machine, revealing a glimpse of Earth’s ancient past by observing the present of a nearby young sun.”

Further Reading: NASA, IAState, The Astronomical Journal

April 24, 2017April 8, 2018 by Matt Williams

What is the Average Surface Temperature of Mercury?

Of all the planets in the Solar System, Mercury is the closest to our Sun. As such, you would think it is the hottest of all the Solar planets. But strangely enough, it is not. That honor goes to Venus, which experiences an average surface temperature of 750 K (477 °C; 890 °F). Not only that, but Mercury is also cold enough in some regions to maintain water in ice form.

Overall, Mercury experiences considerable variations in temperatures, ranging from the extremely hot to the extremely cold. All of this arises from the fact that Mercury has an extremely thin atmosphere, as well as the nature of its orbit. Whereas the side facing the Sun experiences temperatures hot enough to melt lead, the darkened areas are cold enough to freeze water.

Orbital Characteristics:

Mercury has the most eccentric orbit of any planet in the Solar System (0.205). Because of this, its distance from the Sun varies between 46 million km (29 million mi) at its closest (perihelion) to 70 million km (43 million mi) at its farthest (aphelion). And with an average orbital velocity of 47.362 km/s (29.429 mi/s), it takes Mercury a total 87.969 Earth days to complete a single orbit around the Sun.

With an average rotational speed of 10.892 km/h (6.768 mph), Mercury also takes 58.646 days to complete a single rotation. This means that Mercury has a spin-orbit resonance of 3:2, which means that it completes three rotations on its axis for every two orbits around the Sun. This does not, however, mean that three days last the same as two years on Mercury.

In fact, its high eccentricity and slow rotation mean that it takes 176 Earth days for the Sun to return to the same place in the sky (aka. a solar day), which means that one day is twice as long as a single year on Mercury. The planet also has the lowest axial tilt of any planet in the Solar System – approximately 0.027° compared to Jupiter’s 3.1°, (the second smallest). This means that there is virtually no seasonal variation in surface temperature.

Exosphere:

Another factor that affects Mercury’s surface temperatures is its extremely thin atmosphere. Mercury is essentially too hot and too small to retain anything more than a variable “exosphere”, one which is made up of hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and water vapor.

The Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer on board MESSENGER has found that the solar wind is able to bear down on Mercury enough to blast particles from its surface into its wispy atmosphere. Credit: Carolyn Nowak/Media Academica, LLC

These trace gases have a combined atmospheric pressure of about 10^-14 bar (one-quadrillionth of Earth’s atmospheric pressure). It is believed this exosphere was formed from particles captured from the Sun, volcanic outgassing and debris kicked into orbit by micrometeorite impacts.

Surface Temperatures:

Because it lacks a viable atmosphere, Mercury has no way to retain the heat from the Sun. As a result of this and its high eccentricity, the planet experiences considerable variations in temperature between its light side and dark side. Whereas the side that faces the Sun can reach temperatures of up to 700 K (427° C; 800 °F), the side in shadow dips down to 100 K (-173° C: -279 °F).

Despite its extreme highs in temperature, the existence of water ice and even organic molecules has been confirmed on Mercury’s surface, specifically in the cratered northern polar region. Since the floors of these deep craters are never exposed to direct sunlight, temperatures there remain below the planetary average.

*View of Mercury’s north pole. based on MESSENGER probe data, showing polar deposits of water ice. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory.*

These icy regions are believed to contain about 10¹⁴–10¹⁵ kg of frozen water, and may be covered by a layer of regolith that inhibits sublimation. The origin of the ice on Mercury is not yet known, but the two most likely sources are from outgassing of water from the planet’s interior or deposition by the impacts of comets. There are thought to be craters at the south pole as well, where temperatures are similarly cold enough to sustain water in ice form.

Mercury is a planet of extremes. It has an extremely eccentric orbit, an extremely thin-atmosphere, and experiences extremely hot and cold surface temperatures. Little wonder then why there is no life on the planet (at least, that we know about!) But perhaps someday, human beings may live there, sheltered in the cratered regions and using the water ice to create a habitat.

If you’d like more information on Mercury, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide, and here’s a link to NASA’s MESSENGER Misson Page.

