Science: The Solar System Flashcards
What is the order of the planets in our solar system?
What is the scale?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Mercury is the smallest, Venus is slightly bigger than Mercury, Earth is slightly bigger than Venus, and Mars is slightly bigger than Mercury but smaller than Venus. Jupiter is bigger than all of the other planets together, Saturn is slightly smaller than Jupiter, Uranus is slightly smaller than Saturn, and Neptune is slightly smaller than Uranus.
What are the Inner Planets?
The Inner Planets are the first 4 planets closest to the sun. The order, from closest to the sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They are also known as terrestrial planets because they have nickel-iron cores and the planet itself is solid. They are smaller than the outer planets and have little to no moons. Terrestrial planets form closest to the sun as their rocky bodies withstand the sun’s intense heat. All the inner planets have orbits between the sun and the asteroid belt.
What are the Outer Planets?
The Outer Planets are the last 4 planets closest to the sun. They are also known as Jovian planets because they are similar to Jupiter. These planets are made of gas, but still with a solid core. They have a lot of moons. Jupiter has the most. The outer planets are also the biggest planets in the solar system. Jovian planets are much bigger than terrestrial planets, and have no defined outlines. The Jovian planets form farthest away from the reaches of the sun as their liquidy sludge of gas and liquid would not evaporate. Jovian planets ahve orbits between the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt.
What are the differences between the Inner and Outer Planets?
The Inner Planets are the 4 closest planets to the sun. They are solid, and the landscape is similar to Earth. They have little to no moons. The Outer Planets are the 4 farthest planets from the sun. They are bigger than the inner planets. They are made of gas such as Hydrogen and Helium but with a solid core. They have many moons. The Asteroid Belt splits the Inner and Outer planets.
Inner=Terrestial
Outer=Jovian
The outer planets all have one ring around them, which consists of dust and gas. Saturn is the planet with the most recognized and explored ring. They are called a planetary ring system.
What is an asteroid?
COMPETENT
Asteroids, sometimes known as minor planets, are airless bodies floating through space with no known trajectory.
Asteroids can loped, be irregular, and can even have their own natural satellite.
OUTSTANDING
There are 3 main compositions of asteroids.
C-type (chondrite), the most common asteroid, consists of clay and silicate and in appearance, is dark.
S-type asteroids, or stony asteroids, are composed of minerals and metals like nickel and iron.
And finally, M-type asteroids, which as you guessed, are metallic! These guys only have metals in them like nickel, iron, and magnesium-silicate.
WOWWWWWWOWOWOOW(O+)
Asteroids are also categorized into 3 other classifications. There are asteroids in the Main Asteroid Belt and categorized as so.
Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet but are not on track to come in contact. The sun and the planet’s gravitational pull keep Trojans in place. The largest population of Trojans lies around our biggest planet, Jupiter.
Near-Earth Asteroids have orbits with a path that comes close to Earth. Those who cross Earth’s orbit line are known as Earth-crossers.
LITTERALLY OVER THE MOON
There are significant gaps between one asteroid and another in the Main Belt. These empty regions are known as Kirkwood gaps. During the formation of the Asteroid Belt, asteroids were not spread uniformly due to gravity.
The next major collision we will have with an asteroid is in 2175, and with a chance of 1 in 2500!
What is a meteor and what is a comet?
A meteor goes a long way with other terms of celestial objects.
Meteors derive from meteoroids, and meteoroids derive from comets. Comets are basically just dirty snowballs. In other words, they are made of dust, rock particles, and ice. They can be viewed from the naked eye when present in the Inner Solar System as, following it, is a fuzzy trail.
When a comet starts to disintegrate, small parts of the dust and ice form a meteoroid. A meteoroid can also derive from an asteroid.
When this meteoroid comes into contact with Earth’s atmosphere, the friction causes the gas in front of it to heat up, making the meteoroid seem like it’s racing across the sky with a bright streaking light. The phenomenon is known as a meteor.
An asteroid is the biggest celestial rock in space out of all of the meteors, comets, meteorites, and meteroids.
What is a galaxy?
A galaxy is a collection of gas, dust, stars, planets, and debris formed together by gravity. There are three types of galaxies: Elliptical, Spiral, and Irregular. The Milky Way is a Spiral Galaxy.
What is the Milky Way?
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. We are currently inside the Milky Way. The Milky Way is also a collection of dust, gas, planets, stars, and debris. Currently the sun resides in the Orion Spur/Arm.
The arms of the galaxy are Scutum-Centaurus (Top-most), Outer Arm (Bottom-left most), Perseus (Second-bottom-most), Sagittarius (Fourth), Orion (Third, but splits from Sagittarius), Near 3kpc (East to the core), Far 3kpc (West to the core), and Norma (under Scutum-Centaurus)
