Formation of the Solar System
Asteroids
Comets
Meteorites
???
100
The solar system began as a cloud of gas and dust. Once it began to collapse and spin, it formed this shape.
What is a disk?
100
The brightest asteroid in the night sky, and the second largest in the asteroid belt.
What is Vesta
100
Often referred to as "dirty snowballs", comets are made mostly of this material.
What are rock and ice?
100
An object must do this to be classified as a meteorite.
What is survive its decent to Earth?
100
An impact capable of causing global catastrophe occurs this often.
What is 100 million years?
200
This process, driven by gravity, is responsible for turning interplanetary dust into planets, moons, asteroids comets, and even the Sun?
What is accretion?
200
Any asteroid that passes through Earth's orbital path is referred to as this.
What is an Earth crossing asteroid?
200
The coma is the gaseous cloud surrounding the nucleus of a comet. The coma can reach the size of which planet?
What is Jupiter?
200
The largest meteorite in any Museum.
What is the Cape York meteorite?
200
The gravity of these 2 planets played the largest role in the creation of the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.
What are Uranus, and Neptune?
300
Condensation is the process of material going from the gaseous phase to the solid or liquid phase. The process of condensation is controlled by this.
What is Temperature/ Pressure or distance from the Sun?
300
This is the most common type of asteroid.
What is a C-type asteroid
300
The ion tail of a comet always points in this direction.
What is away from the Sun?
300
only these types of meteorites contain chondrules.
What are chondrites?
300
Meteor showers are named for this?
What is the constellation from which meteors appear to originate?
400
Differentiation is the process responsible for the structure of our solar system. Rocky, terrestrial planets lie in the inner solar system, while gas and ice giants lie in the outer solar system. This same process is responsible for this feature of our home planet?
What is the layered structure of Earth?
400
Because of chemical differences in asteroids and the low total mass contained in the belt scientists believe the material that makes up the asteroid belt came from here.
What is rock that never managed to accumulate into a planet?
400
As the Earth passes through the debris left behind by a comet, it creates this phenomenon here on Earth.
What is a meteor shower?
400
This is the name for the differentiated meteorite that contains both stone, in the from of olivine, and iron.
What is a pallasite?
400
The Canyon Diablo meteorite formed this American landmark.
What is Meteor Crater?
500
After the outer planets formed, their intense gravity flung all remaining debris into the far reaches of our solar system, forming these 2 structures.
What are the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud?
500
These asteroids lead and trail Jupiter as it orbits the sun.
What are Trojan asteroids
500
Periodic comets have periods of less than this many years.
What is 200?
500
The unique pattern formed in iron meteorites that indicate they were once the core of a differentiated body.
What is a Widmanstatten pattern?
500
These were the very first rocks to condense from the cloud of gas and dust that surrounded the young Sun.
What are CAI's
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