✍ Scribed by Sabine Stanley
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Professor Biography
Course Scope
Lecture 1—How the Solar System Family Is Organized
Organizing the Solar System
Water in the Solar System
Cooling
Collisions
Lecture 2—Mercury, the Extreme Little Planet
Orbit and Rotation
Surface Features
Core and Magnetic Field
Structure and Composition
Atmosphere
Lecture 3—Venus, the Veiled Greenhouse Planet
Atmosphere
Greenhouse Effect
Sulfuric Acid Clouds and Winds
Upside-Down Rotation
Surface and Interior
Lecture 4—Earth: How Plate Tectonics Sets Up Life
Plate Tectonics
Plate Tectonics and Climate
Plate Tectonics and Life
Lecture 5—Orbiting Earth: Up through the Atmosphere
Troposphere
Stratosphere
Mesosphere
Thermosphere
Exosphere
Magnetosphere
Lecture 6—Exploring the Earth-Moon System
Comparing the Moon and Earth
The Moon’s Orbit and Phases
Lunar Tides
The Moon’s Effect on Earth’s Rotation Stability
The Formation of the Moon
Quiz for Lectures 1-6
Lecture 7—Humans on the Moon: A Never-Ending Story
The Apollo Program
Geology of the Moon
Craters
Lunar Swirls
Lava Channels and Tubes
Water on the Moon
The Interior of the Moon
Lecture 8—Exploring Mars from Space and the Ground
Mars’s Orbit, Rotation, and Seasons
Mars’s Atmosphere
Mars’s Polar Caps
Mars’s Moons: Phobos and Deimos
Mars’s Surface and Interior
Lecture 9—Water on Mars and Prospects for Life
Water and Life
Geomorphic Evidence
Aqueous Mineralogy
Mars’s D/H Ratio
Searching for Water and Life on Mars: The Way Forward
Lecture 10—Near-Earth Asteroids and the Asteroid Belt
What Is an Asteroid?
Near-Earth Asteroids
Visiting the Asteroid Belt
Other Asteroids
Lecture 11—Mighty Jupiter, The Ruling Gas Giant
Composition
Atmosphere
Interior
Magnetic Field
Jupiter in Solar System Context
Lecture 12—Jupiter’s Planetlike System of Moons
The Galilean Satellites
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto
The Smaller Moons
Quiz for Lectures 7-12
Lecture 13—Saturn and the Rings: Gravity’s Masterpiece
The Ring System
The Cassini Mission
How the Rings Formed
Atmosphere
Magnetic and Gravity Fields
Ring Seismology
Lecture 14—Saturn’s Moons: Titan to Enceladus
The Saturnian Moons
Titan
Rhea
Dione
Iapetus
Enceladus
Tethys
Mimas
Lecture 15—Uranus: A Water World on Its Side
What Is an Ice Giant?
Unusual Rotation
Atmosphere
Interior
Magnetic Field
Moons
Rings
Lecture 16—Neptune: Windy with the Wildest Moon
First Contact
Atmosphere
Interior
Triton
Rings
Lecture 17—Pluto and Charon: The Binary Worlds
Pluto
The New Horizons Mission
Charon
Dwarf Planet Status
Lecture 18—Comets, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud
Comets
The Kuiper Belt
The Oort Cloud
Quiz for Lectures 13-18
Lecture 19—How Our Sun Defines Our Solar System
Gravity, Light, and Heat
Solar Magnetic Field
The Solar Wind
Solar Storms
Lecture 20—A Solar System Time Machine and Meteorites
Clue 1: Orbits in the Solar System
Clue 2: Planet Composition
Clue 3: Few and Isolated Planets
Clue 4: Where the Tiny Things Are
Clue 5: Planet Structure
Clue 6: Moon Systems
Clue 7: Planetary Catastrophes
Timing of Solar System Formation: Meteorites and Isotopes
Lecture 21—What the Biggest Exoplanets Reveal
Pulsar Planets
Planets around Main-Sequence Stars
Hot Jupiters
The Radial Velocity Method
The Transit Method
Direct Imaging
Lecture 22—Closing in on Earthlike Exoplanets
Earthlike Criterion 1: Mass or Size
Earthlike Criterion 2: Composition
Earthlike Criterion 3: Habitability
Earthlike Criterion 4: Atmosphere
Earthlike Criterion 5: A Moon
Exoplanet Statistics
Lecture 23—Planets Migrated in Our Early Solar System!
Evidence for the Late Heavy Bombardment
Potential Causes of the LHB
How Planet Migration Could Lead to the LHB: The Nice Model
The Grand Tack Model
Criticism of the LHB
Lecture 24—Human Futures in the Solar System
Getting to the Planets
New Ways to Explore Planets
Magnetic Shielding
Giant Telescopes
Astrobiology
Quiz for Lectures 19-24
Answers
Bibliography
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