Speaker: Tony Rice, Solar System Ambassador
This month’s speaker was Tony Rice, one of our local NASA Solar System Ambassadors. His topic was Planetary Atmospheres. Tony began by giving the club members a quiz he normally gives to teachers and broadcast meteorologists. It had 4 questions which our group were able to answer correctly, but the area teachers and TV broadcasters (including the Daily Show with Jon Stewart) had trouble answering.
Image Courtesy of Brian Reasor
Tony continued with a discussion of the makeup of the atmosphere on each planet of our Solar System. He started with the gas and ice giants of the Outer Solar System. He detailed with a chart the makeup and abundances of the most prominent chemical elements. Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Methane are prominent in the outer planets. High winds are also prominent on gas/ice giants.
He moved on to the inner planets noting that Mercury has virtually no atmosphere while Venus has a very thick sulfur atmosphere with a run away greenhouse effect. Next, he discussed Earth and how most of the atmosphere was a result of outgassing. Hydrogen and Helium came from the initial formation of our planet but it is suspected that most Nitrogen may have come from comets impacting our planet.
Tony spent a lot of time covering Mar’s atmosphere. He noted that Mars has 1% the atmosphere of Earth with lots of carbon dioxide. He discussed the seasons of Mars due to axial tilt and talked of clouds and dust storms. He spent some time discussing the rovers on the planet, how they worked, and what they discovered. Tony gave the June 21, 2015 weather stats from the Curiosity: it was sunny with a high temperature of 5 degrees F, a low temp of -97F and a pressure of 8.48 millibars.
The presentation is available for replay on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6wTd3o4Gj8
