ASTRO-110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Van Allen Radiation Belt, Escape Velocity, Solar Wind
Document Summary
A magnetosphere can be helpful in protecting a planet"s atmosphere from escape by bombardment, by shielding the atmosphere from the solar wind. Most features are 3-4 billion years old. Ancient highlands (lighter) and younger maria (darker) What do we learn from the moon: prior to landing on the moon, visible cratering was evidence of the accretion environment of the early solar system, after landing on the moon: Gravitational attraction of water to moon is stronger on one side. Sun also causes tides leaves two bulges roughly in direction of the moon. All gravitating objects cause tides in all other objects. Synchronous rotation of the moon the moon wasn"t always in synchronous rotation with the earth tidal coupling. Without synchronous rotation, moon swells (tides) must move through the. Viscosity sapped energy away from the moon"s rotation until it moon"s surface synchronized with its orbital motion.
