Chapter 19

  1. dawrf planets
    the family of icy worlds that orbit beyond Neptune in our solar system
  2. Plutinos
    Icy Kuiper belt objects that, like Pluto, are caught in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune
  3. Widmanstatten pattern
    the bands in iron meterorites that appear because of the presence of large crystals of nickel-iron alloys
  4. chondrite
    a stony meteorite that contains chondrules
  5. chondrule
    a round, glassy body found in some stony meteorites. Chondrules are believed to have solidified very quickly from molten drops of silicate material
  6. meteor shower
    a multitude of meteors that appear to come from the same region of the sky and are believed to be caused by comet debris
  7. s-type asteroids
    rockey asteroids believed to be fragments from the crust and mantle
  8. M-type asteroids
    asteroids believed to be fragments form the metallic cores of differentiated asteroids
  9. C-type asteroids
    asteroids that are plentiful in carbon compounds and are more common in the outer asteroid belt
  10. Oort Cloud
    • a swarm of icy bodies believed to lie in a spherical shell extending to 100,000 AU from the sun.
    • Scientists have advanced the hypothesis that this region is the source of long period comets
  11. gas tail (type I)
    a comet tail composed of ionized gas atoms released from the nucleus and carried outward by the solar wind
  12. dust tail (type II)
    a comet tail composed of dust released from the nucleus and pushed away by the pressure of sunlight
  13. coma
    the glowing head of a comet
  14. sublimation
    the process of a solid going directly to a gas without becomiing a liquid first
  15. Kuiper belt
    the collection of icy planetesimals believed to orbit in a region from just beyond neptune out to 100AU or more
Author
eboustead
ID
148747
Card Set
Chapter 19
Description
Solar System Debris- Key terms and concepts
Updated