Gas Giant Planets Flashcards
Characteristics
Clouds run from East to West
Jupiter
Icy surface, oceans of liquid of water beneath its surface
Europa, Jupiter’s moon
Atmosphere of nitrogen with traces of methane and ethane, and crust of ice with lakes and ponds filled with liquid methane
Titan, Saturn’s moon
Disk of material that circles a planet and consists of orbiting particles.
Planetary ring system
It has icy surface and liquid water flows up through the cracks forming spectacular geysers
Enceladus, Saturn’s moon
For 21 years the North Pole faces the Sun and South Pole is in complete darkness and after another 21 years, the South pole faces the Sun and North Pole is in complete darkness for 21 years. In Spring and Fall, there is daytime and nighttime like Earth
Uranus
Every place on this planet has winter periods of complete darkness and summer periods of constant daylight
Uranus
It ejects lava and geysers of sulfur compounds
Io, Jupiter’s moon
The 2nd largest planet in the solar system
Saturn
It has fast winds (540 km/h)
Jupiter
It has more than 60 moons , largest are Io, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede
Jupiter
Known for planetary ring system formed by collision of its moons with comets and asteroids
Saturn
It has the highest surface gravity and twice the mass of the other 7 planets of the solar system combined
Jupiter
It is the largest planet in the solar system
Jupiter
It has the fastest rotation around itself (once every 10 hours)
Jupiter
Storms appear between cloud bands called “Great Red Spot”
Jupiter
Most volcanically active place in the solar system, with more than 400 active volcanoes
Io , Jupiter’s moon
Less dense than water
Saturn
Rings are 500,000 km in diameter while only few km thick. The rings form bands with gaps, gaps can be occupied with moons
Saturn
It’s the fifth largest moon for this planet and it looks strange as material from moon’s interior rises to its surface due to gravitational forces of planet pulling on the moon
Miranda, Uranus’s moon
It has 27 moons and a ring system
Uranus
Most distant planet from the Sun
Neptune
Sunlight is 900 x fainter than Earth
Neptune
High Noon (middle of day) is like twilight (dusk or sunset when there is very faint light) on Earth
Neptune
This planet is almost the same size as Uranus
Neptune
These two planets atmospheres’ have Hydrogen , Helium, and Methane and appear to be blue in color
Uranus and Neptune
“Great Dark Spot” (Storm) was found in 1989 by Voyager 2 in this planet
Neptune
No more great dark spot but other dark spots were found by Hubble Space Telescope in 1994 on this planet
Neptune
It’s the largest moon for this planet and it orbits the planet in opposite direction of the planet’s orbit around the sun
Triton, Neptune’s moon
This moon may explode due to the strong planet’s gravitational pull on it
Triton, Neptune’s moon
Orbits the sun tilted on its side at 98 degrees
Uranus
Rotates once every 84 years around the Sun
Uranus
The atmosphere has methane giving the planet a green blue color
Uranus
