Planets Workshop 2015

We know a great deal about all of the worlds in our Solar System, and although they are much harder to study, we now have data on many hundreds of worlds outside of our own Solar System, as well.  The big idea that unifies the study of both planets and exoplanets is our understanding of how these objects form and how they evolve after their formation.  In this workshop, we will study the planets of our Solar System and the known exoplanets in detail.  We will do this, though, with the aim of looking at how our ideas of planet formation give rise to the variety of objects we have discovered and how continuing observations of these objects allows us to further our understanding of what is and what is not a planet.

While Pluto will not be the main focus of the entire workshop, the New Horizons mission to Pluto will be conducting its flyby of this icy object during our workshop!

Some key concepts that will be investigated are:planets3a_700

  • the night sky and planetary motions
  • formation of the solar system
  • the Moon
    • phases
    • eclipses
    • formation
    • missions
  • the Sun
    • sunspots, solar flares, aurora
    • fusion
    • missions
  • planet overview
    • discovery of the planets
    • search for planet X
    • Kepler’s laws
    • scale models of planets and orbits
    • atmospheres (which have them, which don’t, and why)
    • missions
  • Pluto, comets, asteroids
    • discovery
    • composition
    • orbits (asteroid belt, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud)
    • missions
  • Exoplanets
    • current census
    • overview of properties

In addition to the course notes, we will also assign readings in a related book:

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown, Spiegel & Grau, 2010

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