Planets 1
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are what type of planet?
Terrestrial Planet
Earth's twin from a size and gravity perspective is
Venus
Pluto, Eris, and Ceres are considered
Gravity is a mutual attraction between
two objects
The Solar System has 2 main belts and 1 cloud. Name all 3.
Asteroid Belt, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud
The 5 planets bright enough to see with the unaided eye are:
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
Venus spins:
backwards (or retrograde)
Asteroids are mostly made of
metal and rock
The entire Solar System orbits a point close to, but outside of, the Sun called the
barycenter
Who discovered the first Kuiper Belt Object?
Clyde Tombaugh (Pluto)
Scientists believe that the gas giants have ___________ cores deep under their thick atmospheres.
rocky
The majority of dwarf planets are located in the
Kuiper Belt
Comets are mostly made of
ice and dust
The Sun makes up about what percentage of the mass of the solar system?
99.8%
Our Solar System ends at
The Oort Cloud
Uranus is unique because it:
is tilted on its side compared to the other planets.
To be considered a "planet," an object must orbit a star AND:
pull itself into a sphere due to gravity and dominate its orbit.
How many tails do comets have?
2
Your ___________ always stays the same, but your _________ changes based on the gravity of the planet you are on.
mass, weight
Describe the Nice Model.
After the Solar System was formed: Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune moved outward from the Sun, and Jupiter moved inward towards it.
Which moons are larger than the planet Mercury?
Ganymede (Jupiter)
Titan (Saturn)
2 parts:
a) What size planets have the shortest days?
b) Which planets have the longest years?
a) larger planets (typically the larger the planet, the shorter the day)
b) planets farther away from the sun
Explain the difference between a meteorite, meteoroid, and meteor.
meteorite - name once it hits the ground
meteoroid - name while flying in outer space
meteor - name for the brief period of time it is flying through/burning up in the atmosphere
Describe how satellites orbit.
Satellites are in a constant state of free fall, but their forward motion keeps them from crashing into Earth.
What is the region of small objects called between the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud?
The Scattered Disk