Solar System Triva (with pics and gifs)...

[rrrADAM]

The sun makes up >99.8% of all the matter in the entire solar system, thus the Earth, all other planets, moons, asteroids, commets, Kuiper belt & Oort cloud objects, us, life, etc... makes up <.2%





^Orbital distances and planes are to scale^

To truely understand the sizes and distances involved... A scale model of the solar system exists at the University of Maine, Presque Isle...
In the model:
-The diameter of the Sun is 15 m
-The diameter of the Earth is 137 mm
-The distance from the Sun to the Earth is 1.6 km
-The distance from the Sun to Pluto is 64 km





Light emitted within the sun's core takes 200,000 years to reach the sun's surface, then only 8 minutes 20 seconds to reach the Earth, and an additional 3 hours 50 minutes to reach Pluto when its at its closest to us.

This is a scale model of the Earth and Moon distance, sizes of each, and time it takes light to travel the distance between them...






The theoretical Oort Cloud is generally believed to be the outer boundary of our solar system...

Its edge is ~2,000 times the distance of the Sun to Pluto (~1 light year), and is ~1/4 the distance of the Sun to Proxima Centauri, the star nearest our Sun.
(That would be 128,000 km from the 15 m Sun in the scale model at the Universioty of Maine mentioned above... That's more than 3 times around the planet !!! )





Our solar system is located about 3/4 the way out from the center of the galactic core of the Milky Way...



Got any more ??? Please add it.

[rrrADAM]

Our moon currently slows the Earth's rotation by .002 seconds per day... The rate was much greater long ago.

The moon was once more than 10 times closer to us, and is still drifting away at a rate of 4 centimeters per year.




There are 4 asteroids orbitting the Earth:
-3753 Cruithne
-(54509) 2000 PH5
-(85770) 1998 UP1
-2002 AA29

[rrrADAM]

There is mounting evidence that our sun may have a companion star, named Nemisis, thus it would be part of a binary star system...

The Binary Research Institute (BRI) has found that orbital characteristics of the recently discovered planetoid, "Sedna", demonstrate the possibility that our sun might be part of a binary star system. A binary star system consists of two stars gravitationally bound orbiting a common center of mass. Once thought to be highly unusual, such systems are now considered to be common in the Milky Way galaxy....

Walter Cruttenden agrees that Sedna's highly elliptical orbit is very unusual, but noted that the orbit period of 12,000 years is in neat resonance with the expected orbit periodicity of a companion star as outlined in several prior papers. Consequently, Cruttenden believes that Sedna's unusual orbit is something indicative of the current solar system configuration, not merely a historical record. "It is hard to imagine that Sedna would retain its highly elliptical orbit pattern since the beginning of the solar system billions of years ago. Because eccentricity would likely fade with time, it is logical to assume Sedna is telling us something about current, albeit unexpected solar system forces, most probably a companion star".

http://www.physorg.com/news65117758.html

[rrrADAM]

Ever try to visualize the size of the Earth to the Sun ???

How about, just how big (or rather small) our Sun is in comparison with some of the common stars we can see in the night sky...


Inner planets and Pluto (no longer a planet) relative to each other...



Outer planets, relative to the inner planets...


All planets relative to the sun...

or


Our sun relative to some common stars...


Relative to the some really big ones in our night sky...

[rrrADAM]

The above is a picture that the Voyager 1 spacecraft took of the Earth (dot in center of circle) in 1990, looking back at us when it was 4 billion miles away from us... The spacecraft had to 'squint' so to speak in order to see us against the brightness of the sun, hence the light rays.

Carl Sagan wrote of that picture:

Originally Posted by Carl Sagan

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Very profound words.

His wife later challenged people to pick another dot in the sky and, "...imagine there are inhabitants on that world that believe the universe was created solely for themselves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_blue_dot

[rrrADAM]

Even while sitting in your chair reading this, you are speeding 'through space' at ~3,050,093.4 kilometers per hour, that's ~847 kilometers per second !!!



The Earth rotates with a velocity of 1674.4 km/h (465.11 m/s) at the equator.

The Earth orbits the Sun with an average velocity of 107,219 km/h (29.783 km/s).

The Sun, and entire solar system, orbits the galactic core of the Milky Way at a velocity of ~781,200 km/h (217 km/s).

The Milky Way is moving through space, relative to the other galaxies, at a velocity of ~2,160,000 km/h (600 km/s).



Kinda like being on a galactic sized amusment park Tea Cup ride... Thank god we can't feel it, else we'd be puking our guts out.

[rrrADAM]

Apophis is an asteroid the size of a footbal stadium (~250-300 meters) that on Friday April 13, 2029 will come so close to the Earth that it will dip below the orbits of our communications satalites, and easily be visible to the naked eye.

Originally Posted by wikipedia.org

(99942) Apophis (previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a relatively large probability that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However there remained a possibility that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a "gravitational keyhole", a precise region in space no more than about 400 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006.

Additional observations of the trajectory of Apophis revealed the "keyhole" would likely be missed and on August 5, 2006, Apophis was lowered to a Level 0 on the Torino Scale. As of October 19, 2006 the impact probability for April 13, 2036 is estimated at 1 in 45,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis




Note... For comparison, Arizona's Barringer Meteor Crater (pictured below), 4,000 feet in diameter was created by an impact of an object only 65 feet in diameter...

[rrrADAM]

Aurora at the North Pole of Jupiter...
(Image in UV spectrum)



And to think other planets have their own 'Northern Lights'.

[data]

Somebody sent me almost this exact thing in an email. Pretty interesting, thanks for sharing!

[Fernanda]

i love these! they are awesome :)

[Fernanda]

About the Oort cloud..what's with the weird quadrupole looking mass distribution?

[rrrADAM]

Over 10,000 individual galaxies are shown in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, an image taken of an unremarkable part of the sky that would occupy the area covered by a grain of sand held at arms length from us.


For an outstanding short video clip detailing this image entitled:
The Most Important Image Ever Taken
(Dedicated to Carl Sagan)

Click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgg2tpUVbXQ



It is definately a must see.

[rrrADAM]

Originally Posted by Fernanda

About the Oort cloud..what's with the weird quadrupole looking mass distribution?

I think that's just an illusion, as what you see horizontally is the plane of the accretion disc of our solar system, thus more material is there, and the virtical is just the corner of the 'cut away'. The 'bubbles' are likely representing the heliosphere/heliopause.

[rrrADAM]

A bizarre six-sided feature encircling the north pole of Saturn near 78 degrees north latitude has been spied by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Originally Posted by space.com

One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole...

The hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it. The thermal imagery shows the hexagon extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) down into the clouds...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...aturn_hex.html

[Fernanda]

can anyone confirm that they still see these images?