Description
The Ice Giants Uranus and Neptune are the outermost major planets of our
Solar System. Internally they small rocky cores surrounded by deep,
slushy ice mantles and shallow hydrogen atmospheres, quite unlike the
massive cores and deep metallic hydrogen mantles of Jupiter and Saturn.
This lecture describes their basic properties: the origin of their vivid
blue/green colors, their composition, structure, and weather. At the
end we'll contrast and compare their properties to those of the Gas
Giants. Recorded 2007 Nov 15 in 1000 McPherson Lab on the Columbus
campus of The Ohio State University.
A new podcast, Astronomy 141, Life in the Universe, is available
for those interested in continuing an exploration of topics in
modern astronomy.
Published 12/06/09
Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how
we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather
than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I
am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what to look
for...
Published 11/30/07