Historical Models
The _________ is the sun and all of the planets and other bodies that travel around it.
Solar System
What is a force of attraction between objects that is due to their masses?
Gravity :)
The Sun is mainly composed of what two gases?
Hydrogen and helium
Name all of the planets in order from the Sun.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
A(n) ________ is a small, rocky object that orbits the sun, many of these objects are located in a band between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroid
Define Geocentric and Heliocentric?
Geocentric describes something that uses Earth as the center. Heliocentric describes something that uses the sun as the center.
State Kepler's first first law.
Kepler's first law states that a planet's orbit around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus.
What are the dark cooler areas that form on the surface of the sun?
Sunspot
Define terrestrial planet.
Terrestrial planet is a planet that is highly dense and composed of rock and metal. They have relatively high densities, rotate slowly, and have no rings and few satellites.
Define dwarf planet.
A body that orbits the sun and has enough mass to be round, but has not cleared its orbital path. They are made of rock and ice. Located in the astroid belt and in the Kuiper Belt.
Who showed that the Earth was not the center of the universe by using a telescope to see objects orbiting Jupiter, proving that not all space objects orbited Earth?
Galileo Galilei
What happens to a gravitational force when the masses of the objects increase or as the distance between objects decreases?
The gravitational force increases.
What is the process where helium is fused to form carbon and matter is converted into energy.
Nuclear Fusion
Describe the physical properties of Earth that make it livable.
Earth's moderate temperatures (distance from the sun), water, and atmosphere (oxygen) make it livable.
What is a small body of ice, rock, and dust that follows an elliptical orbit around the sun. It also gives off gas and dust in the form of a coma and tail as it passes close to the sun.
Comet
Why might models of the solar systems change over the years?
Scientists are constantly learning and discovering new things, causing them to refine and adapt their knowledge. Technology continues to improve
What is any force that causes an object to move in a circular path?
Centripetal force
Define differential rotation.
It is the rotation of a body in which different parts of the body have different periods of rotation.
Name the Gas Planets and define their physical properties.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
They have deep, massive gas atmospheres, mostly made of hydrogen and helium (methane for the blue planets). They are far from the sun and very cold. They have more moons than terrestrial planets.
Define and describe the Oort cloud.
The Oort cloud is a roughly spherical region that forms the outer reaches of the solar system.
How did Copernicus challenged the way in which people of his time thought about the solar system?
He believed that the sun was in the center of the Solar System and that the sun is stationary.
Describe the formation of the Solar System
It was formed from the solar nebula, which collapsed and began to rotate. When the collapse stopped, the sun and the planets formed.
Define solar flare and prominence.
Solar Flare- explosive release of energy from the sun.
Prominence-vast loop of gas that extends into the sun's outer atmosphere
Describe the physical properties of Saturn.
It is less dense than water and has a planetary ring system around its equator made of small, icy bodies. Has many moons, and is the 6th planet from the sun.
Explain the difference between meteoride, a meteor, and a meteorite. Which one would you most likely see on the surface of Earth?
Meteoride is a relatively small, rocky body that travels through space. Meteor is a bright streak of light that results from a meteoroid burning up in the atmostphere. Meteorite is a meteroroid that reaches Earth's surface without fully burning up in the atomosphere. Meterorite would be seen on Earth.