Stars
Stars use this process to release energy
Nuclear fusion
Distance between stars is measured in
Light years
Earth is the _____ planet from the sun
3rd
Redshift combined with absorption bands helped us develop this theory
Big bang
Why black holes are black
So much gravity even light cannot escape
This determines a star's whole life cycle
Mass
Describe a light year
The distance light travels in a year
Closest planet to the Sun
Mercury
This guy figured out gravity and invented calculus to calculate planet orbits
Sir Isaac Newton
On Earth, these two substances are necessary for life
Carbon, water
When light is split into component colors
Spectrum
The earth is about this old
4.5 billion years
Describe minimum (3) details of terrestrial planets
Closer to the sun, rocky, few moons, smaller
Describe how the Doppler effect works with light
Light wavelengths are compressed with approaching objects (shifting to blue), expanded with receding objects (shifting to red).
A planet that orbits a star OTHER than our sun
Exoplanet
Dark bands (absorption lines) in a spectrum tell us
Element(s) being fused by the star
A single galaxy contains how many stars (roughly)
Billions
Describe minimum (3) details of Jovian planets
Further from the sun, gaseous, many moons, larger
What did better and better telescopes reveal about fuzzy stars?
They were galaxies, not stars
This causes Earth's seasons
The tilt of the Earth's axis
If a star is massive enough it will form this
Supernova and/or elements heavier than iron (Fe)
The speed of light (in meters OR miles/second)
3 x 108 m/s OR 186,000 miles/sec
What planet spins on its side
Uranus
How was Neptune discovered?
Uranus' orbit was being distorted by Neptune's gravity, so scientists looked for it
The closer an elliptical orbit's two foci are, the more _____ the orbit is
Round