Rocks and Minerals
This type of rock forms when lava or magma cools and solidifies.
What is igneous rock?
Earth spinning once on its imaginary axis, which takes approximately 24 hours.
Rotation
Earth's axis is tilted at approximately this many degrees relative to its orbital plane.
What is 23.5 degrees?
The four inner planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are primarily composed of rock and metal and are called by this term.
Terrestrial Planets
What comes after a full moon?
Waning gibbous
Layers of compressed sediment, often containing fossils, form this rock type.
What is sedimentary rock?
The movement of one object around another in space, such as Earth traveling around the Sun once every 365.25 days.
Revolution
When the Northern Hemisphere is tilted directly toward the Sun, it experiences this season.
Summer
This giant gas planet is the largest in our solar system and features a famous storm called the Great Red Spot.
Jupiter
What moon phase does the phases start with?
New Moon
Extreme heat and pressure deep underground change existing rocks into this type
What is metamorphic rock?
Earth's rotation directly causes this daily cycle experienced on the surface.
What is day and night?
Two days during the year when day and night are equal in length everywhere on Earth.
Equinoxes
The band of rocky remnants separating the inner terrestrial planets from the outer gas giants.
The Astroid Belt
1st Quarter
The continuous geological process where rocks transform from one type to another over millions of years.
What is the rock cycle?
The shape of Earth's orbit around the Sun, which is not a perfect circle.
What is an ellipse (or elliptical path)?
True or False: Earth is closest to the Sun during summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
False
Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system despite not being closest to the Sun due to this thermal effect trapped in its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere.
What is the runaway greenhouse effect?
What comes after a waning gibbous
3rd Quarter
The scale used by geologists to measure a mineral's resistance to scratching, running from 1 (talc) to 10 (diamond).
What is the Mohs Hardness Scale?
The speed of Earth's rotation combined with its atmosphere creates this force that curves wind patterns and ocean currents.
What is the Coriolis Effect?
During winter, direct sunlight hits at a low angle, causing light rays to spread out over a larger area, resulting in this type of energy distribution.
Indirect
The outer ice giant planet with the strongest winds in the solar system, named after the Roman god of the sea.
Neptune
What causes the Earth's Tides
The moon's gravitational pull