PROJECT

THE STUDY OF THE

SOLAR SYSTEM

Prof. Gianina Duduială

“Avram Stanca”
Comprehensive School
Petroșani
 The goal of
the project :

 To make a synthesis of the

information related to the
following topics:
2. The Earth is a planet. What do we
know about planet Earth?
3. How many planets are there in the
known Universe?
4. Let’s imagine a journey on a ray of
 Contents:
I. Earth’s personality
 a)The description of Earth : form,
surface, volume, weight, internal
structure
 b)The Earth’ movement: the
rotation around its own axe, its
movement around the Sun,
 c)The Earth's illumination by the
Sun, its view from space
 d) The place of the Earth in the
Universe

Our Galaxy, The Milky Way

- Our galaxy, The Milky Way, Sometimes called the Galaxy is
a spiral shaped one with bars the shape of a huge disc, its
diameter being approximately 30 kiloparseci or 100.000
light years and a thickness of approximately 3.000 light
years.
- It has a weight of approximately 6x10 ? at 11 times the
weight of the Sun.
- A considerable number of stars, estimated between 100-
200 billions, its diameter estimated at around 100 000 light
years, the position of the Sun: approximately 33 000 light
years from the centre of the galaxy, in the Orion Arm
- The galaxies can be : eliptic, spiral, în barred spiral si
shapeless.
 II .The Moon’s
personality
 a) The origin and shape of the Moon:
its average density: 3,3 g/cm 3, its weight being 81 times
smaller than th4 Earth’s, has a round form with a diameter
of approximately 3470 km, its volume 49 times smaller
than the Earth’s, its surface, seen from the earth, is 59%
rat, the intensity of gravitation is 6 times smaller than on
Earth, lacking an atmosphere, its temperature ca vary
between 125-400K
 b) The face of the Moon, rocks and
craters
 c) The movement of the Moon
 d) The Earth’s sea tides
 III. The Sun’s personality
 a) the structure and evolution of the
Sun
 b) the solar activity
 c) eclipses
 d) the thermo radiations and the
Earth’s climate
 IV.The planets of the Solar
 System
a)The terrestrial type of planets:
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars:
1.Mercury-Moon like landscape, rough with numerous
craters, it doesn’t have mountains or high reliefs,
rarefied atmosphere and temperatures between 60 -750
K ( -213°C / +477°C )
2.Venus-the atmosphere is leveled in layers of thick clouds,
in which storms take place in spiral with speeds that
overrun 300 km/h, at the ground temperatures are
about 760 K (+487°C )

3. Marte-the relief is close to the Moon’s relief, with crater-

like volcanoes, a giant canyon, over 4000 km in length,
the biggest volcano known up to present in the Solar
System, Mons Olympicus, in the polar regions, icebergs.
 b)The Jupiter type of planets:
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptun,
Pluto
 4.Jupiter-the planet Jupiter has a relatively complex
structure, being closer to the Sun than to the earth-like
planets. The weight of its nucleus is 10 times bigger than
the Earth’s, its most important satellites are Io, Ganymede
, Callisto; its atmosphere is formed of ammonia, hydrogen,
helium, vapors of water and methane, a red spot 4 times
bigger than the Earth, seem to give out more energy than it
receives from the Sun
 5.Saturn- Saturn’s atmosphere is made of methane,
ammonia and argon, 85 % of the body of the planet is
composed of hydrogen and its core, the size of the Earth, is
probably solid. Its rings have been discovered since 1610
by Galilei. The ring is made of 120 rings, grouped in 6 ring
structures, named alphabetical from the planet to the
outside, separated by opaque regions, dividers
6.Uranus – the planet is made of a rock
and ice core, covered with a layer of liquid
hydrogen, and has got 27 known satellites
and a very flat ring system, made of 5
concentrically placed rings on the inside,
each of them with a width of 10-12 km
and an outside ring, with a width of 80 km,
the most inner ring approaches up to 18
7. Neptune – Neptune’s
atmosphere is mostly made of
hydrogen and helium with traces
of methane. The methane in the
atmosphere is responsible,
partly, for the blue colour of the
planet. Also, Neptune has the
strongest winds in the entire
Solar System, they can reach up
to 2100 km/h. Since its discovery
until 1930, Neptune was the
furthest known planet. In 1930,
when Pluto was discovered, she
became the penultimate planet
of the Solar System. On August
24th 2006, as a resolution of the
International Astronomy Union,
when they’ve changed the
definition of a planet, Pluto was
 V.The small entities of the
Solar System
 Comets – Small entities that
spin around the Sun.
The majority of comets have
three parts:
   (1) a solid core made out of
frozen dust and ice,
   (2) a round crest or a head, that
round the nucleus made out of dust
particles and gases,
  (3) a long tail of dust and gases
that come after the head.
Many comets are on the outer
side of the Solar System some of
them come very close to the Sun,
 Astero
ids size planets and are
 – asteroids are small
very numerous and belong to different
families. The biggest family has over 2500
asteroids with diameters over 1 km and
thousands much smaller that are placed in
the rings between Mars and Jupiter.
Other families, much smaller: Amor-
intersects the orbit of Mars,
Apollo – intersects the orbits of Mars and
Earth
 VI. Space Missions
Some of the most recent projects:
 Project Deep Space 1

 Galileo Space Programme

 Project Kliper

 Aurora – the European

programme for exploring the
Solar System
 VII.Project
Evaluation
 Organizing the students into groups
 Work tasks:
- each group will choose one topic from the list of
topics;
- each member will look for , bring, analyze
information, in order to elaborate the contents,
while the bibliography is listed;
- there will be an analysis, in the team, of the
content, in order to make a plan of the
presentation;
- the posters, the lay-outs, the presentations will
be finished;
- there will be a presentation in front of the class
 Evaluation:
- the evaluation of the evaluarea
of the scientific content that the
students have accumulated
during the project;
- the evaluation of the
characteristics of the products
made by the students;
- the evaluation of the information
used and presented, the selection
process and the scientific
precision;
- the evaluation of the planning of
the team work, the work process,
and the correct use of the
resources and their well
organizing;
- the evaluation of the final
presentations, the quality of the
verbal presentation and the way
 Bibliografie:
 - AIRINEI, Ştefan(1982).Pământul ca
planetă. Bucureşti. Editura Albatros.
 - LOGOFĂTU, Mihaela
(2003).Tehnologia Informațiilor și a
Comunicațiilor în școala modernă,
Universitatea din București,
Ed.Credis
 - CIASCAI, Liliana(2001). Didactica
fizicii. Bucureşti. Editura Corint
 WEB pages:
 http://www.windows.ucar.edu/
http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/solarsystem/venus/ - A NASA site for
Venus
 http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/solarsystem/mars/ - A NASA site for
Mars (the same for Jupiter)
 http://servant.geol.cf.ac.uk/solar/eng/homepage.htm - a site that
presents the Solar System
 http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/ - the presentation of the
planets
 http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxie# type of galaxies
 http://www.nineplanets.org/
 http://www.telescope.org/rti/nuffield/ - a site that contains
information, tests about the earth, Moon and the Solar System
 http://www.tisp.ro – a site that presents the Solar System in
Romanian