Chapter 6 Vocabulary

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Across
  1. 2. _____ planets are the four outermost planets consisting of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
  2. 5. the central accumulation of material in the early stages of solar system formations, the forerunner of the present-day Sun
  3. 8. the Sun and all the bodies that orbit it - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, their moons, the asteroids, the comets, and trans-Neptunian objects
  4. 9. _____ planetology is comparing and contrasting the properties of the diverse worlds we encounter to understand better the conditions under which planets form and evolve
  5. 10. the breaking up of a large object into many smaller pieces
  6. 11. _____ theory is one of the earliest models of solar system formation, dating back to Descartes, in which a large cloud of gas began to collapse under its own gravity to form the Sun and planets
  7. 15. _____ theory is currently favored model of solar system formation which combines features of the old nebular theory with new information about interstellar dust grains, which acted as condensation nuclei
  8. 16. _____ instability theory states that the jovian planets formed directly from the solar nebula via instabilities in the gas leading to gravitational contraction
  9. 17. _____ theory states the jovian planets formed when icy protoplanetary cores became massive enough to capture gas directly from the solar nebula
Down
  1. 1. the swirling gas surrounding the early Sun during the epoch of solar system formation, also referred to as the primitive solar system
  2. 3. the tendency of a body to keep spinning or moving in a circle
  3. 4. is a measure of the "compactness" of matter
  4. 6. _____ planets are the four innermost planets consisting of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars
  5. 7. the building blocks of the solar system that had reached the size of small moons, at which point their gravitation fields were strong enough to begin influencing their neighbors
  6. 12. _____ matter is cosmic "debris" in the solar system that is not part of a planet or moon
  7. 13. the accumulations of matter that would in time evolve into the planets we know today
  8. 14. the gradual growth of small objects by collision and sticking