This week's questions help us understand how the planets in our solar system turned out like they did.
new reading is 7(1,4) and 8(1,2,4,5)
1. What are some major differences (at least 4?) between the two major types of planets (terrestrial and Jovian) in the solar system?
for example, the Jovian planets are larger in size and more massive than the terrestrials
2. The name for our best theory that explains the origin of planets in the solar system is the condensation-accretion theory.
a) Explain in simple language what each of these two words (condensation & accretion) mean.
b) Which had to happen first?
c) Why? give some common everyday-experience evidence that gas-gas collisions are not sticky and that solid-solid collisions are sticky (1 piece of evidence for each)
3. There are only 4 kinds of materials in our solar system (pure metal, such as Fe/Ni; silicates (Si and O with perhaps some metal, such as Al, Mg, or Ca); hydrides of C, N, & O: aka methane, ammonia, and water; hydrogen/helium]
a) why are the terrestrial planets made only of the first two categories, Fe/Ni and silicates (and not the other stuff)?
b) why are the Jovians made predominantly of the latter two categories in the above group?
I did my own work on this JIT.
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