Syllabus
1. Origin of the solar system. Basic facts on planets and moon. Available data and open questions.
2. Surface as an integrated record of body’s history. Age of the surface. Crater counting. Topography and its relationship to internal structure and processes.
3. Gravitational field and internal density structure. Inertia tensor. Darwin-Radau equation.
4. Deformation of bodies. Relationship between surface topography and deformation processes.
5. Thermal state. Sources of heat, mechanisms of heat release. Thermal convection.
6. Rotation and tides. Hydrostatic shape. The Liouville equations and true polar wander. Tidal dissipation. Maxwell, Kelvin, Burgers and Andrade anelasticity.
7. Terrestrial bodies in the solar system.
8. Jupiter, Saturn, Uran and Neptun.
9. Life in solar system and on exoplanets?
10. Icy moons of the giant planets and their underground oceans.
11. Exoplanets.
Annotation
Investigation of planets and moons of the solar system and recently also exo-planets is one of challenges of contemporary physics. The lecture give overview of basic methods in planetology research with special emphasis on solid interiors of moons and planets.