Learning Competency:
The learners shall be able to
1. describe the different hypotheses explaining the origin of the solar system and;
2. explain the current advancements/information on the solar system
Specific Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this lesson, the learners will be able to:
1. Identify the large scale and small scale properties of the Solar System;
2. Discuss the different hypotheses explaining the origin of the solar system; and
3. Become familiar with the most recent advancements/information on the solar system
Large Scale Features of the Solar System
1. Much of the mass of the Solar System is concentrated at the center while angular momentum is held by the outer planets.
2. Orbits of the planets are elliptical and are on the same plane.
3. All planets revolve around the sun.
4. The periods of revolution of the planets increase with increasing distance from the Sun.
5. All planets are located at regular intervals from the Sun.
Small Scale Features of the Solar System
1. Most planets rotate prograde
2. Inner terrestrial planets are made of materials with high melting points such as silicates, iron , and nickel.
3. The outer four planets, on the other hand, are called Jovian planets or giant gases.
Nebular Hypothesis
- Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, and Pierre-Simon Laplace
- rotating gaseous cloud that cools and contracts in the middle to form the sun and the rest into a disc that become the planets.
- Problems:
----- majority of the angular momentum in the Solar System is held by the outer planets
----- the mechanism from which the disk turns into individual planets.
Encounter Hypothesis
1. Buffon’s (1749) Sun-comet encounter that sent matter to form planet
2. James Jeans’ (1917) sun-star encounter that would have drawn from the sun matter that would condense to planets.
3. T.C. Chamberlain and F. R. Moulton’s (1904) planetesimal hypothesis involving a star much bigger than the Sun passing by the Sun and draws gaseous filaments from both out which planetisimals were formed
4. Ray Lyttleton’s(1940) sun’s companion star colliding with another to form a proto-planet that breaks up to form Jupiter and Saturn.
5. Otto Schmidt’s accretion theory proposed that the Sun passed through a dense interstellar cloud and emerged with a dusty, gaseous envelope that eventually became the planets.
6. M.M. Woolfson’s capture theory is a variation of James Jeans’ near-collision hypothesis.
Sun-star Interaction
- the Nobel Prize winner Harold Urey’s compositional studies on meteorites in the 1950s and other scientists’ work on these objects led to the conclusion that meteorite constituents have changed very little since the solar system’s early history and can give clues about their formation. The currently accepted theory on the origin of the solar system relies much on information from meteorites.