Solar System Flashcards
What is a solar system before it forms?
Solar Systems form from Nebulas.
What are Nebulas?
Clouds of gas and dust that form in space.
How do Nebulas form solar systems?
The pressure of the gases in the nebula act outwards and cause it to expand while gravitational forces pull inward, causing the nebula to collapse in on itself. As it collapses, it begins to spin. Due to the interaction of the pressure and gravitational forces, as the Nebula spins it becomes flatter and forms a broad disk over time as the Nebula continues to collapse. Density of the center of the disc increases, and heats up.
What is the hot, dense center of a transforming nebula called?
A protosun.
How do planets form as a nebula is flattened by the opposite forces of gas pressure and gravity?
Within the flattened disc surrounding the protosun, swirling eddies develop, drawing in matter towards their centers to form protoplanets. Eventually the protoplanets become solid planets and continue their orbit, governed by the initial spin of the swirling nebula.
What happens as the protosun continues to heat up?
As the protosun becomes hotter, the gases are driven out from the planets on the inner parts of the solar system.
Which direction to planets orbit around the sun?
They orbit same direction around the sun that they inherited from the spin of the nebula.
Which direction to planets orbit on their own axis?
orbit in place in the direction They orbit the same direction of the eddies that formed the protoplanets that they were made of. Their orbits are nearly perpendicular to the orbit plane.
List the planets off in order from closest to the sun to farthest.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Describe the composition of the inner planets of our solar system.
The inner planets have metallic cores because the heat of the sun drove out the gases from these planets. Inner planets are dominated by silicon and oxygen compounds.
How many Astronomical Units (AU) away from the sun are the inner planets?
Mercury 0.367, Venus 0.723, Earth 1.0, Mars 1.52.
What are Astronimal Units?
Astronomical Units are measured based off of Earth’s distance from the sun. Earth is 1 AU from the sun.
How many kms is 1 AU?
149,597,900km
