NEEP602: Preface to Lectures 8 and 9

NEEP602 Course Notes (Fall 1996)
Resources from Space
Preface to
Notes for lectures 8 and 9, Mercury and Venus

These lectures consisted of parts listed below. 1, 2, and 3, are the online course lecture notes. Part #4, a VCR tape, will be on three hour reserve in the Wendt Library under NEEP 602.

The parts are:

1. OBSERVABLES FOR PLANETS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

2. An amended and edited version of the "Mercury" chapter of Bill Arnett's online text "The Nine Planets" from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, USA. See: http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/
Included are references to pictures in the NEEP 602/G&G;376 on line lecture notes as well as pictures which are available from many sources on the internet.

3. An amended and edited version of the "Venus" chapter of Bill Arnett's on line text "The Nine Planets".

4. A cut version (37 minutes) of the "NOVA" program "Venus Unveiled". As this may less accessible some of the main points are listed below.
a. The roots of Catastrovism vs. Uniformatarianism as the dominant modes of looking at the evolution of the planets.
b. Is the resurfacing of Venus episodic or not?
c. The dilemma raised by the surface of Venus being young based on the crater uniform & random distribution.
d. The thick vs thin lithosphere argument.

See References:

Cattermole, Peter, Venus the geological story, U C L Press limited, pp 247, 1994.

Gehrels, Tom, Collisions with comets and asteroids, Scientific American, vol 274, #3, pp 54-59, (March) 1996.

Kasting, James F. etal. , How climate evolved on the terrestial planets, Scientific American vol. 258, pp 90-97, (Feb.) 1988.
(Good Summary of a conventional view to be contrasted with the Gaia hypothesis which credits life with the habital condition of Earth, see Lovelock below).

Kaula, William, Venus reconsidered. Science, vol. 270, pp. 1460-1464 , (1 Dec.) 1995 (good abstract).

Kerr, Richard A., Does tellurium frost Venus's highlands? Science, vol. 271, pp. 28-29 (5 January )1996.

Keer, Richard Where do meteorites come from? A NEAR miss may tell, Science, vol 271, p 757, (9 Feb. )1996.

Lovelock, James, The ages of Gaia, Bantam, pp251, 1990.

Zuber and Parmentler, Formation of fold-and-thrust belts on Venus by thick-skinned deformation. Nature, vol. 377, pp. 704-707, (26 October) 1995.

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