Chapter 14 Vocabulary

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Across
  1. 2. _____ asteroid is an asteroid whose orbit is at the same distance from the Sun as Jupiter, 60 degrees ahead of and behind the planet
  2. 6. _____ gaps are spacings of orbital semimajor axes of asteroids in the asteroid belt, produced by dynamical resonances with nearby planets, especially Jupiter
  3. 7. _____ planet is a body that orbits the Sun and is massive enough its own gravity has caused its shape to be approximately spherical, but which is insufficiently massive to have cleared other bodies from "the neighborhood" of its orbit
  4. 8. Chunk of interplanetary debris prior to encountering Earth's atmosphere
  5. 9. An effect occurring during the formation of an off-axis image in a telescope
  6. 11. A component of a comet that consists of material streaming away from the main body and composed of dust or ionized gases
  7. 12. Small, predominantly rocky objects that revolve around the Sun
  8. 14. The solid region of ice and dust that composes the central region of the head of a comet
  9. 15. Spherical halo of material surrounding the solar system out to a distance of about 50,000 AU where most comets reside
  10. 16. Bright streak in the sky, often referred to as a "shooting star," resulting from a small piece of interplanetary debris entering Earth's atmosphere and heating air molecules, which emit light as they return to their ground states
Down
  1. 1. Region of the solar system, between Mars and Jupiter, in which most asteroids are found
  2. 3. Kuiper belt object whose orbital period is in a 3:2 resonance with the orbit of Neptune
  3. 4. An invisible sheath of gas engulfing the coma of a comet, usually distorted by the solar wind and extending across millions of kilometers of space
  4. 5. A small body, composed mainly of ice and dust, in an elliptical orbit about the Sun
  5. 7. _____ tail is the component of a comet's tail that is composed of particles
  6. 10. _____ tail is a think stream of ionized gas that is pushed away from the head of a comet by the solar wind
  7. 12. _____ asteroid is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Earth
  8. 13. A region in the plane of the solar system outside the orbit of Neptune where most short-period comets are thought to originate