289665 Inside the solar system (V) (WiSe 2016/2017)

An overview of solar system objects: the Sun, the planets and their satellites, the comets (short-period, long-period, sun-grazers, the Oort cloud), the asteroids and their major groups, the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, the dust and gas (the solar wind), planetary rings...

Gravity: Newton's Shell Theorem, or the equivalence of a spherically symmetric mass and a point mass at its centre, two-body problem and the three laws of Kepler

Keplerian elements of orbits: their popularity and disadvantages, other sets of elements

What if the number of bodies is greater than two: restricted circular three-body problem and Lagrangian points, order and chaos in the solar system, stability of the solar system

Basics of the theory of perturbations. An osculating orbit and mean elements. Asymptotic methods of celestial mechanics and series expansions of the solution of the equations of the motion

Spaceflight dynamics: basics of the orbit correction, gravitational spheres and gravity-assist technique, the Planetary Grand Tour of Voyagers and exploration of Saturnian satellites by the Cassini spacecraft

Spherical astronomy: the spherical trigonometry and reference frames

Spinnning bodies and their interactions: precession, nutation, libration and tides for solid bodies, differential rotation of liquid bodies

The solar system and timekeeping. Calendars.

Electromagnetism: the solar radiation, cometary tails, interplanetary dust and the Poynting-Robertson effect, one way to avert an asteroid impact.

Temperatures throughout the solar system; inhabitable zone; the Yarkovsky
effect

The first lightspeed measurement assisted by the Galilean satellites of Jupiter

The solar and planetary interiors, magnetic fields in the interplanetary space and in the vicinities of planets and some satellites

Nuclear forces: abundance and distribution of the chemical elements in the solar system, nuclear fission and fusion; cosmogony