Astrophysics Notes

Earth and The Solar System

The Earth

Our solar system is known as the milky way.

There are 8 planets in our solar system.

A solar system is basically a group of celestial objects known as planets which revolve around a star.

Each planet in a solar system follows a specific path called an orbit.

The Earth rotates on an imaginary line called its axis, which is slightly tilted.

One rotation of the earth takes approximately 24 hours.

The sun does not move, the earth revolves around it. So when the earth rotates, one side is facing towards the sun,
while the other is facing away from the sun therefore causing day and night.

Fig. 1: Diagram showing day and night

The earth completes a revolution around the sun in it’s orbit in approximately 365 days.

The seasons

There are two factors which cause seasons:

Motion of earth around the sun (revolution) which takes 365 days
The tilt of the earth’s axis (which is about 23.5°)
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 Fig. 2: SeasonsSwathiha97, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The moon

The moon is a satellite of the earth which revolves around the Earth. One revolution of the moon around the earth
takes approximately one month.
The moon, similarly to the earth, also rotates on its own axis but one rotation also takes approximately one month,
which is way more than that of the earth.

This movement of the moon causes the moon to appear in different shapes, these “shapes” are known as phases of
the moon.

The moon has 8 phases as shown below.

Fig. 3: Phases of the moon

Average Orbital Speed

To calculate the average orbital speed, we use the following formula:

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 Circumference of orbit
Average orbital speed =
Time taken for one orbit
Orbital Period = time taken to complete

2πr
v=
t
where v is the velocity
r is the average radius of the orbit and
t is the orbital period

The Solar System

The solar system is a collection of celestial bodies, including the Sun, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and other
smaller objects, bound together by gravity.

The Solar System consists of:

one star, the Sun.

Eight named planets in order from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Minor planets such as dwarf planets (e.g., Pluto)

Asteroids in the asteroid belt.

Moons, that orbit the planets

Smaller solar system bodies like comets and natural satellites.

The sun

The sun makes up most of the mass of the Solar System (more than 99%).

The force responsible for keeping objects like planets in orbit around the Sun is the gravitational attraction exerted by
the Sun, which pulls them towards it and keeps them moving in their orbits.

The force that keeps an object in orbit around the Sun is the gravitational attraction of the Sun.

Asteroids

An asteroid is a small rocky body that orbits a star.

Asteroid Belt is a region between Mars and Jupiter containing numerous small rocky bodies.

Moons

Moons, also known as natural satellites, orbit various planets, such as Earth’s Moon.

Comets/Smaller bodies

Comets are celestial objects composed of ice, dust, and gas.

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 Fig. 4: A comet

Orbits

Orbits are the curved paths followed by celestial objects, such as planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, as they
revolve around a more massive body, typically a star like the Sun, under the influence of gravity.

Planets, minor planets and comets have elliptical orbits. (Check out figure 1)
As you may notice in figure 1, the Sun is not at the centre of the orbit, because it is elliptical.
The sun is only at the center of the orbit when the orbit is approximately circular.

The accretion model

The accretion model is a theory that explains the formation of our Solar System and other celestial bodies in the
universe.

The Sun was formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a massive cloud of hydrogen gas and dust (collectively known
as nebulae) in space that collapsed under gravity.

The planets were formed from the leftover materials in the accretion disk, a flat, rotating disk of gas and dust that
surrounded the young Sun.

Dust and gas particles from this cloud came together due to gravitational attraction and grew in size in an accretion
process, forming planets.

The accretion process is the gradual accumulation of matter by particles clumping together, ultimately
forming larger and more massive objects, like planets, through gravitational attraction.

Planets

There are 8 planets in our solar system.

Inner Planets

Outer Planets

Inner Planets Outer Planets

1. Mercury 1. Jupiter
2. Venus 2. Saturn
3. Earth 3. Uranus
4. Mars 4. Neptune

Rocky Gaseous

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 Inner Planets Outer Planets

Small Giant

High Density Low Density

This can be explained by the accretion model described above.

The inner planets are small, rocky, and have a higher density because they formed closer to the hot center of the
disk, causing the light (in mass) molecules (such as hydrogen, helium, water and methane) to be in a gaseous or
liquid form instead of a solid form, leading the planets to be formed with heavier matter with high melting points such
as metals, making the planet dense.

However, far from the sun, these light molecules could exist in solid form, causing the outer planets to be large,
gaseous and less dense because they will be made up of these light molecules.

