The Solar System Flashcards
Who was Aristarchus?
He was the greek to profess a sun-centered universe. (312-230 B.C.)
What is retrograde motion?
Planets exhibiting an apparent westward drift.
What did Ptolemy create?
He created a geocentric model, to expain two planetary motions. Large orbital circles (around earth) and small circles (around themselves).
What did Nicholuas Copernicus do?
He concluded the Earth was a planet, he constructed a model of the solar system with the Sun at the center, and he used circular orbits for planets.
What did Tycho Brahe do?
He was a precise observer, he came up with stellar parallax, but he was unable to observer stellar parallax.
What is Stellar Parallax?
The apparent shift in a star’s position Earth revolved around the sun.
What did Johannes Kepler discover?
He discovered that the planets revolve around the sun. (1571-1630)
What are the Three law of planetery motion?
- Orbits of planets are elliptical.
- Planets revolve around the sun at varying speeds.
- Proportional relationship between a planet’s orbital period and its distance to the sun.
What did Galileo Galilei construct and discover?
He contructed the first astronomical telescope in 1609 and discovered four large moons of Jupiter, planets appeared as disks, phaeses of Venus, features of the moon, sunspots (became blind after because of looking at the sun directly). IN addition, he supported the Copernican theory. He also tried and convicted by the Inquisition (1663); exonerated by Pope John Paul II in 1992. (1564-1642)
What did Sir Issac Newton discover?
He discovered that the force of gravity and the tendency of a planet to remain in straight-line motion (inertia), results in the elliptical orbits.
What are Marias?
They are dark reginons that are fairly smooth and are originated from meteorite impact and lava flooding the surface.
What are highlands?
They are bright, densely cratered regions which make up most of the moon. In addition, they are older than Marias.
Which inner planets have athmospheres?
Earth, Venus, and Mars have athmospheres.
What escape velocities do the inner planets and outer planets have?
Inner planets have low escape velocitites and Outer planets have higher escape velocities.
What describes the four Jovian planets.
They are the largest planets which are 15 times bigger than Earth, only in the outer solar system (3 to 50 AU), they have no solid surfaces which are mostly made up of their atmosphere.
