Our Solar System
Terrestrial (rocky) planets have smaller diameters and greater ________ than Jovian (gas) planets.
What is density?
Our Sun is currently classified as a spectral class G star located on the ________ sequence.
What is the Main Sequence?
Scientists use the radioactive decay of this isotope to find the absolute age of meteorites and the early Earth.
What is Uranium-238?
The two-letter code cP stands for a Continental Polar air mass, which brings weather that is cold and ________.
What is dry?
This term describes the percentage of sunlight that is reflected by different types of Earth's surfaces.
What is the albedo effect?
According to Kepler’s laws, a planet travels ________ in its orbit when it gets closer to the Sun.
What is faster?
This is the term for how bright a star would appear if all stars were placed at the exact same distance from Earth.
What is absolute magnitude?
There are very few impact craters preserved on the ocean floor because the ocean crust gets destroyed at trenches by this tectonic process.
What is subduction?
At the "horse latitudes" (30°N and 30°S), air is typically ________ in the atmosphere, causing calm winds and clear skies.
What is sinking?
When glaciers melt, darker soil is exposed. Dark soil absorbs ________ solar radiation than white snow and ice.
What is more?
If a new planet is found orbiting between Mercury and Venus, its average speed will be slower than Mercury but faster than ________.
What is Venus?
When the Sun gets older and transitions into a red giant star, its surface temperature will ________.
What is decrease?
Early oxygen levels in Earth's oceans and atmosphere increased because of the appearance of these light-using organisms.
What are photosynthetic organisms?
These global planetary winds drive warm, tropical air masses away from the horse latitudes toward 60°N.
What are the prevailing westerlies?
Data shows that Greenland's ice sheet is losing mass, which directly causes global ________ to rise.
What is sea level?
An observer on Earth can see a cycle of phases for Venus because Venus's orbit is located ________ Earth's orbit.
What is inside?
This is the hottest, inner layer of the Sun where energy is generated by thermonuclear reactions.
What is the core?
The Hawaiian Islands formed because the Pacific Plate moved slowly over a magma source in the mantle called a ________.
What is a hotspot?
As a hurricane moves over land, its wind speed decreases, and its internal atmospheric pressure ________.
What is increases?
Pumping underground brine water to mine this metal reduces the water available for wetlands, hurting vulnerable bird habitats.
What is lithium?