Bf.41 The Planetary System
Contents Theories of formation of the Solar System must be able to explain 4 important facts:
The Sun, with 99.9% of the mass, contains less than 0.5% of the angular momentum of the system. Almost coplanar and circular orbits of the planets (and of the planets regular moons.) Planets are formed from rather cold material, which has not come from within the Sun. Formation of the Earth on a time-scale less than 0.1 billion years. As we shall see dynamic data, e.g. the very different equatorial inclinations of the major planets, together with chemical differences between bodies with unequal solar distances indicate a period of accretion by massive collisions.
The motion, chemistry, and physics of a may be pristine kind of Solar System bodies namely the comets will be treated with emphasis on observations and models of comae and tails.
Literature M. M. Woolfson, "The Origin and Evolution of the Solar System" (Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd, 2000)
K. S. Krishna Swamy, "Physics of Comets", sec.edit. (World Scientific Publ. Co., 1997)
Evaluation Pass/fail
Lecturer Peter Gammelgård
Points/ECTS-credits 1/5
Semester Autumn 2001 and, probably, autumn 2003