Download !GLG-101-Chapter 1-Illustrated Vocabulary copyright 2003

!GLG-101-Chapter 1-Illustrated Vocabulary
copyright 2003-Roger Weller
!gas giant planets:
*the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
!iron meteorite
*one of the most identifiable of the different varieties of meteorites; made mostly of iron
with some nickel. Often the metal is crystallized the pattern can be brought out by
etching with acid; the resulting geometrically arranged lines is called a Widmanstatten
pattern.
*[Iron Meteorite-Argentina-1]
*[Widmanstatten Pattern-2]
!Jupiter
*the largest planet in the solar system,a gas giant that is ten times the diameter of the
Earth.
!Mars
*the fourth planet from the sun. It is smaller than earth and its orbit lies beteen the orbits
of Earth and Jupiter.
!Mercury
*The planet whose orbit is closest to the sun.
!meteorite
*a rock that enters the Earth's atmosphere from outer space and falls to the ground.
*[Iron Meteorite-Argentina-1]
*[Widmanstatten Pattern-1]
!meteorite impact crater
*large meteorites, travelling at great speeds, are capable of creating craters when they
strike the Earth.
*[Meteor Crater-Rim-1]
*[Meteor Crater-Crater Floor]
!plate tectonics
*the surface layer of the planet is brittle and broken into large pieces called plates.
Convection within the mantle of the planet moves these plates with respect to each other.
!rock cycle
*a description of physical processes that relate the formation of igneous rocks, sediments,
sedimentary rocks, and metamorphic rocks.
!solar system
*our sun and all of the planets, asteroids, and comets associated with it.
!solar wind
*high speed subatomic particles ejected from the sun.
!stoney meteorite
*most of the meteorites that fall on the earth are made primarily of silicate minerals.
!Sun (Sol)
*the star at the center of our solar system. It is approximately 100 times greater than the
diameter of the Earth.
!terrestrial planets
*the four inner rocky planets of the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars
!tektite
*a glass meteorite; probably created during a meteorite impact on Earth where some of
the ground was fused by the enormous amount of kinetic is converted to heat energy
!Venus
*the second planet from the Sun in our solar system. It is approximately the same size of
the Earth but is much hotter and it is wrapped in a carbon dioxide atmosphere 100 times
denser than the Earth's atmosphere.