Orbit
Av
time
distance Mass
round Surface Diameter Surface
from Density No. of
Planet sun temperature /1024 gravity
Sun /kg/m³ /103 km moons
/days /°C kg /N/kg
/million
or
km
years

Mercury 57.9 88 d 350 5427 4.8 0.330 3.7 0

Venus 108.2 225 d 460 5243 12.1 4.87 8.9 0

Earth 149.6 365 d 20 5514 12.8 5.97 9.8 1

Mars 227.9 687 d -23 3933 6.8 0.642 3.7 2

Jupiter 778.6 11.9y -120 1326 143 1898 23.1 79

Saturn 1433.5 29.5y -180 687 120 568 9.0 82

Uranus 2872.5 84y -210 1271 51 86.8 8.7 27

Neptune 4495.1 165y -220 1638 50 102 11.0 14

From this table, we can gather the following information:

Orbital Distance

Mercury has the shortest distance from the Sun, while Neptune is the farthest.

As we move farther from the Sun, the average distance increases.

Orbital Speed

Orbital speed decreases as distance from the sun increases.

Orbital Duration

Similarly to orbital distance, mercury has the shortest orbital duration, completing one orbit around the Sun in 88
days, while Neptune takes the longest at 165 years.

The farther the planet is from the Sun, the longer it takes to complete one orbit.

Density

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Jupiter has the lowest density, while Earth has the highest density.

The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) tend to have higher densities compared to the outer planets (Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), which have lower densities.

Surface Temperature

Venus experiences the highest surface temperature of 460°C, making it the hottest planet in our Solar System, while
Uranus has the coldest surface temperature at -210°C.

Surface temperatures decreases as distance from the Sun increases.

However, this is one exception to this, venus has a high surface temperature (460°C) due to its dense atmosphere of
carbon dioxide acting as a heat trap

Surface Gravity

Jupiter has the strongest surface gravity, measuring at 23.1 N/kg, due to its massive size, while Mercury and Mars
have the lowest surface gravity at 3.7 N/kg.

Gravitational field strength of a planet

The gravitational field strength at the surface of a planet is directly proportional to the mass of the planet.

while the gravitational field strength around a planet is inversely proportional to the distance
from the planet.

Travel times

To calculate the time taken by light to travel a specific distance in space, we use the following formula:

Distance
Time =
Speed

Where speed is equal to 3 × 108 m/s

Gravity and Planetary motion

As a planet moves further away from the sun (distance from the sun increases), the strength of the sun’s gravitational
field decreases and the orbital speed of the planet also decreases.

Important
The strength of the Sun's gravitational field and the orbital speeds of the planets are inversely proportional to
the distance from the Sun.

An object in an elliptical orbit travels faster when it is closer to the Sun, this is because the total energy of an object in
an elliptical orbit is constant (law of conservation of energy).

As the object gets closer to the Sun, its potential energy decreases (as shown here) and its kinetic energy increases,
increasing the speed of the object.

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Stars and the Universe

The Sun as a star

The Sun is a medium-sized star consisting mostly of hydrogen and helium,

Nuclear reactions in stars

Stars are powered by nuclear reactions that release energy.

The stable star must have a hot enough core to carry out and maintain the nuclear reactions. This temperature is
maintained by the large amounts of energy released by nuclear fusion.

The Sun is no exception to this and is also powered by nuclear fusion.

Some of the energy that is generated at the core is transferred to the outer layers of the star, causing the hydrogen
gas to glow and emit electromagnetic radiation into space.

Colour and brightness of the star both depend on surface temperature which is directly proportional to the mass
of the star.

Stars

A galaxy is a large collection of stars held together by gravity, each galaxy consists of many billions of stars.

Galaxies also consist of clouds of gas, mostly hydrogen and dust, collectively known as nebulae.

They also move in space, and many of them spin like swirling spiral discs.

We live in a galaxy known as the Milky Way and The Sun is a star in the Milky Way.
The Solar system is also located in the Milky Way.

Other stars in the Milky Way are much further away from the Earth than the Sun is.

Light-years

We measure astronomical distances in light-years.

One light year is equal to 9.5 × 1015 m.

Origin of stars

When Interstellar clouds of dust & gas (hydrogen), collapse under the force of gravitational attraction, they form a
protostar.

As the mass of the protostar increases, the temperature of its core also increases. (This happens because of the
gravitational potential energy of the gas, is converted into kinetic energy, heating the core).

When the core is hot enough, nuclear fusion starts, and hydrogen is converted into helium and a star is
born.

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 The protostar becomes a stable star when force of expansion (due to high temperature) pushing outwards is
balanced out by the force of gravitational attraction pulling inwards.

