41. Welcome To The Planetary Studies Foundation (PSF) Promoting study of the planets and astronomy in general. News and events, and related articles. http://www.planets.org/

About PSF Milestones Board of Directors President's Letter ... All About Meteorites Our mission is to promote the study of planetary science and astronomy, with emphasis on meteorites, and to sponsor, encourage and assist in the physical, astronomical, earth and environmental sciences so as to broaden our knowledge of all phases of the universe. March 5 at 2:00 PM Spotlight on Meteorites Exhibit Opening March 8 at 7:00 PM Antarctic Exploration Lecture at Northeastern March 12, 2005 at 11:00 AM Booksigning with Astronaut and Aquanaut Scott Carpenter March 12, 2005 at 5:30 PM 16th Annual Benefit Dinner YOU ARE INVITED TO OUR SWEET 16th! Print out an RSVP card and join us for the festivities

42. Why Do Stars Twinkle While Planets Do Not? The planets in our solar system, much smaller than stars, are closer and can beresolved as Since planets represent several points in object space, http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/twinkle.html

[Physics FAQ] Updated March 1992 by SIC; Original by John Blanton. Why Do Stars Twinkle While Planets Do Not? Stars, except for the Sun, although they may be millions of miles in diameter, are very far away. They appear as point sources even when viewed by telescopes. The planets in our solar system, much smaller than stars, are closer and can be resolved as disks with a little bit of magnification (field binoculars, for example). Since the Earth's atmosphere is turbulent, all images viewed up through it tend to "swim." The result of this is that sometimes a single point in object space gets mapped to two or more points in image space, and also sometimes a single point in object space does not get mapped into any point in image space. When a star's single point in object space fails to map to at least one point in image space, the star seems to disappear temporarily. This does not mean the star's light is lost for that moment. It just means that it didn't get to your eye, it went somewhere else. Since planets represent several points in object space, it is highly likely that one or more points in the planet's object space get mapped to a points in image space, and the planet's image never winks out. Each individual ray is twinkling away as badly as any star, but when all of those individual rays are viewed together, the next effect is averaged out to something considerably steadier.

43. Jupiter general information, some statistical data and links. http://www.nineplanets.org/jupiter.html

Jupiter The Bringer of Jollity Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest. Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined (the mass of Jupiter is 318 times that of Earth). orbit : 778,330,000 km (5.20 AU ) from Sun diameter : 142,984 km (equatorial) mass : 1.900e27 kg Hardcopy The New Solar System Summarizes what we've learned from interplanetary explorations in the last 25 years. My primary reference for The Nine Planets The Moons of Jupiter 106 images of the Galilean moons from Galileo with unusual descriptive text. Symphony No. 41 in C Major K. 551 ("Jupiter") by W. A. Mozart; I am not sure what it has to do with the planet but it is one of Mozart's best. And that is saying a lot! Jupiter (a.k.a. Jove; Greek Zeus ) was the King of the Gods, the ruler of Olympus and the patron of the Roman state. Zeus was the son of Cronus (Saturn). Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun , the Moon and Venus ). It has been known since prehistoric times as a bright "wandering star". But in 1610 when

44. Exploring The Planets - Asteroids Offers general scientific overview with history and images by the National Air and Space Museum. http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/ceps/etp/asteroids/index.htm

Discovery of the Asteroids Where Are the Asteroids? Near Earth Asteroids What Do Asteroids Look Like? ... Mars Asteroids Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune ... Exploring The Planets

45. NASA's Solar System Exploration: Planets: Jupiter: Overview general features and data about the planet and its satellites. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Jupiter

46. When Did The Asteroids Become Minor Planets? asteroids as a subcategory of the planets until it published its general Astronomische Nachrichten 1932, general Index to Volumes 181210, 213-338. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/hilton/AsteroidHistory/minorplanets.html

Return to Asteroid Masses When Did the Asteroids Become Minor Planets? 1. Discovery of the Asteroids The recent controversy over whether Pluto should be given a minor planet number and possibly be demoted from the ranks of the major planets has made me wonder about the similar controversy that occurred 150 years ago. this involved whether or not the bodies discovered between Mars and Jupiter should be considered equal to the seven other planets known at that time. Titius von Wittenburg (1766) discovered that the relative distances of the six known planets from the Sun almost fit a simple relation. The relation's problem was that it predicted there should be a planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. In 1772 he published a tract proposing that a planet should exist in the gap. According to Cunningham (1988) Johann Bode, director of the Berlin Observatory so popularized this tract that the relation is now known as Bode's law. Uranus was discovered in 1781 at just the distance where Bode's Law predicted a seventh planet (including the gap between Mars and Jupiter) should be. This touched off a search for a new planet in the gap between Mars and Jupiter. The search ended on January 1, 1801 when Guiseppe Piazzi at the Palermo Observatory discovered a 'star' that had moved from its position the previous night in the constellation of Taurus (von Zach 1801) . It was found to be a body at exactly the distance predicted by Bode's Law. Two consecutive successes for a relation that has no known physics behind it.

