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Chapter 3 The Solar System. Section 3 Outer Planets Notes 3-5. More Outer Planets. Saturn. Saturn. Sixth planet from the sun Over a half a billion km farther from the sun than Jupiter Second largest planet Average temperature = -176 °C Has 34 named satellites Has several rings.
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Chapter 3The Solar System Section 3 Outer Planets Notes 3-5
Saturn • Sixth planet from the sun • Over a half a billion km farther from the sun than Jupiter • Second largest planet • Average temperature = -176 °C • Has 34 named satellites • Has several rings
Saturn • Rotation rate = 10 hours and 30 minutes • Bulges at its equator and flattens at its poles • Orbital Period = 29.5 years • Also has colored bands • Probably caused by the quick spinning • Made of 75% hydrogen and 25% helium • Mostly liquid metallic hydrogen • Has trace elements of ammonia, methane and water vapor • Probably has a rocky core (like Jupiter)
Saturn • Differences from Jupiter • Less dense • Less dense than water; could float • Orbital period is much longer • Complex ring system • http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
Uranus • Seventh planet from the sun • Third largest planet • First planet to be discovered since ancient times (1781) • Has 27 moons • 11 dark rings (makes them hard to see) • Orbital period = 84 years • Rotation rate = 17 hours
Uranus • Rotates like a rolling ball • Axis is horizontal to its orbit • Visited only once in 1986 • By Voyager 2 • Greenish in color • From methane in its outermost atmosphere • Also has helium and hydrogen • But not as much as Saturn and Jupiter
Uranus • Average temperature -214 °C • May have liquid water and methane on the interior • It material is more uniform through out the planet • No rocky core (like the book says) • Imagine Saturn and Jupiter without the atmosphere and liquid metallic hydrogen
Neptune • Eighth planet from the sun • Fourth largest • Smaller in diameter than Uranus but bigger in mass • Orbital period = 164 years • Rotation rate = 16 hours • Has 13 moons • Has 4 rings
Neptune • Named after Roman god of the sea • John Couch Adams and Urbain Leverrier in 1800’s predicted the location of another planet • Johann Galle, discovered the planet in 1846 • Galileo actually saw it first, when studying Jupiter, but thought it was a star • Has only been visited by Voyager 2, in 1989
Neptune • Great Dark Spot (like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot) • Large storm • Around the same size as Earth • 1994 it disappeared • Has strongest winds in the solar system • Reaching 2000 km/hr • Average surface temp. = -225 °C