We have also recorded a whole episode of Astronomy Cast that’s just about planet Mercury. Listen to it here, Episode 49: Mercury.

Sources:

April 18, 2017April 19, 2017 by Nancy Atkinson

Ride Shotgun Through the Solar System with Chris Hadfield

A scene from 'Miniverse' where Chris Hadfield travels the solar system with a Tesla. Credit: CuriosityStream.

It sounds like a space nerd’s dream come true: riding in a Tesla with former astronaut Chris Hadfield, doing a science version of Carpool Karaoke. And to top it off, you’re driving through the Solar System.

A new film out called “Miniverse” via CuriosityStream takes you on a ride through a scaled-down version of our Solar System. It’s similar to other scaled solar system models — which make the huge distances in our cosmic neighborhood a little less abstract — like the Voyage Scale Model Solar System in Washington, DC, the Sagan Planet Walk in Ithaca, New York or the Delmar Loop Planet Walk in St. Louis, Missouri.

But this is bigger. In the Miniverse, various points across the continental United States indicate scaled distances between the planets.

Here’s the trailer:

The first leg of the trip takes viewers on a journey from the Sun all the way to Mars. In the scaled down solar system, that’s only the distance from Long Island to the other side of New York City. In the sky, Mars appears over the Freedom Tower in New York, and Jupiter towers above the Lincoln Memorial.

Then later, as distances between planets stretch out, the gas giants and ice giants spread across the mid-section of the US. Even our friend Pluto appears over the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast of California.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield and astronomer Laura Danly view Pluto from Santa Monica, California, in a scene from ‘Miniverse’. Credit: CuriosityStream.

Your traveling companions are pretty awesome.

Behind the wheel for the entire adventure is the funny and engaging Chris Hadfield. He’s joined by a distinguished band of interstellar hitchhikers: famed theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, as well as Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and Dr. Laura Danly, Curator of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Along the way, Hadfield poses questions to his guests about the various bodies in our solar system.

“The big takeaway is just how vast the distances are in the solar system,” Danly told Universe Today via email. “Every time we look at a drawing of our solar system it reinforces the wrong image in our minds. In reality, the planets are small and the distances are vast. Anyone who has driven cross-country knows that those miles get very long, day after day. So Miniverse provides a visceral feeling to just how great those distances are.”

A GPS-like view of the first leg of the trip through the Miniverse. Credit: CuriosityStream.

If you already have a CuriosityStream account, you can watch the film here. If you don’t, you can take advantage of a 30-day free trial in order to watch Miniverse, and all the other great science offerings available, such as Stephen Hawking’s Universe, Brian Cox’s Wonders of Life, and other topics from astronomy observing tips to info about various missions to theoretical physics. Check it out. If you’re interested in continuing after your free trial, the ad-free streaming service costs $2.99, $5.99 and $11.99 per month for standard definition, high definition, and ultra high definition 4K respectively.

We suggested to the CuriosityStream folks of putting physical markers along this path across the US, which would really make a great cross country road trip. Come along for the ride!

April 18, 2017April 28, 2017 by Evan Gough

Ceres Prank Lands Bart Simpson In Detention For Eternity

Do you see Bart Simpson's face on these surface features on Ceres? Researchers studying the surface of the dwarf planet for evidence of the presence of ice do. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera

Human-kind has a long history of looking up at the stars and seeing figures and faces. In fact, there’s a word for recognizing faces in natural objects: pareidolia. But this must be the first time someone has recognized Bart Simpson’s face on an object in space.

Researchers studying landslides on the dwarf planet Ceres noticed a pattern that resembles the cartoon character. The researchers, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, are studying massive landslides that occur on the surface of the icy dwarf. Their findings are reinforcing the idea that Ceres has significant quantities of frozen water.

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera

In a new paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, the team of scientists, led by Georgia Tech Assistant Professor and Dawn Science Team Associate Britney Schmidt, examined the surface of Ceres looking for morphologies that resemble landslides here on Earth.

Research shows us that Ceres probably has a subsurface shell that is rich with water-ice. That shell is covered by a layer of silicates. Close examination of the type, and distribution, of landslides at different latitudes adds more evidence to the sub-surface ice theory.