47. List Of Registered Participants Talbi Dahbia, CNRS, talbi at mnhn.fr, Abstracts, ISM,planets,general. Tapia Mauricio,Instituto de Astronomia, UNAMEnsenada, mt at astrosen.unam.mx http://aramis.obspm.fr/DUSTY04/php/index.php

List of registered participants Per parallel session List of Abstracts Total number: 230 Name ... ISM,Stars

48. Frequently Asked Questions About General Astronomy general Astronomy. Compiled by Dr. John Simonetti of the Department of Physics Are the planets in our solar system likely to be destroyed when the sun http://www.phys.vt.edu/~jhs/faq/astronomy.html

Frequently Asked Questions About General Astronomy Compiled by Dr. John Simonetti of the Department of Physics at Virginia Tech Back to Frequently Asked Astronomy and Physics Questions Do all objects in the universe exert force on all other objects? F, 8th grade, Blacksburg Middle School, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. 1996 Do the orbits of any of our nine planets change, or do the planets always follow the same paths? F, 8th grade, Blacksburg Middle School, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. 1996 Are the planets in our solar system likely to be destroyed when the sun finally burns out, and will they be destroyed by a nuclear explosion or just drift off without the sun's gravitational pull? F, 8th grade, Blacksburg Middle School, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. 1996 I looked around on the Internet but could not find a chart showing years and number of sunspots. Do you know where I might find this information? PM, 9th grade, Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. 1996 Do all objects in the universe exert force on all other objects? All objects in the universe exert a gravitational force on all others. But, the farther away an object is, the smaller is the force it exerts. (The force is inversely proportional to square of the distance from the object: e.g., twice as far away means only 1/4 the amount of force). Furthermore, the more massive the object, the greater the force it will exert on other objects (e.g., twice the mass means twice the force). So nearby, massive objects, dominate the gravitational force on something.

49. The Center For Star & Planet Formation - General Research Areas general Research Areas. Origins of our Solar System need text Searches forextrasolar planets and brown dwarfs around solartype stars using Doppler http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cspf/cspf_research.html

General Research Areas Origins of our Solar System need text Mark Gurwell, Scott Kenyon Extrasolar Planet detection Searches for extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs around solar-type stars using Doppler techniques and infrared imaging. Follow-up of candidate transiting planets. Techniques for false positive rejection of transit candidates. People in this group work on wavefront sensing and control for the coronagraphic Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF). Follow-up spectroscopy of transit candidates. Doppler search for planets around metal poor stars. Survey of giants that may have swallowed planets. Dave Latham is a Co-Investigator on the Kepler Mission. Pascal J. Bordé , Guillermo Torres, Massimo Marengo, Dave Latham Planet formation Physical models, including numerical calculations, of the origins of planets (terrestrial, icy, and jovian), asteroids, comets, and other bodies in our and other solar systems. Comparisons of numerical calculations with observations. Mike Lecar, Dimitar Sasselov, Scott Kenyon Circumstellar and Interstellar star forming environments need text Qizhou Zhang Henrick Beuther Interstellar Medium need text Chin-Fei Lee Henrick Beuther

50. Extrasolar Planets Web Sites general professional Web sites relevant to extrasolar planets. From the Extrasolarplanets Encyclopaedia. ©,1996 Jean Schneider Observatoire de Paris http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/planets/sites.html

General professional Web sites relevant to extrasolar planets From the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia Jean Schneider Observatoire de Paris Update: 1 June 2005 Some Astronomers and Groups active in extrasolar planets studies update: 1 June 2005 Bioastronomy (IAU Commission 51) (G. Marcy, P. Butler, D. Fischer, S. Vogt et al.) The Anglo-Australian Planet Search (P. Butler et al. , Anglo - Australian Obs.) Geneva Extrasolar Planet Search Programmes OLBIN (Optical Long-Baseline Interferometry News) Planet Quest (JPL) Pulsar planets Searches for planets and Theory work Forum on extrasolar planets Archives update: 20 May 2005 dedicated to professional infos on extra-solar planets; maintained by Fabien Malbet, Grenoble, France OLD Forum Archives

