Astronomical Geo 1 - 7 Flashcards
What is the solar system?
Solar refers to sun. Solar system is a system consisting of the sun, planets asteroids and comets that revolve around it.
What is an orbit?
An ellipse shaped path for planets
Three facts about solar system?
Earth one of 8 planets
Earth revolve around sun
Rotation of Earth causes day and night
What are terrestrial planets?
Closest to sun: mercury Venus Earth Mars
Known as inner planets
Rocky planets: consists of mostly rock and metals
What are gas giants?
Large planets, mostly gas - hydrogen and helium Small rocky core More than 10x the mass of Earth Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Furthest away from Sun
Why is the Earth geoidal?
The Earth bulges out at the Equator and is flatter at the Poles
What is rotation?
When the Earth rotates around its own axis
What is a revolution?
The revolves around the sun
What is the astroid belt?
An area in the solar system between Mars and Jupiter occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called astroids and minor planets
What separates night and day?
The circle of illumination
Why is the earth not upright?
It is tilted on its axis which passes through the north and south poles
How fast does the earth rotate in what direction?
From west to east in 24 hours at the speed of 1600 km/h
How does rotation cause day and night?
Earth rotates own axis, only one side of earth face sun day
Other side darkness night
What is constant parallelism?
Earth is not positioned upright in space, a line passes through the center of earth, tilted at an angle of 23 1/2°
How is seasons caused?
Constant parallelism places on earth surface different amounts of daylight darkness every 24 hours. Depends on line of latitude on.
Winter season southern hemisphere because tilted away from the sun. Northern hemisphere summer because tilted towards the sun.
