Andrés López Forastier

Solar System & Earth/Moon System Test Study Guide

Vocab:
 Ecliptic: The apparent path of the Sun's motion on the celestial sphere as seen from Earth is called the
ecliptic
 Astronomical Unit: A unit of length effectively equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth
and the Sun. (Earth is 1 AU from the sun).
 Plutoid: A celestial body which orbits the Sun but is further from it than Neptune. (Pluto)
 Terrestrial Planet: Any of the four planets closest to the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, or Mars.
 Jovian Planets: any of the four large outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
 Comets: A celestial body moving about the sun, usually in a highly eccentric orbit, consisting of a
central mass surrounded by an envelope of dust and gas that normally has a tail.
 Meteoroid: Any of the small bodies, often remnants of comets, traveling through space.
 Meteor: A meteoroid that has entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
 Meteorite: A Meteor that reaches Earth’s surface.
 Tides: The daily change in ocean surface elevation.
 Spring Tide: When the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned, tides due to the Sun and Moon occur at the
same time. (Higher than average high tides & lower than average low tides).
 Neap Tide: When the Moon is at first quarter or third quarter, it is perpendicular to the sun. The solar
and lunar tides do not overlap and the high tides are not as high and the low tides are not as low.
 Solar Eclipse: When the Moons shadow falls on Earth.
 Lunar Eclipse: When the Moon passes into the shadow of the Earth.
 Umbra: The completely dark portion of the shadow cast by the earth, moon, or other body during an
eclipse.
 Penumbra: The partial shadow portion of the shadow cast by the earth, moon, or other body during an
eclipse.
 Solstice: Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial
equator. Summer solstice is on June 21 and has the longest day, Winter Solstice is on December 21 and
has the longest night.
 Equinox: Either of the two times during a year when the sun crosses the celestial equator and when the
length of day and night are approximately equal; the vernal equinox or the autumnal equinox.
 Rotation: The act or process of turning around an axis.
 Revolution: Orbital motion about a point.
 Full Moon: The moon when it is visible as a fully illuminated disk.
 New Moon: The phase of the moon occurring when it passes between the earth and the sun and is
invisible.
 Waxing: Increasing.
 Waning: Shrinking.
 Crescent: When the Moon appears thin and curved.
 Gibbous: More than half.
 Highlands/Terrae: Mountainous region of the Moon.
 Mare/Maria: Large dark, sea looking areas of the Moon.
 Terrestrial Radiation: Electromagnetic radiation originating from Earth and its atmosphere.
 Andrés López Forastier
 Synchronous Rotation: The rotation of a satellite in which the period of rotation is equal to the period of
orbit around its primary, leaving the same face always pointing toward the primary.
 Tidally Locked: When a long-term interaction between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies drives
the rotation rates into a harmonic ration with the orbital period.
 Troposphere: The lowest region of the atmosphere between the earth's surface and the tropopause,
characterized by decreasing temperature with increasing altitude.
 Stratosphere: The region of the atmosphere above the troposphere and below the mesosphere.
(Temperature Increases with altitude).
 Mesosphere: The region of the atmosphere above the Stratosphere and below the Thermosphere.
(Temperature decreases with altitude).
 Thermosphere: The outermost shell of the atmosphere, between the mesosphere and outer space, where
temperatures increase steadily with altitude.
 Ionosphere: A region of the earth's atmosphere where ionization caused by incoming solar radiation
affects the transmission of radio waves. Between the Mesosphere and Thermosphere.
 Exosphere: The outermost layer of the earth's atmosphere, lying above the thermosphere and extending
thousands of kilometers into space, from which molecules having sufficient velocity can escape the
earth's gravitation.
 Ozone Layer: Within the bottom part of the stratosphere and has tons of O3. It absorbs UV radiation.
 Auroras: A luminous atmospheric phenomenon appearing as streamers or bands of light sometimes
visible in the night sky in northern or southern regions of the earth. It is thought to be caused by charged
particles from the sun entering the earth's magnetic field and stimulating molecules in the atmosphere.
 Covalent Bonds: A bond formed by the sharing of a pair of electrons by two atoms.

