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56 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
When a of rock is large enough to survive its fiery decent through the atmosphere, the object that reaches the ground is called a ________.
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meteorite
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What is a galaxy?
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A system of billions of stars.
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What are the three types of galaxies?
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Spiral Galaxies which are shaped like pinwheels, elliptical galaxies which look like bob with no spirals and can be circular or flattened and irregular galaxies with no definate shape.
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What is a change of light or sound wavelengths as a source moves toward or away from the observer?
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The Doppler Effect
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What are Meteors?
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"Shooting Stars" which are streaks of light caused by meteorids passing through Earth's atmosphere at high speeds
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What is a light year?
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The distance that light travels in one year.
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What galaxy do we live in, what kind of galaxy is it, and where is the sun located.
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The Milky Way, a spiral galaxie and the sun is located about 10,000 light yrs away from the center.
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What are regions on the surface of the sun that consist of cooler gases than those surrounding it?
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sunspots
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The sun is (larger/smaller/average) in diameter, density and mass compared to other stars.
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average
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What is the Sun primarily composed of?
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hydrogen and helium
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What did Galileo use sunspots to measure?
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the speed of rotation for the Sun to be about 4 weeks
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As a planet moves toward the Sun, its _______ ________ increases.
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orbital velocity
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About how long ago and how did the solar system form?
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about 5 billion years ago from a giant cloud of gas and debris.`
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The greater the latitude, the ________ the change in direction per hour of the Foucault Pendulum.
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greater
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What are light waves speeding away toward us and will be squeezed into shorter wavelengths called?
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Blue-Shift
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Which type of panets are most similar to Earth: Terrestrial or jovian?
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Terrestrial
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What are the characteristics of terrestrial planets?
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are small (no larger then earth), have low mass and high densities compared to jovian planets, heavy elements, less significant atmosphere, which suggests they are solid
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What is a small dense white-hot star, about the size of a planet?
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A white dwarf
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What is when pressure squeezes electrons into atomic nuclei to produce neutrons?
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a neutron star
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What are the four terrestrial plantets?
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Mercury, Mars, Earth and Venus
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What are the four jovian planets?
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Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
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What are the characteristics of jovian plantets?
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they have low densities, composed primarily of gases, dominated by vast swarlinf cloud formations
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What is astronomy?
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It is the study of the universe, the stars, planets and all other objects in space.
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What is the Big Bang theory?
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The theory that a termendous explosion of an extreemly dense mass about 15 to 20 billion years ago, that produced the expanding universe that exists today.
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What is a black hole?
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a region od black surrounded by stars
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What are fragments of rocks or ice traveling in space?
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Meteoroids
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What is the outer portion of a neutron star explodes producing the brightest known object in space.
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A supernova
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What are huge masses of dust and gas (hydrogen) that condense in space?
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Nebula
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T or F: Earth is the only planet that has large amounts of water at its surface with temperature and pressure balance enough to allow water to exist in its three forms: ice, liquid, and vapor.
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True.
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What determines whether substances are solids, liquids, or gases?
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temperature
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What are light waves of an object speeding away through space and STRETCHing into longer wavelenghts?
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Red-shift
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What is the heliocentric model?
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the sun centered model first introduced by Coprenicus
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What is when hydrogen is fused into helium and energy is released?
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nuclear fusion
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T or F: Earth and Venus today are the only planets in our solar system with the type of atmosphere to support life as we know it.
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False: Earth is the only panet that has the type of atmosphere to support life as we know it.
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What are red giants?
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The temperature of the star's expanded surface cools and its gases glow with a reddish hue..
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What is the apparent path of the sun against the background stars called?
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ecliptic
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What is retrograde motion of the planets explained by?
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the idea that the further a planet is from the Sunm the slower its orbital velocity
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What is the result of a collision of a large meteorite with Earth's surface.
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impact crater
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The smaller the eccentricity, the _______ circular the orbit
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more
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What is the imaginary sphere that encircles earth?
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celestial sphere
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T or F: With little or no atmosphere, there is alot of weathering on Mercury, Mars and the Moon
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Faulse there is little or no weathering
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What is Hubble's Law?
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The relationship between the distance and speeds of galaxies and really means that the Universe is expanding.
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What is one of the few stars that are bigger and brighter than the typical red giants?
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supergiants
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What is the region surrounding the Sun in which the temperatures of a planet are suited to support life?
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The Ecosphere
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What are stars located between the northern horizon and Polaris that never set and move in counterclockwise circles called?
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circumpolar stars
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What is a star's spectra?
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Colors produced when wavelenghts of light are seperated
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What is the point on the celestial sphere that is directly above an observer's position on Earth's surface?
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zenith
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What are chunks of ice?
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comets
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Where do astronomers beleive that asteroids came from?
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The formation of the solar system, or from comets that have broken apart.
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What is the distance in degrees measured clockwise from due north position of a celestial object?
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azimuth
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What is a rock with an irregular shape that orbits the sun?
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an Asteroid
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When a comet is far from the sun, it consits primarily of _______________.
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dust and ice (frozen ammonia, methane, and water).
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What produces the long flowing tail behind a comet?
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When conets with highly elongated orbits come close to the Sun, and the Sun's radiation vaporizes some if the some of the comets ice.
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June 21st is called the ___________________, and the earth is tilted _______ degrees.
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Summer Solstice, 23 1/2
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The tendancy of matter moving across Earth's surface to be deflected from a straight-line path is called _________.
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Coriolis effect
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What is the material given off from a rapidly spining neutron star?
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pulsar
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