The Solar System
Who believed that the planets moved in smaller circles within a larger orbit around the earth?
Ptolemy
Which planets is closest to the sun?
Mercury
Which planet bulges out a lot because of its high rotational speeds?
Jupiter
What are meteorites?
Meteors that survive passage through the atmosphere and reach the earth's surface
Who concluded that not every object in the solar system orbits the eart?
Galileo
What is the largest volcano in the solar system?
Olympus Mons
What are the four largest moons of Jupiter called?
Galilean moons
Who states that less massive bodies will rotate more massive ones?
Isaac Newton
Who built very precise instruments to produce the very accurate predictions about the solar system? Who was his assistant?
Tycho Brahe
Johannes Kepler
What are terrestrial planets?
Planets about the same size and density of Earth
What is the coma?
The gaseous envelope that surrounds the nucleus of a comet
Which solar system theory assumed that the path of planets was circular?
Geocentric view
What is retrograde motion?
The apparent backward motion of some planets
What is significant about Neptune?
What is the difference between Greek asteroids and Trojan asteroids?
Greek asteroids - are in front of Jupiter's orbit
Trojan - are behind Jupiter's orbit
What is the difference between a planet's perihelion and its aphelion?
Perihelion - the point at which the planet is closest to the sun
Aphelion - the point at which the planet is farthest from the sun
State Kepler's three laws of planetary motion.
Planets move in ellipses with the sun at one focus.
A planet moves faster when closest to the sun and slower when farther away.
A distant planet from the sun has a longer orbital period than a closer planet
List three characteristics of planets.
Orbits the sun
Has a spherical shpae
Does not share the space of its orbit with any other object of significant size (besides moons)
List four characteristics of dwarf planets.
Orbits the sun
Are rigid and can be nearly spherical
Can share their orbits with other bodies
Are not satellites (moons)
What does SSSB stand for? What's its definition?
Anything in the solar system that isn't a planet, dwarf planet, or moon