Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Chapter 6
Earth's Solar System
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Earth is at the center and the sun and planets orbit it. | Geocentric |
| Earth and other planets revolve around the sun. | Heliocentric |
| The movement of one object around another | Revolution |
| An oval shape | Ellipse |
| Consists of the sun, planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, and meteors | Solar System |
| The average distance from the sun to earth. 150,000,000 kilometers | Astronomical Unit |
| Must be round, orbit the sun, and have cleared out the region of the solar system in its orbit. | Planet |
| An object that orbits the sun and has enough gravity to be spherical, but has not the area of its orbit. | Dwarf Planet |
| Every object in the universe attracts every other object | Law of Universal Gravitation |
| The tendency to resist a change of motion | Inertia |
| An object at rest will stay at rest, an object in motion will stay in motion with a constant speed and direction unless a force acts on it. | Newtons First Law of Motion |
| The sun produces an enormous amount of energy in the central region through nuclear fusion | Core |
| Hydrogen atoms join to form helium. | Nuclear Fusion |
| Region where gas is tightly packed and energy moves in the form of electromagnetic radiation | Radiation Zone |
| Outer most layer of the suns interior; hot gases rise from the bottom cool then sink back down. | Convection Zone |
| The inner layer of the suns atmosphere; considered to be the suns surface layer and gives off the light | Photosphere |
| Gives the sun the reddish color; middle layer of the suns atmosphere | Chromosphere |
| The outer layer which looks like a white halo around the sun; you can see this during a total solar eclipse | Corona |
| Where the corona extends out in to space it gradually thins out into streams of electrically charged particles. | Solar Winds |
| Huge loops of gas usually connecting sunspots | Prominence |
| Eruptions of gas on the sun's surface | Solar Flare |
| Inner planets that are smaller and dense, and have a rocky surface. | Terrestrial Planet |
| Trapping of heat by the atmosphere | Greenhouse Effect |
| Outer planets that are larger and more massive than Earth, they do not have a solid surface. | Gas Giant |
| A thin disk of small particles of ice and rock | Ring |
| Jupiter's largest moons; Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto | Galilean Moons |
| The region between Mars and Jupiter that consists mostly of asteroids | Asteroid Belt |
| Beyond Neptune's orbit. 100 au. | Kuiper Belt |
| Beyond the Kuiper Belt a spherical region of comets. 1000 times the distance of Neptune to earth. | Oort Cloud |
| Lose collections of ice and dust with rocky particles, orbits can be very long narrow ellipses. | Comet |
| Clouds of gas and dust form a fuzzy outer layer on a comet | Coma |
| Solid inner core of a comet | Nucleus |
| Small, irregular, rocky objects that orbit the sun; too small to be considered a dwarf planet | Asteroid |
| Chunks of rock and metal smaller than asteroids | Meteoroid |
| When entering the earth's atmosphere the friction creates a streak in the sky | Meteor |
| Meteoroids that pass through earth's atmosphere and are found on earth. | Meteorite |
| Dark areas on the sun; much cooler than the surrounding areas. | Sun Spot |
Created by:
MacyB