Mrs. Cronin's Review Chapter 20 The Solar System
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debjcronin on March 13, 2012
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Chapter 20
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47 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Geocentric Model | Shows the earth at the center of the revolving planets and stars |
| Heliocentric Model | Shows the sun at the center of the revolving planets and stars |
| Ptolemy | Responsible for promoting the earth-centered theory |
| Copernicus | Person instrumental in developing the sun-centered model of the solar system |
| Ellipse | An oval shape which may be elongated or nearly circular |
| Epicycle | A small circle that moved around a larger circle and accounted for the motion of planets in the geocentric model |
| Tycho Brahe | Observed the positions of the planets for more than 20 years |
| Kepler | Discovered that the orbit of each planet is an ellipse |
| Galileo | Used a telescope to make discoveries that supported the heliocentric model |
| Core | Where nuclear fusion takes place in the sun |
| Convection Zone | The outermost layer of the sun's interior |
| Radiation Zone | The area of the sun's interior where energy is transferred mainly by electromagnetic radiation |
| Photosphere | The layer that you see when you look at a typical image of the sun |
| Chromosphere | The part of the sun's atmosphere that has a reddish glow |
| Corona | The layer of the sun's atmosphere that looks like a halo during an eclipse |
| Sunspot | Areas of gas on the sun's surface that are cooler than the gases around them |
| Solar wind | A stream of electrically charged particles produced by the corona |
| Solar flare | Eruptions that occur when the loops in sunspot regions suddenly connect |
| Prominence | Reddish loops of gas that link parts of sunspot regions |
| Nuclear fusion | the joining of hydrogen atoms to form helium |
| Terrestrial planets | Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Pluto |
| 3 similarities among terrestrial planets | small, dense, and have rocky surfaces |
| 3 main layers of the earth | Core, Mantle, and Crust |
| Mercury | The planet closest to the sun |
| Venus | The hottest planet |
| Earth | Seventy percent is covered with water |
| Mars | The red planet |
| Jupiter | The planet that is largest and has the Great Red Spot |
| Saturn | The planet with the most spectacular rings |
| Uranus | The planet that rotates on its side |
| Neptune | The planet with the Great Dark Spot |
| Pluto | The smallest planet |
| Jovian planets | Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, & Neptune |
| 3 things the Jovian planets have in common | Large size, made of gas, and rings |
| Comets | Loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles that orbit the sun in very long, narrow ellipses |
| Meteors | A shooting star |
| Meteoroids | A chunk of rock or dust in space |
| Meteorites | A meteoroid that has passed through the atmosphere and hit Earth's suface |
| Asteroids | Rocky objects that are revolving around the sun that are too small and too numerous to be called planets |
| The 2 parts of a comet | Head, tail |
| The 2 parts of the comet's head | Nucleus & coma |
| The 2 types of comet tails | Gas and dust |
| The trapping of heat by the atmosphere | Greenhouse effect |
| Asteroid belt | Area between Mars and Jupiter where asteroids are found |
| 2 areas where most comets are found | Oort Cloud & Kuiper Belt |
| Meteor | Another name for a shooting star |
| 11 years | The number of sunspots varies in this time period |
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