Remote Sensing
This type of active remote sensing sends out radio waves and measures how they bounce back to map land elevation and track storms.
What is RADAR?
This central part of a hurricane features the lowest air pressure and is surprisingly calm, clear, and free of rain.
What is the eye?
On the Mohs Hardness Scale, talc is a 1, while this super-hard mineral used to make industrial drilling, cutting, and abrasives scores a 10.
What is a diamond?
This is the outermost, solid layer of the Earth that we live on, which is broken up into large tectonic plates.
What is the crust?
In 2006, scientists reclassified this icy world from a major planet to a dwarf planet.
What is Pluto?
This is the smallest individual square or unit of data in a digital satellite image.
What is a pixel?
This atmospheric variable, which measures the amount of water vapor currently in the air, is usually expressed as a percentage.
What is humidity?
This category of rock forms when layers of sand, mud, and pebbles are pressed and glued together over millions of years.
What is sedimentary rock?
This famous horseshoe-shaped area around the Pacific Ocean is home to the vast majority of the world's volcanoes and earthquakes.
What is the Ring of Fire?
This is the specific name for a space rock after it survives the atmosphere and actually crashes into Earth's surface.
What is a meteorite?
This type of satellite orbit keeps the spacecraft parked over the exact same spot on Earth by matching the planet's rotation speed.
What is a geostationary orbit?
This scale, ranging from EF0 to EF5, is used by meteorologists to rate the intensity of a tornado based on the damage it causes.
What is the Enhanced Fujita Scale?
This is the name for molten, liquid rock while it is still trapped deep underground, before it erupts out of a volcano.
What is magma?
This is the specific point inside the Earth where an earthquake actually begins, located directly below the epicenter.
What is the focus (or hypocenter)?
This ring of rocky debris divides our solar system in two, sitting right between Mars and Jupiter.
What is the Asteroid Belt?
Remote sensing sensors that do not emit their own energy, but instead measure naturally reflected sunlight, are called this.
What are passive sensors?
This tall, puffy type of cloud is the only one capable of producing lightning, thunder, and severe thunderstorms.
What is a cumulonimbus cloud?
This dark, glassy volcanic rock cools down so incredibly fast that no mineral crystals have time to grow inside it.
What is obsidian?
This type of tectonic plate boundary occurs where two plates are actively smashing into each other, often creating massive mountain ranges.
What is a convergent boundary?
This gas giant has an extreme tilt, causing it to spin completely on its side as it orbits the Sun.
What is Uranus?
This specific color band on the electromagnetic spectrum is often used by satellites to measure healthy, growing vegetation.
What is Near-Infrared (NIR)?
This dangerous rise in sea level is caused by a hurricane's strong winds pushing ocean water onto the shore as the storm makes landfall.
What is a storm surge?
This property describes how a mineral looks when it reflects light, usually categorized as metallic or non-metallic.
What is luster?
This type of fast-moving volcanic mudflow forms when ash mixes with melted ice or heavy rain, rushing down a volcano's slopes.
What is a lahar?
This term describes the path a planet takes around the Sun, which is shaped like an oval or a squashed circle rather than a perfect ring.
What is an ellipse?