51. Charting The Planets What other characteristics of the planets follow the same general pattern as thenumber of moons? 6. The rings of Saturn are believed to have a lot of icy http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/teacher_resources/charting_the_planets.ht

Charting The Planets An Educational Publication of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Educational Brief EB-111 12/92 Grades 7-12 Topic: Planetary Science-Explore and Interpret Characteristics of the Planets Learning to use a chart of data can be helpful in several ways. First, a chart can provide an orderly list of individual facts. For example, if one needs to know a single datum, like Neptune's mean distance from the sun, it is easy to find. In the chart MEAN DISTANCE OF PLANETS , you would look to the left-hand column for the "Mean Distance From Sun" row, and then look across the row to the "Neptune" column. Your answer lies where row and column cross: 4,497 (millions of kilometers). A second way to use a chart is to look for trends and patterns in the data. This approach will give you "the big picture" about the set of objects the chart describes. Take a look at the chart SILHOUETTES OF THE PLANETS . The planets are shown in approximate relative sizes, and arranged according to their order from the Sun: Mercury, on the left, is the closest to the Sun and Pluto (normally) is the farthest away. The obvious pattern, moving away from the Sun, is that there are four small planets, then two huge ones, two large ones, and a final, tiny one. Please note that two characteristics are plotted in the silhouettes: diameter and distance. Diameter is to scale and distances are not to scale. To find out the real distances from the Sun, and then establish a scale we ll need to look at the data in the chart MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN.

52. American Astronomical Society :: Education: General Astronomy The Terrestrial planets are the planets in between the Sun and the Characterizedas “Earthlike”, they are rocky planets with weak magnetic fields that http://www.aas.org/education/general.htm

Education Office Programs and Activities Education Resources Student Resources ... Compadre The Solar System The Sun The Sun is a class G star, one of the cooler stars in the universe, but extraordinarily hot by our standards. It is of medium size which has allowed it to continually burn energy at a steady but relatively slow pace. Eventually the Sun will begin to run out of its fuel and balloon into a star called a red giant, but a few billion years will pass before that happens. 98% of the total mass in the solar system is in the Sun, which shows the enormity of it, and yet it takes up a miniscule portion of our galaxy, not to mention the whole universe. The Sun is fueled by a reaction called the proton-proton chain which converts the abundant Hydrogen in its core into Helium and energy in the form of light waves. While the sun is one of the major elements responsible for life on Earth, it is also extraordinarily dangerous. It has a tumultuous atmosphere and emits gamma rays among other things that human beings should not be exposed to. While, thankfully, the Earth’s ozone layer filters out most of the harmful waves, it is still very dangerous to look directly at the Sun. Galileo did so while conducting his research and was consequently almost completely blind at the end of his lifetime.

53. BBC Education - AS Guru - General Studies - Science - The Paranormal - Are We Lo All life on the planet s surface would be killed on contact with the UV light!So, if we are to look for life on other planets, scientists will be looking http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/asguru/generalstudies/sciencetechnology/23paranor

Home TV Radio Talk ... A-Z Index SUNDAY 25th September 2005 Text Only Are we looking for life on other planets? In short, the answer to this question is 'yes'. Serious, scientific attempts to find extraterrestrial life and to make contact with it have been underway for many years: The cratered, apparently lifeless surface of Mars was first revealed in the 1960s during NASA's Mariner space research programme. Since then, samples of Martian soil have been analysed by Viking Lander modules that touched down on the planet's surface. The most promising site was chosen - terrain that looked liked dried-up riverbeds. Each Lander module performed a number of experiments on soil scooped up from the Martian surface. One of these added a special radioactively labelled sugar solution to the soil - any microbes present would use this for energy as they carried out respiration. The Lander was able to detect carbon dioxide gas - a sign that respiration was happening, and therefore a sign of primitive life! Quickly, the gas stopped being generated - no more than an ordinary (lifeless) chemical reaction had occurred. In many ways, this did not really surprise the scientists, as no liquid water has been found on the planet - a vital ingredient for all known life forms. In addition, the Martian atmosphere is unable to absorb any of the dangerous ultraviolet (UV) light it has, since it has no ozone. All life on the planet's surface would be killed on contact with the UV light!

