Planets
All About Earth
Zooming Outward
Our Sky
Random Facts
100
Time it takes for a planet to rotate on its axis. ?
What is a day?
100
This covers more than 70% of Earth's surface
Water/Oceans 
100
The First planet from the Sun
Mercury 
100
We have one while some planets have 70!
The Moon 
100
A ring of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter
Asteroid belt 
200
This planet is called "The Red Planet"
Mars 
200
In one year on on Earth, there are _______ days
365 (Technically 365.25!)
200
All the planets and the Sun make up the _________ __________
Solar System 
200
A group (or groups) of stars that make pictures in the night sky
Constellations
200
Is no longer an official planet
Pluto 
300
Earth's "Sister Planet" because she is so close to the earth in space and also in size. This planet has the longest day 243 earth days.
Venus 
300
There are this many continents
Seven 
300
Huge swirling discs of billions of stars.
Galaxies 
300
Earth moving through a cloud of space rocks causing bright streaks in the night sky.
Meteor shower or Shooting Stars
300
Icy snowball from the Oort Cloud that orbits close to the sun and forms a tail every 76 years or so.
What is a comet? Halley's Comet?
400
This Gas Giant is known for its rings.
Saturn 
400
This invisible "bubble" extends past the atmosphere and protects Earth from dangerous radiation from the Sun
Magnetic Field or Magnetosphere 
400
The name of our Galaxy
The Milky Way 
400
This occurs when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun, which blocks the light from the Sun creating a _____ ______
Solar Eclipse 
400
Invisible objects in space so heavy that even light cannot escape its gravity. Said to be at the center of galaxies.
Black Hole
500
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune ?
What are the Gas Giants?
500
This holds us on the earth, all the planets in our solar system on their paths and all the stars in galaxies together. What is it and explain.
Gravity holds us on the earth, all the planets in our solar system on their paths and all the stars in galaxies together. Gravity is the force of attraction exerted by anything with mass. The more mass something has the more GRAVITY.
500
Name the three types of Galaxies (and describe)
Spiral, Irregular and Ellipitical
A galaxy is a group of stars and other space stuff. The stars tend to spin around a center of high gravity, sort of like the planets spin around the Sun in the Solar System. Galaxies are huge and can have trillions (way bigger than billions!) of stars. As big as galaxies are, they are generally separated by large areas of empty space. There are even clusters of galaxies that are separated by even larger areas of space. Scientists think there are over 100 billion galaxies. Wow, the universe is huge! Milky Way We live in the galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way is part of cluster of around 3,000 galaxies called the Local Group. The Milky Way is a spiral shaped galaxy and is estimated to be made up of around 300 billion stars. Types of Galaxies There are three main types of galaxies depending on their shape: Spiral - The spiral galaxy has a number of long arms that are spiraling around the center. In the center of the spiral galaxy are older stars while the arms are generally made of new stars. Elliptical - A mass of stars clumped together in the shape of an elliptical disc. Irregular - Any other shaped galaxy is generally lumped into the category of irregular. It is thought that most irregular galaxies are formed by two of the other three types of galaxies crashing into each other.
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500
What is the difference between a meteoroid, meteor and meteorite?
Meteoroids are bits of rock and dust in space.
Meteors are bits of rock and dust in our atmosphere. = Shooting stars
Meteorites are bits of rock that hit the earth's surface.
500
Explain the difference between meteoroids, comets and asteroids.
Asteroids and meteoroids are rocky debris in space. Asteroids form a belt and so orbit the sun while meteors are found in regions of the ecliptic - path which earth travels through. Comets are dirty snowballs that orbit a unique path around the sun (not on the ecliptic) and come close to the sun at various intervals.