If the mass of the star is very large, then it forms a blue or white star.

If the star has a smaller mass (like the Sun), it forms a yellow or red dwarf.

Life cycle of a star

When the star starts to run out of hydrogen as a fuel for nuclear reactions, it becomes unstable.
This happens because less energy being is produced by nuclear fusion, causing the forces to become unbalanced.
This causes the star to collapse inwards due to the force of gravitational attraction.

This causes the core to become extremely hot (change of potential energy into kinetic energy) causing the remaining
hydrogen to burn and the surface to cool down.

A red giant is now formed.

Low mass stars

When the red giant runs out of helium, its core collapses under its own gravity.

This releases enough energy to ejecte the outer layers of the star into space.

The now collapsed corea becomes a white dwarf at the center, surrounded by a glowing shell of ionized gas
called planetary nebula.

The white dwarf eventually cools into a cold black dwarf.

High mass stars

When the red supergiant runs out of helium, the core further collapses under gravity.

This causes the core to get hot enough to start the nuclear fusion of carbon into oxygen, nitrogen and iron.

After nuclear fusion stops, the star releases its energy in a supernova explosion.

In the explosion, the star’s brightness increases along with its temperature.

When the core is hot enough, the fusion of nuclei into many elements heavier than iron occurs

These heavy elements are thrown into space as nebula, and become available for the formation of new stars and
planets of that star.

The center of the star then collapses into a dense neutron star, which spins rapidly and emits pulses of radio
waves, creating a pulsar.

However, if the center of the star is extremely dense, a black hole is formed.

The Universe

The Milky Way is one of many billions of galaxies making up the Universe.

Important
The diameter of the Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light-years and contains over 800 billion stars.

The expanding Universe

Redshift

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Redshift is the increase in the wavelength of light from a distant object, indicating that it is moving away from us (the
observer).

In simpler words, Redshift is when the wavelength of light from distant galaxies increases. It occurs when galaxies
are moving away.

The light emitted from distant galaxies appears redshifted in comparison with light emitted on the Earth.

The big bang theory (no, not the show)

The Big Bang Theory proposes that the entire universe was once compressed into a dense state and around 14
billion years ago, it exploded in a massive event called the Big Bang.

Since then, the universe has been expanding continuously.

Redshift in the light from distant galaxies is evidence that the Universe is constantly expanding.

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR)

Cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) refers to the microwave radiation of a specific frequency which is
observed at all points in space around us.

This energy/radiation was produced by the big bang and still exists today in space in form of CMBR.

CMBR was produced shortly after the Universe was formed.

As the universe has constantly expanding and still is expanding, the CMBR has redshifted into the microwave region
of the electromagnetic spectrum. (redshift is increase in wavelength)

Hubble’s law

Important
Hubble's law
Hubble's law states that galaxies at greater distances move away from us with increasing velocity, and this
relationship is proportional.

In simple words, the further a galaxy is from us, the faster it is moving away from us.

This can be written as:

v = H0 × d

where v = velocity (the speed at which the galaxy is moving away from the Earth),
d = distance (the distance of the galaxy from the Earth) and
H0 = Hubble’s constant

The hubble’s constant is the ratio of the speed at which the galaxy is moving away from the Earth to its distance from
the Earth.

Important
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 Calculating v
The speed at which a galaxy moving away from Earth can be measured by the change in the starlight's
wavelength (due to redshift).
Starlight refers to the light emitted by stars, which is visible to us on Earth as tiny points of light in the night sky.

Calculating d
The distance (d) of a far galaxy can be determined by using the brightness of a supernova within that galaxy.

Current Estimate for hubble's constant

Age of the universe

The formula of the hubble’s law can be rearranged to calculate the age of the universe.

The equation below represents an estimate for the age of the Universe.
It is also evidence for the idea that all the matter in the Universe was present at a single point

d 1
=
v H0
Note that, dv is the age of the universe, therefore we can say that:

1
age =
H0
Using this equation and the estimate of the hubble’s constant ( H0) given above, we can calculate the age of the
universe.

1 1
age = =
H0 2.2 × 10−18

≈ 4.5 × 1017 seconds

One year has 365 days, one day has 24 hours, one hour has 60 minutes, and one minute has 60 seconds.

Using this information, we can calculate that one year has 31536000 seconds, or approximately 3.2 × 107
seconds.

So to calculate the number of years, we do the following:

4.5 × 1017 seconds

365 × 24 × 60 × 60
4.5 × 1017
3.2 × 107
which is equal to 14062500000 years, or approximately 1.4 × 1010 years.
and that in words is 14 billion years.

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