54. Objects - Planets planets general. collage of NASA planet pictures image from NASA website.You are here Haggart Observatory Favorite Objects planets (general) http://depts.clackamas.edu/haggart/WhatsUp/Planets.htm

Planets - General [image from NASA website] You are here: Haggart Observatory Favorite Objects Planets (General) Planet Mnemonic M y V ery E xcellent M other J ust S ent U s N ine P izzas (in other versions, mothers are "educated," and they may send pies rather than pizzas.) Planet Facts Planet Distance from Sun (million mi) Rel.Dist. from Sun Orbit Rotation (Days) Diam (mi) Relative Diameter Model Sun Mercury 88 d marble Venus 225 d tennis ball Earth 365 d baseball Mars 687 d pingpong ball Jupiter 12 y Hoberman fully extended Saturn 29 y Hoberman partially extended Uranus 84 y four square ball Neptune 165 y four square ball Pluto 248 y marble/steely [A Hoberman sphere is a science toy; if anyone has another useful item that would fit in, please share! Data sources: Nine Planets Multimedia Tour Website, NASA planets website Observing Planets: (see also the notes for specific planets) Use a high power eyepiece (e.g., 7mm, 9mm, 24mm) to observe detail on planets. Colored filters may help bring out planetary features.

55. Astronomy Center Main Level general Public. Subjects Astronomy / Terrestrial planets / Mars;Astronomy / None; Astronomy / Planetary Astronomy; Astronomy / Space http://www.compadre.org/astronomy/search/search.cfm?gs=222&SS=579&b=1

56. Astronomy Center Subjects Astronomy / general Astronomy / Celestial Mechanics; Astronomy /Terrestrial planets; Astronomy / general Astronomy / Lunar Phases http://www.compadre.org/astronomy/search/search.cfm?gs=222&SS=587&b=1

57. The Last Domain VGA Planets Solar Federation (general) Bohemian Class Survey Ship Will make planetswarmer until climate type 50 is reached. Eros Class Research Vessel Will make http://www.thelastdomain.com/tldraceguides-general.asp?Race=1

58. The Last Domain VGA Planets Bird Men (general). general Advantages Ships Info The Birdmen are verygood at spying on enemy planets. They can use their http://www.thelastdomain.com/tldraceguides-general.asp?Race=3

59. ASP: Good Astronomy Activities On The WWW planets and Satellites general. Changing Faces Solar Planetary Rotation.Students model and explore how we tell a body in space is rotating. http://www.astrosociety.org/education/activities/astroacts03.html

home education SEARCH ASP SITE: Education Topics: Programs Activities Hands-On Astronomy ... Forums Good Astronomy Activities on the World Wide Web Planets and Satellites: General Students model and explore how we tell a body in space is rotating. First they simulate rotation in the school yard, and then they watch movies on the internet that show both planetary features and sun-spots rotate. [e,m] Crazy Craters In this nice activity from the book Moons of Jupiter from the GEMS Program at the Lawrence Hall of Science, students do a variety of activities to simulate how cratering occurs by dropping and throwing objects at a chocolate-powder surface on top of flour. This is perhaps the most thorough version of a classic activity (see the "Impact Cratering" ones later in this section.) [a] Exploring the Planets: Using Images Students examine some intriguing images from planetary exploration and try figure out what they are seeing. Dennis Schatz' "Planet Picking" activity does this better, but this one is on the Web. [a] Flexing Muscles and Moons Students measure the effect of gravitational flexing (which keeps Io and Europa's interior warm) by taking the temperature of some flexible rubber balls. They also do calculations about the force of gravity. [m]

60. Planets Alignments In 2000 - Griffith Observatory Prophecies of chaos, whether triggered by planets or not, will be part of thegeneral An especially good general treatment is at the National Solar http://www.griffithobs.org/SkyAlignments.html

Planetary Alignments in 2000 John Mosley Griffith Observatory The news is out! There will be a series of planetary alignments in the year 2000. Will the earth tilt over? No. Will tidal forces trigger earthquakes? No. Will the polar ice caps melt? No. Will you even be able to see the alignments? Not really. But a lot of people want to know what is going on, so the Griffith Observatory has established this page with all the details and links. The following is extracted from "Cosmic Doom in 2000!" by John Mosley, a feature article which appeared in the Planetarian , the journal of the International Planetarium Society , March 1996. Doom at the End of the Millennium The thought that the world will end at a massing of the five planets dates back to at least 300 B.C. Despite all we've learned a lot about the mechanics of the solar system in the last 23 centuries, ancient superstitions remain in full health. This time a massing of the planets accompanies a change of millenniuma double whammy for those who believe such coincidences are turning points in a Master Plan for Human Fate. Mixed in with the joyful celebrations and silliness will be cries of impending doom and destruction. Ultimately we will hear everything from predictions by fundamentalists of the fulfillment of biblical prophecies to planetary tidal forces run amok.

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