Space

• What are the characteristics of the inner planets of our solar system?

  Rocky, cooled crust surface and made from iron
• What are the inner planets of our solar system?

  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
• What are the characteristics of the outer planets of our solar system?

  Gas giants, core but no surface, mainly hydrogen
• What are the outer planets of our solar system?

  Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
• Where is the astroid belt located?

  Between Mars and Jupiter, has its own orbit
• What happens to the tails of comets?

  Always face away from the Sun
• What is an elliptical orbit?

  A path followed by an object in space that is shaped like an ellipse, doesn‘t follow same orbit as planets
• What are the different measurements of space?

  Astronomical units (AU) and Light-years (L-Y)
• What is an astronomical unit?

  The average distance between Earth and the Sun (150 million km)
• What is a light-year?

  The distance light travels in a year (9.5 trillion km)
• What speed does light travel at?

  300,000,000 m/s (3x10^8 m/s)
• What are stars?

  Stars are hot objects that emit their own light (luminous), giant balls of gas
• What are the forces in a star?

  Two forces are opposing each other in a star to keep it stable: gravity and gas pressure, if both forces are balanced, the star stays the same size
• What are nebula (stellar nursery)

  Large clouds of dust and gas (mainly hydrogen), all stars start their lives here
• What is a protostar?

  Hydrogen and other light elements undergo nuclear fusion, which produces energy and the core gets brighter and hotter
• What is a main sequence star?

  A protostar becomes a main sequence star, a star will spend most of its life in the main sequence, forces are balanced
• What is a red giant?

  Low mass star, hydrogen has virtually run out, star expands, gives off red light
• What is a white dwarf?

  Low mass star, red giant eventually runs out of its fuel and loses its outer layers leaving the core of the star, it is dense, hot, smaller and glows white
• What is a black dwarf?

  Low mass star, a white dwarf cools downs (none of these exist yet)
• What is a red supergiant?

  High mass star, has more fuel and gets even bigger
• What is a supernova?

  Smaller high mass star, forces become unbalanced, massive shockwave is created, heavy elements are thrown into space, can outshine entire galaxy, only lasts a few seconds
• What is a neutron star?

  Smaller high mass star, compressed core left behind, core turns into neutrons, extremely dense
• What is a black hole?

  Larger high mass star, star is bigger and the leftover core will continue to collapse, gravitational field is now so strong that nothing can escape from it
• What is a Hertzsprung - Russel Diagram?

  Allows us to predict the life cycle of a star that we can see in space