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