Space Objects & the Chelyabinsk Event
A rock from space that is still traveling through Earth's atmosphere is called this.
What is a meteor?
This law gives us the equation Fg = G(m₁m₂)/d².
What is Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation?
The time it takes an object to complete one full orbit.
What is the period?
The shape of all planetary orbits.
What is an ellipse?
In an elliptical orbit, an object moves fastest at this point.
What is perihelion?
A rock from space that has landed on Earth's surface is called this.
What is a meteorite?
In the gravitation equation, increasing this variable causes gravitational force to increase.
What is mass?
For a stable orbit, an object must have exactly the right amount of this — too little and it falls in, too much and it escapes.
What is velocity?
The Sun's location within a planetary orbit.
What is a focus?
As an orbiting object moves away from the Sun and slows down, kinetic energy is transferred into this.
What is the gravitational field?
The Chelyabinsk meteor came from this region of the solar system before being redirected toward Earth.
What is the asteroid belt?
In the gravitation equation, increasing this variable causes gravitational force to decrease.
What is distance?
Compared to planets close to the Sun, planets farther away orbit at this relative speed.
What is slower?
The longest radius of an ellipse, used to describe orbit size.
What is the semimajor axis?
Energy is conserved in an orbital system. This means the total energy can never be this.
What is created or destroyed?
When the Chelyabinsk meteor entered the atmosphere, it broke apart and released energy. Name two forms that energy took.
What are light, heat, and sound? (any two)
If the distance between two objects doubles, the gravitational force becomes this fraction of its original value.
What is one-fourth?
Kepler's Third Law states that T²/a³ has this value for all objects orbiting the same body.
What is constant?
An eccentricity of 0.95 describes an orbit that is this shape compared to one with eccentricity of 0.01.
What is more elongated?
Our two-body orbit models failed to predict the Chelyabinsk meteor's original orbit. This is because real orbital systems contain this.
What is more than two bodies?
Scientists believe the Chelyabinsk meteor's orbit was changed by two types of interactions. One was a collision — what was the other?
What is gravitational perturbation?
The gravitational force Earth exerts on the Moon and the force the Moon exerts on Earth are related in this way.
What is equal?
An object orbiting far from the Sun has a longer period than one orbiting close in. This is because the gravitational force acting on it is this.
What is weaker?
Two objects whose orbits cross are not guaranteed to collide. This is the missing condition they also need.
What is being at the same location at the same time?
A small spacecraft hovering near an asteroid can slowly change the asteroid's orbit using only this force — no collision needed.
What is gravity?