Space
What is a satellite? Give an example.
something that orbits a planet
EX: moon, weather satellite,
What is a solstice and when does it occur?
Occurs twice a year, its the day when the sun appears at either its highest or lowest point in the sky.
Winter: Shortest day
Summer: Longest day
What are the phases of the moon? Be able to draw each phase.
New moon, Waxing Crescent, 1st quarter, waxing gibbous, Full moon, Waning Gibbous, 3rd Quarter, Waning Crescent
Who is Aristarchus? What did he do.
ancient greek scientist who first developed a heliocentric model.
What is Newtons First Law of Motion?
an object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion unless acton upon by an opposite force
What is a constellation? How are they named? Give an example of one.
A pattern or group of stars that people imagine represents a figure, animal, or object. They name them by finding similarities on what they are shaped like.
EX: pegasus, Ursa major, scorpius
Explain the Earth's movements in detail.
revolution and rotation.
revolution: 365 1/4 around the sun. = 1 year.
rotation: earth spins on its axis. one full rotation is 24 hours = 1 day.
Explain the motion of the moon in detail. How do this affect the different phases?
It rotates and revolves they both take the same exact time to full complete each. (29.5 days) This affects how the sun lights up different parts of the moon depending on the position relative to the Earth and the sun.
What did Nicholas Copernicus contribute to space research?
he said the Earth's rotation and revolution around the sun explained the start moving.
What is gravity? Explain the Law of Gravitation.
Gravity: The force that attracts all objects towards each other
Law of Gravitation: Every object in the universe attracts every other object.
What is a comet? How is a meteor different?
comet- a cold mixture of dust and ice that develops a long trail of lights as it approaches the sun.
meteor- a streak of light produced when a piece of rock or ice burns up as it enters the Earth's atmosphere.
What is am equinox? When does it occur?
Occurs twice a year. When the sun passes directly overhead at noon if you are standing at the equator. Both day and night are 12 hours long.
What is an eclipse. Explain the 2 different ones that occur. Which one occurs more often and why?
eclipse: when an object in space comes between the sun and a third object and casts a shadow on the 3rd object.
Solar: moon between earth and sun
Lunar: earth between sun and moon
Lunar happens more often because the earth is larger which has a larger shadow so the chances of it casting shadow is more likely.
Kepler proved that the shape of a planets orbit is an ellipse (oval) and Brahe began to observe that planets didn't move in a circle arpund the sun.
What is inertia? Give an example of inertia. What would happen if the moon had no gravity or inertia?
inertia: the tendency at an object to resist change in motion.
EX: riding in a car and it stops. you keep going until your seatbelt stops you.
The moon would keep traveling in a straight line if there was no gravity or inertia.
Explain the difference between a meteor, meteoroid and meteorite.
meteor- a streak of light produced when a piece of rock or ice burns up as it enters the Earth's atmosphere.
meteoroid- in space
meteorite- on earth
Explain how the Earth has different seasons.
The Earth's tilt. When the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun it is summer, when its tilted away from the sun, it is winter. Places that are further from the equator experience more seasons, where as the equator has less seasons because the tilt does not affect the middle of the earth. Spring and Fall happen when the Earth is on either side of the sun and the northern hemisphere is not tilted toward the sun
What are tides? What causes high and low tides?
tides: the rise and fall of ocean mater that occur approximately every 12.5 hours.
the gravitational differences in how Earth, moon and sun interact at different positions and alignments. The moon has a stronger gravitational pull and it causes the ocean water to bulge on the side facing the moon (high tide), and the opposite side than has less water making it low tide.
What were Ptolemy's discoveries? How long were his discoveries accepted for?
Geocentric model- When Earth is the center of the solar system. He further developed Aristotle's model.
people accepted this model for nearly 1500 years after his death.
What factors affect the strength of the pull of gravity between two objects?
distance between objects and masses of the objects
What is the Heliocentric model? Who discovered it? Who supported it?
its a sun-centered solar system. Aristarchus was the first to come up with this model. 400 years before Ptolemy, but no one believed in the model because they all thought the Earth would have to be the center..... Until-
Copernicus- proposed the Earth's rotation and revolution around the sun explained the observed movements of the stars and planets from Earth.
Brahe and Kepler: based on Brahe's observations, Kepler determined that the orbit of each planet is an ellipse rather than a circle.
Galileo: discovered the moons around Jupiter which proved that not everything in the sky travels around Earth
What is a leap year. Explain why we have leap years.
leap year is one extra day in the year. Its revolved around the sun in 365 1/4 days. Every fourth year the 1/4 day = 1 day so we add that day to the year.
What are spring tides and neap tides? When do they occur? What is the location of the moon during each tide?
spring tide: more significant difference between consecutive high tides. this is new and full moon and causes bigger waves.
neap tide: least difference between consecutive low and high tides. this is a 1st and 3rd quarter moon.
What did Galileo discover and how did he prove it?
He discovered the Heliocentric Model where planets orbit the sun. He used a telescope he made himself to discover that Jupiter had moons that orbited it. Jupiter's moon proved that not everything in the sky revolved around the earth. He also discovered that Venus goes through phases similar to the moon's phases, which would be impossible if both it and the sun circle around earth.
Explain what a penumbra and umbra is.
umbra: the very darkest part of the shadow in an eclipse where the light from the sun is completely blocked.
penumbra: are of the shadow where the sun is only partially blocked in an eclipse