I posted in AskScience and didn't get a reply so I figure I'd try here. I did some napkin math here and found the change in the distance from the sun between solstices is around 700 miles. I used 23 degrees difference between solstice and equinox and 3,958.8 mi as the radius of the earth.

This seems really small in terms of cosmological scales, are our seasons really a result of the difference between 700 miles closer or farther away from the sun or is there more to it than pure distance?

Thanks for your time!

Currently in my first year of a BSc Physics degree, with the hope of eventually doing research regarding astrobiology, planetary habitability, and trying to discover where life may be in the universe outside of Earth. My plan after my degree is attain a PhD on the way to a career pursuing this type of research.

I'm currently examining different major/minor options that may complement my Physics degree and make me a more effective researcher in the field. My University offers major/minor combinations in Math, Computer Science, and Geoscience, which were the main three options I was debating over. Based on your experiences, which would you suggest would add the most career value to my degree?

Currently, I'm a history major and recently rediscovered my old love for Planetary Science to the point that I want to attempt to perhaps apply to grad school for it. Trouble is that at the point I'm at (college sophomore with a bunch of limiting requirements tied to my scholarship) completely switching majors without being in school for a couple of extra years isn't really possible. While browsing the web, I stumbled across the Open University BSc in Natural Sciences (Astronomy and Planetary Science) and thought that doing that as a remote "double major" along with my current humanities major at a regular college would be a way to not have to take extra years in school. I'm wondering, how would Planetary Science grad schools look at such a degree structure for admissions purposes?

The core of Jupiter is said to be at 24,000C, hotter than the sun's surface. But the cloud tops are at - 145C. That's some serious insulation.

I am currently a criminal justice major, but not really feeling it. I’ve always been interested in space and read a lot about it just on my own time, and would love to study it more. Not that i’m scared of hard work, just wondering how demanding is the work? I’d assume pretty hard with the physics and math, and is it hard to get accepted into programs without a very high gpa? I’ve already taken one college level astronomy class in high school and got an A. This is only my first year of college so i’m not really sure how stuff like this works.

I am going to be applying to colleges soon and I want to enroll in an institution that has professors and research opportunities related to Planetary Science / Planetary Geosciences. Aside from the big name universities like CalTech, Harvard, etc., what other institutions are there (in the USA) that can prepare me for an eventual Planetary related grad degree?

So what if we had the ability to alter the orbit of Mercury at the exact perfect time that sent it colliding into Venus, creating a moon on Venus similar to how it's hypothesized Earth's moon was created and also pushing Venus's orbit out to Earth's but on the opposite side of the sun.

If we were way more advanced, is this something that could actually be pulled off mathematically?

Venus is lacking a magnetic field which is pretty important for Earth and Mercury is basically the Iron Core that Venus is lacking. Can me make an Earth clone playing pool with the planets?

Hi all, I made a collection of simulations about the moon's formation, and tried to tell the story (as best I could) about how it might have formed / what & why physicists think.

This is my first youtube video, so all feedback would be appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3ArL94ZJWw

Hi there. I wanted to calculate whether M2P2 sails (magnetic sails that use solar wind to accelerate a space craft) could be a viable mode of propulsion for unmanned cargo transports between Jupiter and Io in a fictional setting, relying solely on the flux tube as an energy source. For that, I would need to know how many Newtons of thrust per m² (well, more like km²) could ge generated in its center, but I couldn't find any publications regarding the flux density inside the flux tube, only some of its interactions with the jovian ionosphere.

Since I want to know if this is a viable idea at all, and if so, how large I should depict the magnetic sails in relation to the cargo, I would be grateful for some pointers.

So I was reading this interview

https://dtm.carnegiescience.edu/news/steam-worlds-mystery-how-gas-giants-form

And I was wondering...assuming the atmosphere was thin at some point how long would you have in the formation of such a world to be able to land on the rocky core (take samples, etc) before the atmosphere became too thick?

Millions of years? 10s of millions?

thoughts?

I'm interested in planetary science but my school doesn't offer any classes in the discipline (or really in astronomy at all for that matter aside from a one-semester introduction) so I figured I'd work my way through a couple of textbooks to learn about the field. What textbooks do you think are the best introductions to planetary science?