Ceres is pretty big. At 945 km in diameter, it’s the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It’s big enough to be rounded by its own gravity, and it actually comprises about one third of the mass of the entire asteroid belt.

Type 1 landslides on Ceres are large and occur at higher latitudes. Image: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera

The team used observations from the Dawn Framing Camera to identify three types of landslides on Ceres’ surface:

Type 1 are large, rounded features similar to glacier features in the Earth’s Arctic region. These are found mostly at high latitudes on Ceres, which is where most of the ice probably is.
Type 2 are the most common. They are thinner and longer than Type 1, and look like terrestrial avalanche deposits. They’re found mostly at mid-latitudes on Ceres. The researchers behind the study thought one of them looked like Bart Simpson’s face.
Type 3 occur mostly at low latitudes near Ceres’ equator. These are always found coming from large impact craters, and probably formed when impacts melted the sub-surface ice.

Type 3 landslides on Ceres occur at low latitudes at large craters, and form when ice is melted by impacts. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera

The authors of the study say that finding larger landslides further away from the equator is significant, because that’s where most of the ice is.

“Landslides cover more area in the poles than at the equator, but most surface processes generally don’t care about latitude,” said Schmidt, a faculty member in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “That’s one reason why we think it’s ice affecting the flow processes. There’s no other good way to explain why the poles have huge, thick landslides; mid-latitudes have a mixture of sheeted and thick landslides; and low latitudes have just a few.”

Key to understanding these results is the fact that these types of processes have only been observed before on Earth and Mars. Earth, obviously, has water and ice in great abundance, and Mars has large quantities of sub-surface ice as well. “It’s just kind of fun that we see features on this small planet that remind us of those on the big planets, like Earth and Mars,” Schmidt said. “It seems more and more that Ceres is our innermost icy world.”

“These landslides offer us the opportunity to understand what’s happening in the upper few kilometers of Ceres,” said Georgia Tech Ph.D. student Heather Chilton, a co-author on the paper. “That’s a sweet spot between information about the upper meter or so provided by the GRaND (Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector) and VIR (Visible and Infrared Spectrometer) instrument data, and the tens of kilometers-deep structure elucidated by crater studies.”

It’s not just the presence of these landslides, but the frequency of them, that upholds the icy-mantle idea on Ceres. The study showed that 20% to 30% of craters on Ceres larger than 10 km have some type of landslide. The researchers say that upper layers of Ceres’ could be up to 50% ice by volume.

April 17, 2017May 6, 2020 by Matt Williams

The Orbit of Saturn. How Long is a Year on Saturn?

Every planet in the Solar System takes a certain amount of time to complete a single orbit around the Sun. Here on Earth, this period lasts 365.25 days – a period that we refer to as a year. When it comes to the other planets, we use this measurement to characterize their orbital periods. And what we have found is that on many of these planets, depending on their distance from the Sun, a year can last a very long time!

Consider Saturn, which orbits the Sun at a distance of about 9.5 AU – i.e. nine and a half times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Because of this, the speed with which it orbits the Sun is also considerably slower. As a result, a single year on Saturn lasts an average of about twenty-nine and a half years. And during that time, some interesting changes happen for the planet’s weather systems.

Orbital Period:

Saturn orbits the Sun at an average distance (semi-major axis) of 1.429 billion km (887.9 million mi; 9.5549 AU). Because its orbit is elliptical – with an eccentricity of 0.05555 – its distance from the Sun ranges from 1.35 billion km (838.8 million mi; 9.024 AU) at its closest (perihelion) to 1.509 billion km (937.6 million mi; 10.086 AU) at its farthest (aphelion).

*A diagram showing the orbits of the outer Solar planets. Saturn’s orbit is represented in yellow Credit: NASA*

With an average orbital speed of 9.69 km/s, it takes Saturn 29.457 Earth years (or 10,759 Earth days) to complete a single revolution around the Sun. In other words, a year on Saturn lasts about as long as 29.5 years here on Earth. However, Saturn also takes just over 10 and a half hours (10 hours 33 minutes) to rotate once on its axis. This means that a single year on Saturn lasts about 24,491 Saturnian solar days.

