Planet Vocabulary
This is the solid rock part of a planet.
What is the geosphere?
This includes all the water and ice on a planet.
What is the hydrosphere?
These planets have a solid rocky surface.
What are rocky planets?
Scientists compare Earth and Mars to better understand this.
What is how planets form and change?
Scientists who study planets and their surfaces are called this.
What are planetary geologists?
This is the layer of gases that surrounds a planet.
What is the atmosphere?
The hydrosphere on Earth includes oceans, lakes, rivers, and this frozen form of water.
What is ice?
Name the four rocky planets in our solar system.
What are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars?
Both Earth and Mars have these surface features like mountains and valleys.
What are landforms?
Scientists use evidence to support a claim. This explanation of how evidence supports the claim is called this.
What is reasoning?
This is a natural feature on a planet’s surface like mountains, valleys, or channels.
What is a landform?
This sphere includes the solid rock, soil, and land of a planet.
What is the geosphere?
Rocky planets are mostly made of this type of material.
What are rocks and metals?
Earth has liquid water on the surface, but Mars mostly has this frozen form.
What is ice?
A claim supported by evidence and reasoning is called this.
What is a scientific argument?
Scientists use this to represent or explain something in a simpler way.
What is a model?
Earth’s atmosphere helps support life by holding gases like this one that humans breathe.
What is oxygen?
This rocky planet is known as the Red Planet.
What is Mars?
Earth has a thick atmosphere that supports life, while Mars has a very ______ atmosphere.
What is thin?
Scientists compare Earth and Mars because they are both this type of planet.
What are rocky planets?