Patterns In Solar System Flashcards
What do you call Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars?
Terrestrial
What do you call Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune?
Jovian
Diameter of planets close vs far from sun
Close to sun: thousands of miles
Far from sun: tens of thousands of miles
Solar nebula definition
Rotating cloud of interstellar gases (helium and hydrogen mainly) and dust
Explain nebular theory
- Solar nebula formed
- Gravity contracted solar nebula
- Material collected in center
- condensation sparked nuclear fusion to create photosun
- Remains formed flat rotating disk
- matter cooled and condensed into icy, rocky stuff that collided to form planetismals - Collisions and accretion formed protoplanets
- Protoplanets accumulated most of the debris in their orbit to be planets
Planetismals
astroid-sized objects from beginning of solar system
What accounts for the differences in compositions of the inner and outer planets?
formed from planetismals that had compositional differences according to their proximity to the protosun
compositions and temp of inner planetismals
high temps
materials near melting points (metals and rocky substances)
How did the four outer planes form?
from the outer planetismals
outer planetismals composition and temp
small amounts of …
cool
High percentages of ices - water, co2, ammonia, and methane, small amounts of rocky and metallic debris (iron +nickel)
The accumulation of ices accounted for…
large size and low density of outer planets
What is the plane that all planets occur in? Why?
what does it pass through
ecliptic
all planets formed from the same rotating disk
Earth and the Sun’s orbit
What are the lightest elements? What planets were massive enough to attract and retain large quantities of them?
hydrogen and helium
Jupiter and Saturn
When I say what is the largest or smallest planet, what am I referring to? What about when I’m saying which is more massive?
the diameter of the planet
relative mass
What is the largest terrestrial planet?
smallest Jovian planet?
Earth
Neptune
What divides the terrestrial and the jovian planets?
astroid belt
Terrestrial spacing vs jovian spacing
Terrestrial: closer to each other and the sun
Jovian: farther from each other and the sun
Which Jovian planet varies the most from the general pattern of spacing?
how can you figure this out
Neptune
find difference of AUs btw each planet
AU of terrestrial vs jovian planets
terrestrial: less than 1 (Earth=1)
jovian: more than 1
Inclination of orbit defintion
how many degrees the orbit of each planet is inclined from the ecliptic
Why does Earth have an inclination of 0?
because the ecliptic passes right through Earth’s orbit
what is the planet with the largest inclination and what is it? the rest of the planets are inclined to less than __
Mercury: 7 degrees
less than 4 degrees
If Pluto’s inclination is 17 degrees, what does it imply regarding its association with the solar system?
isn’t close to the eliptical, didn’t form from
What is mass?
measure of quantity of matter in object
Relative mass of Terrestrial planets vs Jovian planets
Terrestrial: less than 1 (earth=1)
Jovian: more than 1
Gravitational attraction of a body is directly related to its __
mass
planets with high masses have…
high surface gravities
defintion of weight
dependent on the gravitational attraction btw object and planet
weight vs mass
weight changes w/planet you’re on
mass stays the same
Density definiton
unit
mass per unit volume of a substance
g/cm^3
Least massive planet
mercury
Planet with greatest gravitational attraction vs least gravitational attraction
jupiter
mercury
when given how many times the surface gravity of a planet is of Earth, how do you find the weight of an individual given their weight on Earth?
just multiply their lbs by that #
AVG density terrestrial vs Jovian
Terrestrial: much larger than 1
Jovian: cluster around 1
Which of the two groups of planets is more likely to attract and hold low-density gaseous material, such as hydrogen and helium?
Jovian planets
Number of satellites of terrestrial planets vs number of satellites of Jovian planets
Terrestrial: few
Jovian: many
What is the relationship btw a planet’s number of moons and its mass?
a more massive object will have a greater gravitational attraction, thus it’ll hold more moons bc of its stronger pull
relationship btw a planet’s size and density
how does this relate to the composition of inner and outer planets
larger diameter=less dense (lighter/gas-outer planets)
smaller diameter=more dense (heavier-rocky planets)
Polar flattening definition and terrestrial vs Jovian
Measure of how squished a planet is from north to South Pole
Terrestrial: smaller
Jovian: larger
Orbital velocity definition
Terrestrial vs Jovian
Speed a planet moves on it revolution
terrestrial: faster
Jovian: slower
what could explain the fact that Mars has a somewhat lower density than the other terrestrial planets
farthest from the Sun
Densities of the Jovian planets in comparison to the density of water
which planet has a density less than water, so it would “float”
close to the density of water
Saturn
What direction do planets rotate about their axis? Exception?
counterclockwise
Venus
Period of rotation meaning
Terrestrial vs Jovian
How long it takes to rotate around axis (how long a day is for that planet)
Terrestrial: longer (days)
Jovian: shorter (hours)
Period of revolution definition aka
Terrestrial vs Jovian
what direction
How long it takes for a planet to go around the sun
Orbital period
terrestrial: shorter
Jovian: longer
counterclockwise
velocity equation
what’s another way to think about it
distance/time
diameter/period of rotation
Terrestrial planets vs Jovian planets when asked how many orbits will they go through in 1 Earth yr
terrestrial: more than 1 orbit (except Mars)
jovian: less than 1 orbit
Kepler’s third law of motion
p^2=d^3
p=orbital period
d=AUs