It is because of this that what we can see of Saturn’s rings from Earth changes over time. For part of its orbit, Saturn’s rings are seen at their widest point. But as it continues on its orbit around the Sun, the angle of Saturn’s rings decreases until they disappear entirely from our point of view. This is because we are seeing them edge-on. After a few more years, our angle improves and we can see the beautiful ring system again.

Orbital Inclination and Axial Tilt:

Another interesting thing about Saturn is the fact that its axis is tilted off the plane of the ecliptic. Essentially, its orbit is inclined 2.48° relative to the orbital plane of the Earth. Its axis is also tilted by 26.73° relative to the ecliptic of the Sun, which is similar to Earth’s 23.5° tilt. The result of this is that, like Earth, Saturn goes through seasonal changes during the course of its orbital period.

*R. G. French (Wellesley College) et al., NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)*

Seasonal Changes:

For half of its orbit, Saturn’s northern hemisphere receives more of the Sun’s radiation than the southern hemisphere. For other half of its orbit, the situation is reversed, with the southern hemisphere receiving more sunlight than the northern hemisphere. This creates storm systems that dramatically change depending on which part of its orbit Saturn is in.

For staters, winds in the upper atmosphere can reach speeds of up to 5oo meters per second (1,600 feet per second) around the equatorial region. On occasion, Saturn’s atmosphere exhibits long-lived ovals, similar to what is commonly observed on Jupiter. Whereas Jupiter has the Great Red Spot, Saturn periodically has what’s known as the Great White Spot (aka. Great White Oval).

This unique but short-lived phenomenon occurs once every Saturnian year, around the time of the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice. These spots can be several thousands of kilometers wide, and have been observed on many occasions throughout the past – in 1876, 1903, 1933, 1960, and 1990.

Since 2010, a large band of white clouds called the Northern Electrostatic Disturbance have been observed, which was spotted by the Cassini space probe. Given the periodic nature of these storms, another one is expected to happen in 2020, coinciding with Saturn’s next summer in the northern hemisphere.

The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Similarly, seasonal changes affect the very large weather patterns that exist around Saturn’s northern and southern polar regions. At the north pole, Saturn experiences a hexagonal wave pattern which measures some 30,000 km (20,000 mi) in diameter, while each of it six sides measure about 13,800 km (8,600 mi). This persistent storm can reach speeds of about 322 km per hour (200 mph).

Thanks to images taken by the Cassini probe between 2012 and 2016, the storm appears to undergo changes in color (from a bluish haze to a golden-brown hue) that coincide with the approach of the summer solstice. This was attributed to an increase in the production of photochemical hazes in the atmosphere, which is due to increased exposure to sunlight.

Similarly, in the southern hemisphere, images acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope have indicated the existence of large jet stream. This storm resembles a hurricane from orbit, has a clearly defined eyewall, and can reach speeds of up to 550 km/h (~342 mph). And much like the northern hexagonal storm, the southern jet stream undergoes changes as a result of increased exposure to sunlight.

*Saturn makes a beautifully striped ornament in this natural-color image, showing its north polar hexagon and central vortex (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)*

Cassini was able to captured images of the south polar region in 2007, which coincided with late fall in the southern hemisphere. At the time, the polar region was becoming increasingly “smoggy”, while the northern polar region was becoming increasingly clear. The reason for this, it was argued, was that decreases in sunlight led to the formation of methane aerosols and the creation of cloud cover.

From this, it has been surmised that the polar regions become increasingly obscured by methane clouds as their respective hemisphere approaches their winter solstice, and clearer as they approach their summer solstice. And the mid-latitudes certainly show their share of changes thanks to increases/decreases in exposure to solar radiation.

Much like the length of a single year, what we know about Saturn has a lot to do with its considerable distance from the Sun. In short, few missions have been able to study it in depth, and the length of a single year means it is difficult for a probe to witness all the seasonal changes the planet goes through. Still, what we have learned has been considerable, and also quite impressive!

If you’d like more information on Saturn, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases about Saturn. And here’s a link to the homepage of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which is orbiting Saturn.

We have also recorded an entire episode of Astronomy Cast that’s just about Saturn. Listen here, Episode 59: Saturn.

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