Concepts:
 The Solar System is a system of planets and other bodies orbiting a star. There is a Sun, 8 planets and
other celestial bodies in our solar system.
 The names of the planets in our Solar System is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
and Neptune.
 Physical Characteristics of Planets (All have moons except Mercury and Venus)
o Terrestrial Planets: (All have crust, mantle, and a core)
 Mercury is very rocky and has tons of craters due to collisions, it is 70% metal & 30%
silicate material. Mercury is slightly larger than Earth’s moon.
 Venus is essentially the size of Earth. Venus has a rocky ground with big volcanoes.
 Earth has tectonic plates which makes a very diverse surface with Mountains and
Trenches. Earth has oceans and some volcanoes.
 Mars is about half the size of Earth. The surface has running water erosion, large canyon
systems, and shield volcanoes.
o Jovian Planets: (Only gas with an inner core) (Atmosphere is considered surface) (Rings made of
frozen water and rocks)
 Jupiter is 318 times as massive as Earth. It has a Great Red Spot, which is a storm that
has winds at 400 mph! Has Europa, a moon, which has an icy surface that may contain
life below.
 Andrés López Forastier
 Saturn is 95 times as massive as Earth. It has a hexagonal storm with winds of 200 mph!
It has yellow lines because it spins so fast. It also has a magnetic field 578 times as
powerful as Earth.
 Uranus is four times the size of Earth. It is blue and it is tilted on its axis. It has a liquid
core.
 Neptune is 17 times as massive as Earth. It is a darker blue than Uranus. It has a mantle
of water, ammonia, and methane ices and a rocky and icy core.
 An Atmosphere is the gaseous mass surrounding a celestial body and is retained by the celestial body’s
gravitational field. Atmospheric Pressure is the force per unit exerted by an atmospheric column.
(Measured by a barometer).
 Atmospheric Composition of Planets:
o Mercury has essentially no atmosphere.
o Venus has an atmosphere of 96% CO2.
o Earth has an atmosphere of 78% N2, 21% O2, and 1% Argon and Water.
o Mars has an atmosphere of 95% CO2, 2.7% N2, 1.6% Argon, and .15% Oxygen and some
Carbon Dioxide and Ozone.
o All Jovian Planets have an atmosphere of Primarily Hydrogen, some Helium, and a little bit of
Ammonia and Methane.
 Similarities Between Inner and Outer Planets
o Made of matter.
o Has gravity.
o All round.
o Both have a core; outer core; mantle; lithosphere; crust.
o Orbit around a star.
o Makeup solar systems.
 Differences Between Inner and Outer Planets
o Inners are inside the asteroid belt while the outer planets are not.
o The outer planets all are gas giants.
o The outer planets are bigger than inners.
o Outer Planets are colder, whereas inner Planets are hotter.
 Mercury is so hot because it is the closest planet to the sun, it is exposed to the sun for extremely long
periods of time, and it has virtually no atmosphere available to disperse heat.
 Venus is the hottest in the Solar System because its atmosphere is primarily CO2 causing the greenhouse
effect.
 Hydrogen, Helium, Ammonia, and Methane make up the outer planets.
 Pluto was demoted from being a planet because it was too small, and it still had yet to collect all of the
debris in its orbital path.
 Other Objects in Our Solar System
o Asteroid Belt: The region of the solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, where most
of the asteroids are found.
o Kuiper Belt: A disk-shaped region in the outer solar system lying beyond the orbit of Neptune
and extending to a distance of about 50 astronomical units, containing thousands of small icy
bodies, some of which are on highly elliptical orbits, periodically visiting the inner solar system
as comets.
 Andrés López Forastier
o Oort Cloud: A swarm of comets orbiting the sun at a distance of one to two light-years, proposed
as a source of comets that pass near the sun.
 Meteoroids are any of the small bodies, often remnants of comets, traveling through space. A Meteor is
when a Meteoroid enters the atmosphere of the Earth. A Meteorite is when a Meteor hits the surface of
the Earth.
 A comet is a celestial body, observed only in that part of its orbit that is relatively close to the sun,
having a head consisting of a solid nucleus surrounded by a nebulous coma up to 2.4 million kilometers
(1.5 million miles) in diameter and an elongated curved vapor tail arising from the coma when
sufficiently close to the sun. Comets are thought to consist chiefly of ammonia, methane, carbon
dioxide, and water. (See figure 32.39 and 32.41)
 Rotation is turning on an axis while revolution is orbiting around something near you.
 Tides are caused on Earth by the Moon.
o Spring Tides are when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned, tides due to the Sun and Moon
occur at the same time. (Higher than average high tides & lower than average low tides).
o Neap Tides are when the Moon is at first quarter or third quarter, it is perpendicular to the sun.
The solar and lunar tides do not overlap and the high tides are not as high and the low tides are
not as low.
 The Sun has less of gravitational effect on the tides as opposed to the moon because it is so much further
away from the Earth.
 Extreme Tides are caused by earth quakes, the movement of tectonic plates.
 The Moons orbit pattern around the Earth in relation to the Sun causes the phases of the moon. (Figure
32.25 and 32.41)
 Moonlight is Sunlight that hits the moon and is reflected towards Earth. Half of the Moon is always lit
up by the Sun.
 A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon enters the Earth's shadow. A solar eclipse occurs when the
Moon's shadow falls on the Earth.
 Lunar Eclipses do not happen every month because the Earth's orbit around the sun is not in the same
plane as the Moon's orbit around the Earth.
 The Moon is composed of Silicon, Iron, Oxygen, Calcium, and small amounts of Uranium and
Hydrogen. The Moon has impact craters, dead volcanoes, and hardened lava flows. The lack of
atmosphere caused impact craters and the once active volcanoes caused the lava flows.
 The Earth’s atmosphere includes the Troposphere, the Stratosphere, the Ozone Layer, the Mesosphere,
the Ionosphere, the Thermosphere and the Exosphere.
 The Atmosphere has different parts that absorb different types of light that make it safer for us to live on
Earth. The atmosphere also helps with the Green House Effect.
 The layers of the atmosphere are determined by the changes in temperature that occur with increasing
altitude.
 The Green House Effect warms Earth’s lower atmosphere. It works because H2O and CO2 retain heat in
the atmosphere when it comes in from the Sun.
 Earth has seasons because of the tilt of its axis facing the sun. The change in seasons is most notable in
the northern hemisphere.