GEOS 170A1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Plate Tectonics, Solar System, Exoplanet
22 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
The big bang theory is a description of how the universe was formed (4 million years ago) Solar system is 4. 6 billion years old. 4 terrestrial planets: mercury, venus, earth, mars) 4 jovian planets: jupiter, saturn, uranus. Much of the volume of the planets is thick atmosphere overlying oceans of liquid gases. Characterized by many moons and ring systems. Density: amount of stuff in a given volume, how tightly packed the atoms are, ration of mass to volume. Density and weight are not the same thing: density is a property of the material, weight depends on how much of the material you have. Asteroid: small (>100m) planet - like body, mainly between mars and jupiter - left over from solar system formation. Meteoroid: smaller (<100m) pieces traveling through earth"s atmosphere (create meteors) Meteorite: remains of meteoroids found on earth: fall to earth ~40k tons/yr. All formed at the time the solar system formed: 4. 6 byo.
