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Download Describing the Solar System File
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Learn this Sequence! Nebula is a cloud of Hydrogen and Helium gas and dust. Nebula collapsed under its own gravity. The gas cloud began to spin and pack together and became denser. The Kinetic energy of the dust and gas was converted into heat energy. The cloud started to flatten out into a disc with a hot, dense Protostar at the centre. Dense material in the disc, such as dust, was pulled in closer than the lighter gas. Several small, whirlpool like eddies formed in the disc. These whirlpools eventually formed the following: The four inner rocky planets The five outer gas planets The asteroids and comets The moons which orbit the planets All the planets revolve around the Sun in the same direction of rotation. (This is the same direction of the swirling disk that formed from the nebula) The Planets orbit the Sun in elongated circles known as ellipses. Sun Asteroids Occupying an orbit between that of mars and Jupiter are thousands of asteroids. Asteroids could be the remains of a smashed up planet or moon. Asteroids are lumps of rock ranging from a tennis ball in size up to 700km across. It is thought that Jupiter’s gravity keeps the asteroids smeared out around this belt and stops them forming a planet. Comets Comets also orbit the Sun but these have highly elliptical orbits. Most comets have very long orbits, which takes them well outside the orbit of Pluto. Comets can be thought of as dirty snowballs as they contain both rock and ice. The radiation pressure from the Sun melts the ice forming the tail of the comet. The tail always points away from the Sun. Comets are thought to come from either of two regions outside of the solar system. Kuiper Belt - Much like the Asteroid Belt, this s a ring of rocks that orbit the Sun outside of Neptune’s orbit. The debris out there is thought to have been untouched since the formation of the Solar System. Oort Cloud – This is a cloud of comets surrounding our solar system. Unlike the Kuiper belt, which lies on the same orbital plane as the planets, the Oort cloud forms a sort of shell or halo around the solar system. Occasionally a nearby star may “nudge” the debris in these regions out of their normal orbits and send them on a collision course for our solar system! Use your notes from the previous lessons to answer the clues to the crossword.