The Planets
What is the nickname of the four inner planets?
They are known as the rockies or the terrestrials.
What is the color of the coolest Stars?
The color is red.
Explain how day and night work.
The Earth rotates on its axis. It turns to face the sun for day and turns to face away from the sun for night.
Which celestial body is called a shooting star or falling star?
A meteor burning up in the atmosphere is called a shooting or falling star.
What holds the planets in orbit around sun and the moon in orbit around the Earth?
Gravity holds the planets in orbit around the sun and the moon in orbit around the Earth.
What is the nickname or names of the four outer planets?
They are known as the gas giants or Jovians.
What is the color of the hottest stars?
The color is blue.
Why do the sun, moon and stars appear to move across the sky?
The rotation of the Earth make the sun, moon and stars appear to move across the sky.
Where are most asteroids in our solar system located and between which two planets does it lie?
The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter.
What are two instruments that scientists use to study the Solar System? How do they use them?
Scientists use telescopes, space probes, satellites, space shuttles and the Mars Rover to study the Solar System. Make sure to explain how each one is used.
What are three things that the inner planets have in common?
The inner planets have shorter orbits, longer rotations, are made of rock, are much warmer, and have few moons.
What are three characteristics of our Sun or star?
It is a young main sequence star. It is average sized. It is yellow, which has an average temperature. It is made of hydrogen and helium. It has sunspots, prominences and solar flares.
How long does it take for the Earth to Rotate once on its axis and how long does it take to revolve around the sun?
It takes 24 hours to rotate once (a day), and 365.25 days to revolve or orbit the sun.
Which celestial body is known as a dirty snowball and has a tail?
Why do stars look like tiny points of light when most are larger than our own sun?
It is because those stars are extremely far from the Earth, some are hundreds of light years away.
What are three things that the outer planets have in common?
They have longer orbits, shorter rotations, have many moons, are much larger, are colder and made of gasses.
What do stars do to create their own energy and what two gasses do they use in this process?
Stars use the process called fusion to create energy. They use hydrogen that fuses to create helium.
Choose one representative to illustrate (draw) a picture of how the Sun, Earth and Moon orbits of each other look.
The Earth should be orbiting the Sun and the Moon should be orbiting the Earth.
Where do comets come from? (Both places)
Short period comets come from the Kuiper Belt and long period comets come from the Oort Cloud.
What planets are the following:
closest to the sun and smallest planet
largest planet
hottest planet
Red planet
The answers are:
Mercury
Jupiter
Venus
Mars
What are the planets in order starting with the sun and where is the asteroid belt?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
Put these temperatures of stars in order from coolest to hottest. (orange, green, blue, red, yellow)
Coolest to hottest is: red, orange, yellow, green, blue.
Explain why we have seasons - there are two reasons you have to cover.
Seasons are due to how we tilt on our axis and how we revolve around (orbit the sun).
Explain the three phases of the meteoroid (meteor, meteoroid, and meteorite).
All three the same rock, the meteoroid is out in space, the meteor is burning going through the atmosphere and the meteorite has struck the Earth's surface.
Name everything that makes up our solar system.