Chapter 5: Planetary Heating and Cooling
Learning Objectives
By reading this chapter, attending lecture, and reviewing lecture content, you will be able to:
- List and explain the primordial and non-primordial sources of heat in planetary bodies
- Give examples of planetary bodies that get heat from each non-primordial source
- Explain the importance of heat to the formation and evolution of planetary bodies
- Identify and explain the ways planetary bodies transfer heat from their interior to outer space and describe how this cooling happens on Earth, specifically
- Describe the relationship between planetary cooling rate, volume, and surface area
- Describe the difference between plate tectonics and tectonics
- Provide examples of single plate planets and identify how heat is transferred to their surface
- Explain why some single plate planets expand rather than contract when they lose heat
- Describe how Mars may provide information about the beginnings of plate tectonics on Earth
- Describe the conditions a planetary body needs to produce a strong magnetic field (or dynamo)
- Compare and contrast the magnetic fields of Earth, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter
