Observing the Solar System
What is extraterrestrial life?
Life on other planets than Earth
What is called the "red planet" because of the color of the dust?
Mars
How did Galileo's observations of Jupiter and Venus support Copernicus' model?
It confirmed that all planets in the system revolved around the sun.
What is the Kuiper Belt?
It is the doughnut-shaped region of comets that begin near Neptune's orbit.
What is the Oort Cloud?
It is the spherical region of comets
Why do the regions of Mars that look like stream beds lead scientists to think that there may have been once life on Mars?
It meant that Mars once had water which is required for life to exist.
What do scientists infer about the conditions necessary for life on other planets?
It shows that the range of conditions in which like can exist is much greater than scientists once thought.
What planet is by far the most massive of all the planets that revolve around the sun?
Jupiter is the largest and most massive
Which planets are the gas giants?
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
What are the 5 outer planets?
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
How did astronomers know where to look to discover Neptune?
Mathematicians calculated the orbit of Neptune and an observer discovered it in the predicted area in the sky in 1846.
Which planet has almost no atmosphere?
Mercury
Name the inner planets
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
What object in the solar system has a composition similar than that of the gas giants?
The sun is also made up of gases.
Which planet has an atmosphere that is so heavy and thick that it would crush a human.
Venus
Which planet rotates in the opposite direction from most other planets and moons?
Venus
Which planets have an atmosphere that has low air pressure and is mostly carbon dioxide?
Venus and Mars
Explain what causes a Meteoriod to become a Meteorite?
When a meteoroid hits the earth's surface it becomes a meteorite.
What does the phrase "Goldilocks conditions""
When the temperature, water and atmosphere are just right for living things to survive.
What is an Asteroid?
a rocky object in space that is too small to be considered a planet and is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter known as the asteroid belt and revolves around the sun.
What is a meteor?
a streak of light produced when a meteoroid enters Earth's atmosphere and friction causes it to burn up.
What is a ring?
a think disk of small ice and rock particles surrounding a planet.
Which planets are similar to each other in size, density, and internal structure?
Earth and Venus
What is the Earth-centered system of planets called?
A geocentric model
What is the sun-centered system of planets developed by Copernicus?
A heliocentric model
What were the three models of planetary motion?
Ancient Greek Model which all the stars were part of the system and the Earth was in the middle, and there were only 4 planets. Ptolemy's Geocentric Model which had the Earth at the center, the moons revolved around the planets, and the planets' orbits moved rather than the planets. Copernicus Heliocentric Model had the sun in the center and the 4 planets revolved around the sun.
Why do astronomers sometimes consider Pluto and its moon Charon to be a double planet?
Because they are almost the same size.
The layer of the sun's atmosphere that has a reddish glow.
Chromosphere
What are Saturn's rings made of?
Chunks of ice and rocks
What is a Meteoroid?
Chunks of rock or dust that break off from comets or asteroids in space
How can you tell the meteor from a comet?
Comets have a tail and meteors do not. Comet has an orbit and meteors do not.
The outermost layer of the sun's interior.
Convection Zone
The center of the sun
Core
What are the parts of the sun?
Core, Convection Zone, Chromosphere, Corona, sunspot, and Prominence
The layer of the sun's atmosphere that looks like a halo during an eclipse
Corona
Which planet is 70% covered with water?
Earth
Which planets have a tilted axis that causes seasons?
Earth and Mars
Which planets have at least one moon?
Earth and Mars
Why doesn't the gas on the gas giants escape into space as it has on Mercury?
Gravity keeps the gas from escaping.
What did Kepler discovered regarding the orbits of each planet?
He discovered that the orbits were not perfect circles but an ellipse.
Describe these parts of a comet: Head, nucleus, coma, and tail
Head is the brightest part of the comet, the nucleus is the solid inner core of the comet, the coma is the clouds of gas and dust that form the fuzzy outer layer and the tail is gas and dust that streams out away from the sun.
Why do scientists think that Europa might have the conditions for life to develop?
If there is liquid water there might also be life.
The joining of hydrogen atoms to form helium.
Nuclear fusion
What are the two main differences between Pluto and the gas giants?
Pluto is smaller (dwarf planet) and the gas giants are huge.
Reddish loops of gas that link parts of sunspot regions
Prominence
The layer of the sun's interior where energy is transformed mainly by electromagnetic radiation.
Radiation zone
Eruptions that occur when the loops and sunspot regions suddenly connect.
Solar flare
A stream of charged particles produced by the corona
Solar wind
Areas of gas on the sun's surface that are cooler than the gasses around them.
Sunspot
The inner planets are known as...why?
Terrestrial planets because they have rocky surfaces
How did the Greek model and Ptolemy model differ?
The Greek model had stars as part of the system and they revolved around the Earth. Ptolemy's model did not include the stars, but it did include the moons that revolves around the planets.
What is the main difference between the Geocentric and the Heliocentric models of planetary motion?
The main difference is that the geocentric has the Earth at the center, and the heliocentric has the sun at the center.
What is a gas giant?
The name often given to the first four outer planets.
What is a Comet?
ice, dust and small rocky particles that shoot across the sky that are located in 2 distant regions of the solar system
What are 3 characteristics that all living things on Earth have in common?
made up of cells, take in energy and use it to grow and develop, and they reproduce.
The layer of the sun's atmosphere that gives off visible light.
photosphere
What is the greenhouse effect?
the trapping of heat by a planet's atmosphere.