Space Flashcards
1
Q
What is in our solar system?
A
- Sun (a star)
- Mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune
- Dwarf planets (pluto, ceres, eris)
- Moon
- The asteriod belt
- Coments and ellipitical orbits
2
Q
Where is our solar system?
A
In the milky way galaxy (100 billion stars)
3
Q
How was our sun formed?
A
The sun was formed about 4.5 billion years ago when a cloud of gas and dust (a nebula) was pulled together by gravitatinal attraction.
The particles in the cloud got faster and collided more. The gas warmed up and eventually became hot enough to glow (protostar).
As the protostar gets more dense, more collsions take place and it gets hotter. Eventually the could gets hot enough for hydrogen atoms to fuse, forming helium.
4
Q
Why does the sun remain in the main sequence stage?
A
In the main sequence stage, the gravitatinal attraction still pulling on the gas (actually a plasma) is balanced by the outward
