Astronomy 1
What is a nebula?
Cloud of dust and gases where stars form
what is an element?
Can not be broken down into simple substances by physical or chemical change keeping its properties.
What is an asteroid?
a small rocky body ranges a few 100 kilometers to less than a kilometers
What are fossils?
Traces or remains of once prehistoric organisms
what is a mineral?
any naturally occurring inorganic solid that comes in a crystalline structure and a definite chemical composition.
What is an astronomical unit?
The average distance between the sun and the earth or sun and the moon
What information do rocks provide geologists?
Past events and past life forms
what are the perihelion and aphelion?
perihelion is when the orbit of the planet is closest to the sun while the aphelion is when planets orbit the sun is the farthest
What was Pangaea?
The last time all the land masses were connected together
list the four layers of the Earth from thinnest to thickest.
crust, inner core, outer core, mantle
what are rotation and revolution?
Rotation is the spin of the planet on its axis while revolution is a planet orbiting the sun
What is uniformitarian?
Law in geology states that all processes that worked today are the same processes that worked in the past.
What are perigee and apogee?
Perigee is where the moon is closest to the earth when orbiting and apogee is the point where the moon orbit is farther away from the earth
what is relative dating?
Where you sequence the events at the order they occur and not put a date on it
what is the mantles state of matter?
plastic
At which stage in its evolution is the star the hottest?
hottest at planetary nebula
what are the 3 unconformities?
angular disconformity and nonconformity
At which stage in its evolution is the star the brightest?
brightest as a red giant
Why is studying fossils important?
Help learn what happened in the past so we can figure the future if conditions are the same or similar.
Which of the Earth contains the densest material?
Inner core
How do the lives of most massive stars end? What are the two possible products of this event?
supernova can become a black hole or neutron star
What is correlation?
the technique of piecing together information from widely separated rock outcrops in order to create an accurate chronological profile of an entire geologic time period
What can astronomers learn by studying a star's colors?
Temperature and evolutions
What caused the extinction of so many of the reptile groups that had flourished?
The asteroid impact
What is the relationship between the density of Earth materials and depth below the surface of the Earth?
density increases