Physics of Solar SystemThursday 9:00-10:00, Bragg Friday 9:00-10:00, Bragg Albert Zijlstra (Alan Turing Building, 3.138)Lecture notes, worked examples, Tutorial sheets, example exam papers, and supplementary material are available from this web page. Lecture notes will be added a few days after the lecture. recently added Lecture 22, Tutorial sheet 5 solution noticesThere will be no lectures for this course during week 12: the last lecture was Friday May 7. Happy revising! |
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Lecture 1: Introduction. (See here for high
resolution figures of abundances) Lecture 2: Basic facts and observations; History; Tour of the Solar System Lecture 3: Coordinate systems and time keeping Lecture 4: Planetary motions; synodic and siderial periods Supplementary information: Views of Distant Earth |
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2. A matter of gravity Lecture 4: Kepler's laws Lecture 5: Newton's law of gravity Lecture 6: binary motion; Properties of orbits; observational evidence Lecture 7: Gravitational potential; virial theorem Lecture 8:Tidal forces; Lunar and solar tidal force; height of the tides; Resonance Lecture 10: Tidal friction and tidal heating; Evolution of the Moon; Tidal forces in the solar system; Roche limit; The kamikaze comets Lecture 11: Orbits; Reduced mass; Energy and velocities Lecture 12: Hohman transfer orbits; Slingshots; Capture cross sections; Lagrangians points; Lisajous and horsehoe orbits
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3. The Sun
Lecture 13: Basic data. Freefall time scale; Kelvin Helmholtz time scale. Hydrostatic equilibrium; Nuclear reactions. Lecture 14: Neutrinos; Energy transport; Surface of the Sun; Black body radiation; granulation, sunspots and mass ejections Lecture 15: Sounds of the Sun |
Information on the Sun |
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4. Planetary atmospheres Lecture 15: Atmospheres: introduction. Albedo and optical depth. Lecture 16: Temperatures; greenhouse effect. Scale height of the atmosphere. Lecture 17: Escape: why the Moon has no atmosphere. Composition. Reducing versus oxidizing atmospheres; Lecture 18: Clouds on Earth and elsewhere
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5. Planetary surfaces Lecture 18: Impact craters Lecture 19: Crater of doom. Regolith. Dating with craters and isotopes
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6. Planetary interiors Lecture 20: Evidence for liquid cores; Earthquakes; Core sizes; Heat generation and internal energy budget; radioactivity Lecture 21: Composition of terrestrial planets and gas giants; magnetic fields |
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7. Origin Lecture 22: The formation of the solar system
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