Lecture 9: The formation of the Solar System

Further reading

• There's a beautiful illustrated timeline of the Solar System at The Lunar and Planetary Institute's "Evolution of Our Solar System: A Journey through Time" at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/timeline/
• The Planetary Science Institute has a nice page about the origin of the Moon at http://www.psi.edu/projects/moon/moon.html
• There's a nice article about the possible connection between the formation of Uranus and Neptune and the bombardment of the Moon at PSRD Discoveries: "Uranus, Neptune and the Mountains of the Moon", http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Aug01/bombardment.html

Source for images

• Background image: from "Astronomical Artwork of William K. Hartmann Pictorial Catalog", 100: Solar System Origin http://www.psi.edu/hartmann/pic-cat/index.html
• Co-planar orbits: generated by "Solar System Live" by John Walker, http://fourmilab.to/solar/solar.html
• Circular orbits: from "The Cosmic Perspective" by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider and Voit, (Benjamin Cummings, 2000), http://dosxx.colorado.edu/Pluto/orbits.jpg
• Isochrone: from "The Talk.Origins Archive: The Age of the Earth" by Chris Stassen http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
• Terrestrial planets: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_planet and Jovian planets: from Astronomy Notes by Nick Strobel: Determining Planet Properties http://www.astronomynotes.com/solarsys/s2.htm
• Asteroids: from "The Nine Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System" by Bill Arnett http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/asteroids.html
• Kuiper Belt: image by Don Dixon, from Renu Malhotra's Outreach images http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/faculty/malhotra_preprints/Outreach.html
• Jupiter's moons: from NASA Spacelink: Images of Jupiter http://spacelink.nasa.gov/NASA.Projects/Space.Science/Solar.System/Voyager/Images.of.Jupiter/.index.html
• Planetary interiors: from "Planets, Stars and Galaxies" by Todd Adams, www.hep.fsu.edu/~tadams/courses/fall02/ast1002/lectures/Lecture01602.pdf
• The far side of the Moon:from Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier by John D. Fix, http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/fix/student/chapter9/09f19.html
• Mercury: from The Nine Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System by Bill Arnetts: Mercury http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/mercury.html
• Ganymede: from Views of the Solar System by Calvin J. Hamilton http://www.solarviews.com/cap/jup/PIA01666.htm
• Crab Nebula: from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2002 July 14 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020714.html
• Astronomer's periodic table: Ben McCall http://bjm.scs.uiuc.edu/pubs/BJMpres25.pdf
• Molecular cloud: Barnard 68, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2003 February 2 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030202.html
• NGC 281: from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2003 April 7 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030407.html
• Rotation and collapse: from STARS AND GALAXIES A Hypertext Course by Richard McCray http://cosmos.colorado.edu/cw2/courses/astr1120/text/chapter9/l9S3.htm
• Eagle Nebula: from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2001 August 12 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010812.html
• Larger view: CFHT picture, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2003 February 13 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030213.html
• Proplyd: from Astronomy Picture of the Day 1996 October 17, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961017.html
• Protostellar disk: from "MIRLIN Star/Planet Formation Page" http://cougar.jpl.nasa.gov/HR4796/anim.html
• Ice line: from Windows to the Universe http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/jupiter/atmosphere/J_evolution_3.html
• Fractal aggregates: from Random Walk Visualization by Robert Lipman http://cic.nist.gov/lipman/sciviz/random.html
• Cosmic dust particle: from "A new type of stardust", http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Aug03/stardust.html
• Chondrite: from Meteorites et formation du systeme solaire http://www.ens-lyon.fr/Planet-Terre/Infosciences/Planetologie/Meteorites/origine.htm
• Disk around proto-Jupiter: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/classes/ge133/
• Runaway growth: from http://www.usm.uni-muenchen.de/people/gehren/vorlesung/4.1_Himmelsmechanik/kosmogonie/dia_10.html
• Newly formed Neptune: by Don Dixon, from Scientific American, September 1999 issue http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00050729-BAAC-1C73-9B81809EC588EF21
• Comet Shoemaker-Levy: Hubble images, from HubbleSite News Archive, http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1994/26/ and http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1994/32/
• Planet formation: http://gallery.spitzer.caltech.edu/Imagegallery/image.php?image_name=ssc2008-19a
• Moon formation: from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis
• Moon origin paintings: image by Fahad Sulehria http://www.novacelestia.com/images/earth_impact_moon_space_art.html
• Moon formation animation: from "SwRI, UCSC researchers identify the Moon-forming impact", http://www.swri.edu/press/impact.htm
• Formation of the impactor in the Lagrangian point: From Wikipedia: Giant impact theory, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_theory
• Moon formation from a disk: from "The Origin of the Moon: The Movie" by Eiichiro Kokubo, http://th.nao.ac.jp/~kokubo/moon/kit/movie.html
• Mercury: from Views of the Solar System by Calvin J. Hamilton http://www.solarviews.com/cap/index/mercury1.html
• Proto-Mercury impact: from "Pieces of Mercury Found in Virtual Collision", http://www.space.com/060404_mercury_formation.html
• Mars dichotomy simulation: from New Scientist http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11387-did-a-giant-impact-create-the-two-faces-of-mars.html
• Lunar cataclysm: from The Lunar Cataclysm Hypothesis, http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/impact_cratering/lunar_cataclysm/Lunar_Cataclysm_Page
• Lunar cratering rates: from Shoemaker & Shoemaker, Ch. 5 of "The New Solar System" by Beatty et al. (Sky Publishing, 1999), Fig. 12
• Volcano: Santa Maria, by Jeffrey Johnson http://earth.unh.edu/johnson/VOLCANO_PAGES/SANT.htm
• Scattering of Uranus and Neptune: from "The Early Dynamical Evolution of the Outer Solar System: A Fairy Tale" by Hal Levinson, http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/talks.html
• Earth impact: image by Don Davis http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/gallery_main.cfm
• Scattered disk: from Stewart 1997, "The Solar System: The frontier beyond Neptune", Nature 387 658.
• Extrasolar image: artist's impression of the Tau Gruis system, by David A. Hardy http://www.hardyart.demon.co.uk/pages-gallery/p-extra1.html

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Last updated 18 May 2009