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55 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Rocky planets similar in overall composition to Earth
Terrestrial Planets
Giant gaseous planets similar in overall composition to Jupiter
Jovian Planets
Compounds that contain hydrogen and were common in the solar nebula, such as water, ammonia, and methane
Hydrogen Compounds
A relatively small and rocky ovject that orbits a star; small solar system bodies
Asteroids
The region of our solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in which asteroids are heavily concentrated
Asteroid Belt
A relatively small, icy object that orbits a star.
Comets
The comet-rich region of our solar system that spans distances of about 30-100 AU from the Sun; lies fairly close to the plane of planetary orbits and travel around the Sun in the same direction as the planets
Kuiper Belt
A huge, spherical region centered on the Sun, extending perhaps halfway to the nearest stars, in which trillions of comets orbit the Sun with random inclinations, orbital directions, and eccentricities.
Oort Cloud
The detailed theory that describes how our solar system formed from a cloud of interstellar gas and dust.
Nebular Theory
The piece of interstellar cloud from which our own solar system formed.
Solar Nebula
The formation of solid or liquid particles from a cloud of gas.
Condensation
The boundary in the solar nebula beyond which ices could condense; only metals and rocks can do this.
Frost line
The process by which small objects gather together to make larger objects.
Accretion
The building blocks of planets
Planetesimals
The period in the first few hundred million years after the solar system formed during which the tail end of planetary accretion created most of the craters found on ancient planetary surfaces
Heavy Bombardment
A collision between a forming planet and a very large planetesimal, such as is thought to have formed our Moon.
Giant Impact
The process of determining the age of a rock by comparing the present amount of a radioactive substance to the amount of its decay product
Radiometric Dating
a substance who's nucleus tends to fall apart spontaneously
Radioactive Isotope
The time it takes for half of the nuclei in a given quantity of a radioactive substance to decay.
Half-life
The detection of extrasolar planets through the side-to-side motion of a star caused by gravitational tugs from the planet.
Astrometric Technique
The detection of extrasolar planets through the motion of a star toward & away from the observer caused by gravitational tugs from the planet
Doppler Technique
An event in which a planet passes in front of a star as seen from Earth.
Transit
Occurs when one astronomical object casts a shadow on another or crosses our line of sight to the other object.
Eclipse
the dense central region of a planet that has undergone differentiation.
Core
The rocky layer that lies between a planet's core and crust
Mantle
the low-density surface layer of a planet that has undergone differentiation.
Crust
The process in which gravity separates materials according to density, with high-density materials sinking and low-density materials rising.
Differentiation
The energy transport process in which warm material expands and rises, while cooler material contracts and falls
Convection
Describes the region surrounding a magnet in which it can affect other magnets or charged particles in its vicinity.
Magnetic Field
The region surrounding a planet in which charged particles are trapped by the planet's magnetic field.
Magnetosphere
Dancing lights in the sky caused by charged particles entering our atmosphere.
Aurora
The process of releasing gases from a planetary interior, usually through volcanic eruptions.
Outgassing
The geological process in which plates are moved around by stresses in a planet's mantle
Plate Tectonics
A rock that formed from sediments created and deposited by erosional processes.
Sedimentary Rock
the molecule O^3, which is a particularly good absorber of ultraviolet light
Ozone
The process by which greenhouse gases in an atmosphere make a planet's surface temp warmer than it would be in the absence of an atmosphere.
Greenhouse Effect
Gases, such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane, that are particularly good absorbers of infrared light but are transparent to visible light.
Greenhouse Gases
The regions of the Moon that look smooth from Earth and actually are impact basins
Lunar Maria
A carbon-rich rock, such as limestone, that forms underwater from chemical reactions between sediments and carbon dioxide.
Carbonate Rock
A positive feedback cycle in which heating caused by the greenhouse effect causes more greenhouse gases to enter the atmosphere, which further enhances the greenhouse effect.
Runaway Greenhouse Effect
On Earth, the thin, dense crust of basalt created by seafloor spreading
Seafloor Crust
The process in which one plate slides under another.
Subduction
The thicker lower-density crust that makes up Earth's continents.
Continental Crust
The process that cycles carbon dioxide between the Earth's atmosphere and surface rocks
Carbon Dioxide cycle
An expected increase in Earth's global average temp caused by human input of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Global Warming
A large, high-pressure storm on Jupiter
Great Red Spot
A source of internal heating created by tidal friction. It is particularly important for satellites with eccentric orbits such as Io and Europa.
Tidal Heating
Describes any situation in which one object's orbital period is a simple ratio of another objects period.
Orbital Resonance
A rock fom space that lands on Earth
Meteorite
The dusty atmosphere of a comet created by sublimation of ices in the nucleus when the comet is near the Sun.
Coma
The solid portion of a comet, and the only portion that exists when the comet is far from the Sun
Nucleus
One of two tails seen when a comet passes near the Sun; composed of ionized gas blown away from the Sun by the solar wind.
Plasma Tail
One of two tails seen when a comet passes near the Sun: composed of small solid particles pushed away from the Sun by the radiation pressure of sunlight.
Dust Tail
A period during which many more meteors than usual can be seen.
Meteor Shower
An event in which a larger fraction of the species living on Earth go extinct, such as the event in which the dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago.
Mass Extinction