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Unit 3 vocabulary
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| solar system | The sun and all of the planets and other bodies that travel around |
| heliocentric | sun-centered |
| geonetric | Describes something that uses earth as the reference point |
| parallax | an apparent shift in the position of an object when viewed from different angles |
| gravity | a force of attraction between objects that is due to their masses |
| orbit | the path that a body follows as it travels around another body in space |
| aphelion | In the orbit of a planet or other body in the solar system, the point that is farthest from the sun |
| perihelion | the point in the orbit of a planet at which the planet is closest to the sun |
| centripetal force | the inward force required to keep a particle or an object moving in a circular path |
| solar nebula | A rotating cloud of gas and dust from which the sun and planets formed |
| planetesimal | A small body from which a planet originated in the early stages of development of the solar system |
| nuclear fusion | the process by which nuclei of small atoms combine to form a new, more massive nucleus, the process releases energy |
| sunsopt | a dark area of the photosphere of the sun that is cooler than the surrounding areas and that has a strong magnetic field |
| solar flare | An explosion release of energy that comes from the sun and that is associated with magnetic disturbances on the sun's surface |
| prominence | A loop of relatively cool, incandescent gas that extends above the photosphere and above the sun's edge as seen from Earth. |
| terrestrial planet | one of the highly dense planets nearest to the sun (mercury venus earth mars) |
| astronomical unit | The average distance between Earth and the Sun; approximately 150 million kilometers (AU is the symbol) |
| gas giant | a planet that has a deep massive atmosphere such as jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune |
| planetary ring | A disk of matter that encircles a planet and consists of numerous particles in orbit, ranging in size from dust grains up to objects tens of meters across |
| dwarf planet | A celestial body that orbits the sun, is round because of its own gravity, but has not cleared its orbital path |
| Kuiper belt | a region of solar system that is just beyond the orbit of Neptune and that contains small bodies made of mostly ice |
| Kuiper Belt object | one of the hundreds or thousands of minor planet sized objects that orbits the sun in a flat belt beyond Neptune's orbit |
| comet | A small body that gives off gas and dust a it passes close to the sun. A typical comet moves in an eliptical orbit around the sun and is made o dust and frozen gases |
| Oort cloud | A spherical region that surrounds the solar system, that extends from the Kuiper Belt to almost halfway to the nearest star, and that contains billions of comets. |
| asteroid | A small, rocky object that orbits the sun; most asteroids are located in a band between the orbits of Mars and jupiter |
| metoroid | a relatively small, rocky body that travels through space |
| meteor | A bright streak of light that results when a meteoroid burns up in Earth's atmosphere |
| meteorite | A meteoroid that reaches earth's surface without burning up completely |