Download solar system study guide - East Hanover Township School District

SOLAR SYSTEM STUDY GUIDE
1) Solar system – the sun and all the bodies traveling around it
2) Planets – large bodies orbiting a star
3) Star – balls of glowing hot gas
4) Orbit – path that a planet or asteroid takes as it travels around the sun
5) Asteroid – rocky, metallic objects that orbit the sun but are considered too small to be
planets
6) Astronomical Unit - distance between the Earth & the sun or 93 million miles. Units = AU
7) Revolution: how long it takes a planet to go around the sun. A YEAR
8) Rotation: how long it takes a planet to turn once on its axis. A DAY
9) Light Year: the distance light travels in one year or 6 trillion miles
10) comet: “dirty snowball” about the size of an earth mountain. (dirt and ice)
11) Parts of the Comet:
Nucleus is the “Dirty Snowball”
Coma is the cloud of evaporated ices and ions
Tail always points away from Sun
12) Asteroid Belt - Most asteroids revolve around the sun between the orbits of Mars and
Jupiter.
13) Meteoroid: A piece of stone or metal that travels in outer space.
14) Meteor: An object from space that becomes glowing hot when it passes into Earth's
atmosphere.
15) Meteorite: A piece of stone or metal from space that falls to Earth's surface.
PLANETS
The order:
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune
Mercury – closest planet to the sun, terrestrial planet, smallest planet, covered with craters,
thin atmosphere, wide range of temperatures, no moons, named for the messenger of the
Roman gods
Venus – second closest planet to the sun, terrestrial planet, has many volcanoes, dense heavy
atmosphere, very hot, no moons, named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, a day on
Venus (one ROTATION) is longer than Venus’s year (one REVOLUTION); hottest planet
Earth - third closest planet to the sun, terrestrial planet, 71% liquid water, atmosphere allows
for life, one moon, comes from old English word eorthe meaning ground or soil
Mars - fourth closest planet to the sun, terrestrial planet, has two moons named Phobos and
Deimos, named for the Roman god of war
Jupiter - fifth closest planet to the sun, gas giant, gas surface but solid in the middle, has a huge
red spot that is all storms, has rings, 63 known moons, Jupiter was the king of the Roman gods
Saturn - sixth closest planet to the sun, gas giant, has rings, 54 moons, god of agriculture, justice
and strength
Uranus - seventh closest planet to the sun, gas giant, has a solid methane core, has rings, 27
moons, god of the heavens
Neptune - eighth closest planet to the sun, gas giant, has rings, has 13 moons, named for the
Roman god of the seas, the COLDEST planet in the solar system
Can you answer these questions????
A) How can you tell the difference between a star and a planet when looking up at the night
sky?
B) What planets are the terrestrial planets and what planets are the gas giants? What are
three of their primary differences?
C) Why isn’t Pluto a planet anymore? What are the criteria (three rules) for a celestial body to
be classified as a planet?