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| Small fragments (planetesimals) about 4.5 billion years old left over from the formation of the solar system. |
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| midway between the orbits of mars and jupiter where most astroids lie. |
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| The glowing head of a comet when solar energy vaporizes the ice from it. |
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| left over from the formation of the solar system, they are composed of different ices (water, ammonia, methane, c02, carbon monoxide.) that hold together small peices of rockey and metalic materials. |
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| the eruption of magmas derived from partial melting of ice rather then silicate rocks. |
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celestial bodies that orbit the sun, are essentially round due to there self gravity, but are not the only to objects occupy their area.
eg. pluto |
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| the initial velocity an object needs to escape from the surface of a celestial body. |
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| higlands/ lunar highlands |
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| lunar area elevated several kilometers above the maria. white, bright looking. |
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| prroduced by the impact of rapidly moving debris (meteoroids, asteroids,comets), a phenominon that was consderably more commen in the early history of the solar system. |
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| inner planet/ terrestrial planet |
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any of the earth like planets, including mercury, venus, mars, and earth.
closest to the sun |
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| jovian planet/ outer planet |
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Definition
| jupiter like planets: jupitor, saturn, uranus, and neptune. relatively low densitys. |
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| a region outside the orbit of Neptune where most short-period comets are thought to originate. |
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| a thin, gray layer on the surface on the moon. formed from billions of years of meteor bombardment. composed of igneous rock, breccia, glass beads, and fine lunar dust. |
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| dark, lower altitude parts of the moon. resemble the seas on earth and were named after them. |
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| the luminous phenomonon obsereved when a meteoroid enters earth's atmosphere and burns up. a.k.a. "shooting star" |
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| any portion of a meteoroid that survies its transverse through earths atmosphere and srtikes earth surface. |
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| small solid particles that have orbits in the solar system. |
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| many meteors appearing in the sky when earth inteceptsa swarm of meteoritic particles. |
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| a spherical shell composed of comets that orbit the sun at distances generally greater then 10,000 times the earth-sun distance. |
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| clumps of material formed in the disk of the protosun that colided and stuck together to form asteroid-sized objects |
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| when planetesimals come together after repeated collisions to form a new pre-planet. |
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| a rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas that formed our solar system. |
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| the extensive cratered highland areas of the moon |
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