The Inner and Outer Planets Flashcards
What are Terrestrial Planets?
The highly dense planets nearest to the sun; Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
What is Mercury like?
It is the closest planet to the sun and is extremely hot at any point facing the sun.
What is Venus like?
It is the second planet from the sun and has a huge greenhouse effect that keeps the planet’s surface temperature at over 700K.
What is the Hydrosphere?
The portion of Earth that is water.
What is Mars like?
It is the last inner planet, it is very cold and has two moons. It also has polar ice caps and the solar system’s largest volcano.
What is an Asteroid?
A small rocky object that orbits the sun, usually found in the Asteroid Belt.
What is a Gas Giant?
Gas Giants are all of the outer planets of our Solar System, these all have giant atmospheres.
What is a Meteor?
An asteroid the burns up in our atmosphere and leaves a bright streak in the sky.
What is Jupiter like?
Jupiter is the first planet after the Asteroid Belt and is the largest planets in the Solar System. It is 5 AU’s from the sun, orbits the sun in 12 years, and rotates in only 10 hours. It also has 39 satellites (moons).
What is different about all Gas Giants?
They all have rings and moons.
What is Saturn like?
Saturn is the 6th planet; it takes 10.7 hours to rotate and 29 years to orbit the sun. Saturn also has spectacular rings around it.
Why can Saturn still be considered forming?
It can be considered that it is forming because it is constantly burning off atmospheric helium. Scientists believe that until the helium is gone and an equilibrium is reached, the planet is still forming.
What are Uranus and Neptune like?
They are both Gas Giants and are very similar is size, color, and make up. They are both blue because of the methane in their atmospheres and they both have extreme storms. Uranus is 19 AU from the sun while Neptune is 30 AU from the sun.
What is Pluto like?
It is an extremely small planet, smaller than our moon, and consists of a small gaseous atmosphere over a solid icy surface. The planet has a moon named Charon half its size, is 40 AU from the sun, and takes 248 years to complete an orbit.
What else is special about Pluto?
It isn’t always the farthest planet from the sun, it sometimes cut’s into Neptune’s orbit.
