AS101 Final: as101 chap 7 part 3
Document Summary
Planetary characteristic #2: carefully examine table a. 6 in your textbook. For this comparison you should look at the following columns: equatorial radius, mass and average density. Any formation theory is going to have to explain how these two types of planets were created. If we examine table a. 7, a listing of the main moons of the planets, we readily observe that the inner (terrestrial) planets have few moons. Mercury and venus have no moons; earth has one and mars has two very small asteroid-like moons. Jupiter is listed as having 6 but it actually has 67 known moons; saturn has almost as many (62) and uranus and neptune have 41 between them. Furthermore, thanks to robotic space exploration, we now know that all jovian planets have ring systems. Saturn"s rings are the most spectacular and viewing saturn through a telescope remains one of the most mesmerizing visual sights.
