The Planets Inner Planets
The Planets
Inner Planets Outer Planets
One side very hot-
Incredibly _______________________ atmospheric pressure – if you were to land on Venus, first you would be crushed, then cooked!
Covered in very thick sulphuric acid cloud.
_______________________________- hot enough to melt lead!
VENUS
Covered in craters.
Very thin atmosphere.
Takes ____________________ to orbit the sun.
The other is very cold.
_____________________________ to the Sun.
____________________________
MERCURY
The Inner Planets. All of these are small-ish planets which are made from rock. They are also called the ____________________________________________________.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
____________________________
____________________________
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Can only see the surface via radar.
Orbits the sun in ____________________________________.
________________________________ on Venus is longer than its year – and it
____________________________________________________________.
EARTH
Only planet known to definitely have
___________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________. Pleasant temperature .
Orbits Sun in ___________________________________.
Has one natural satellite: __________________________________.
Most studied planet – for obvious reasons.
Few impact craters.
MARS – The Red Planet ______________________________________ from the Sun.
Fairly cold, but can get up to freezing point.
____________________________________ - Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror). Both are on a
______________________________________ with Mars. May have had life at one time – certainly _________________________, rivers – possibly
oceans! ____________________________________, maybe some ice.
Thin carbon dioxide atmosphere.
THE FACE OF MARS
This picture was taken by the _________________________________ _____.
It is most likely a ________________________________ _________________________________ _____ - but its resemblance to a human head is striking!
Some people claim it looks like the ___________________ of Egypt!
THE ASTEROID BELT
Lies ______________________________________ Mars and Jupiter.
Lots of ______________________________________________________________, some are quite large.
May have been a planet that failed to _______________________________________.
Most asteroids are not solid – more like bundles of rock.
THE OUTER PLANETS
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________________________________
These planers are, with the _____________________________________________, very large
balls of gas. They may have _____________________________________________, but this is unknown.
JUPITER
________________________________________ in the solar system -big enough to swallow
Earth several times. Has at ___________________________________________ - 4 can be seen easily from Earth (Ganymede, Io, Europa and Callisto). Has a huge _______________________________ - a massive
_____________________________________________________________. Jupiter gives out more energy than it receives.
Takes __________________________________ to orbit the Sun.
JUPITERS MOONS
Ganymede is the _________________________ moon in the ____________________________-
bigger than Mercury and Pluto. Io has ________________________________ sulphur volcanoes.
Europa is covered with _________________. There may be liquid water underneath.
Callisto.
SATURN
Famous for its __________ - these are _________________
____________________, but composed of lots of bits of ________________. At least _________________________________. Biggest are
Titan, Rhea, Lapetus and Dione. Takes ___________________________ to orbit the Sun.
Would float in water, if you could make a container big
enough!
TITAN - The Odd One Out Titan is nearly as big as Ganymede, but has __________________________________________.
Unlike nearly every other moon, it has a _____________________________________________
- thicker than the Earth’s. It is very __________________. If you lived on Titan, you would have to be careful of the
methane rain (methane is a natural gas). There may even be methane oceans, with methane icebergs!
URANUS ______________________________________ from the Sun.
Spins on ________________________________ - Uranus’s north pole sometimes points directly
____________________________________________________. Has rings but not as prominent as Saturns.
15 moons. Largest are Titania and Oberon.
Takes ______________________________ to orbit the Sun.
NEPTUNE _______________________________ from the Sun.
Takes _________________________________________ to orbit the sun.
Very similar to Uranus – slightly smaller.
_____________________________________ - the largest is Triton.
Thin rings.
Radiates more ________________________ than it receives.
TRITON – Another Strange One Triton, like Titan, also has an atmosphere, but considerably thinner.
It is the only moon in the solar system to orbit the wrong way – the opposite way to the
planets rotation. Has evidence of volcanoes and plate tectonics.
PLUTO: The weakest Link
_______________________________
from the Sun. Discovered in the 1930’s.
Takes _________________________
to orbit the Sun. Very little known about it.
One moon -Charon. Discovered in
1978. Very, very, very, _______________!
Thin methane atmosphere.
Planet or asteroid? The jury is out!
PLANET X After Pluto was found, a search started for a tenth planet.
Its existence is inferred by _________________________________________ in the orbits of
the other planets and comets, but would have to be _____________________ (3 times the mass of Saturn). A small object has been found, but it is too small to be called a planet. (only 200 km in
diameter).
COMETS _________________________________________ - made of rock and ice.
Usually highly ___________________________________________ orbits.
When they approach the Sun, they ________________________________ and gain long tails.
Up to the 17 th century, people believed the __________________________ was the ______________________ of the universe.
It is also the only thing, other than the Earth, that Mankind has ___________________ - the last time being 1974.
The Moon is the Earths _____________________________ natural satellite.
THE EARTH AND THE MOON
It needed to be “fiddled”!
The ___________________________________________ view did not easily explain this.
The main problem with this theory was that the planets sometimes appear to travel ___________________________________________________. (Retrograde motion).
BUT HOW DID THIS WORK?
All the other members of the Solar System, including the Sun, orbited the Earth.
SO WHAT DID PEOPLE USED TO THINK?
The most famous is Hailey’s Comet – seen every ________________________________.
Galileo was ____________________________ for his book, Copernicus _________________ until he was nearly dead to publish his.
______________________________________________________ first proposed the heliocentric (sun-centred theory). This outraged the church, and their work was _______________________.
We now know all the planets orbit the sun, but it used to be very different.
A BIT OF HISTORY
This is also why _________________________ orbit planets.
All the planets/asteroids/comets travel in _______________________________ orbits because they are all __________________________ round by the Sun’s gravity.
The Sun, being the ____________________________________ in the solar system, has the ___________________________________ gravitation field.
WHY DO THEY ORBIT THE SUN?
Traditionally though to be bringers of bad tidings. (Comets that appeared in 1066 and 1666).
The Moon orbits the Earth in about ______________________.
As it orbits, it causes some interesting effects, like __________________________________________________________________________.
The Earth and the Moon – Phases
As the moon goes around the Earth, our view of it changes, so the amount we see changes from a full moon, to a new moon:
The Earth and the Moon: Eclipses
_______________________________________: When the moon moves into the Earth’s
shadow:
_______________________________________: When the Earth moves into the moon’s
shadow:
PART 3: THE STUDY OF THE UNIVERSE Where Did It All Come From??
Scientists believe the Universe started with the _________________________________.
Before the Big Bang all the matter in the matter in the Universe was compressed into a tiny dot called a ___________________________________________.
Since the Big Bang – you can think of it as a ___________________________________________
- the universe has been expanding, with galaxies steadily getting further and further away from each other.
The universe contains everything you can see – and ________________________________________________________________________!
There are millions of groups of stars called ____________________________________!
Galaxies are held together by _____________________________ - all the stars in a galaxy orbit a ________________________________ - thought to be a ______________________________ in many cases.
Galaxies are fairly evenly distributed. But they are a long way away from each other – typically millions of __________________________________________ away.
One light year is 9460530000000km. This is the distance light travels in a year! Some Galaxies are…. 1) ________________________________________________ 2) ________________________________________________ 3) ________________________________________________ 4) ________________________________________________
Our galaxy is the _____________________________________________.
It is about ______________ thousand light year across.
That is 851 447 700 000 000 000 km.
Basically, it is _____________________________!
It contains a lot of stars. 400 000 000 000 to be exact.
The stars, which are just balls of very hot ______________ which give off light, are quite
______________________ together by comparison. Our sun is the __________________________________ of stars.
It is average mass, average temperature, average size.
Supergiants can be ________________ times this size.