Big Ideas (learning targets)

• Astronomy is the study of the moon, stars, and other objects in space

• The sun, planets, and all other bodies that travel around it make up our solar system

• The Milky Way is a large spriral galaxy that is home to Earth and the rest of our solar system and about a trillion stars

• A planet is a large body in space that orbits a star and does not produce its own light

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• Distance and the mass of an object and the sun strongly effect how much the sun pulls on that object

• Moons are different from planets because they revolve around planets

• The planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, in that order from the sun

• Mercury is the first planet from the sun. It's the smallest planet with no moons, and is very hot on one side and very cool on the other

• Venus is the second planet from the sun and the hottest planet

• Earth is the third rock from the sun and has an atmosphere that protects life

• Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and known as The Red Planet

• Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun.  It's the largest planet in our solar system and is gaseous with the most moons

• Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun. It has a very complex ring system, has 31 moons, a thick atmosphere, and is made of mostly hydrogen and helium

• Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, rotates on its side, and is a blue-green gas giant

• Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun.  It's a blue gas giant with the highest winds in the solar system and rotates counter clockwise

• The sun is the center of our solar system

• An elliptical galaxy is in the shape of a football

• As the solar system cooled and developed, larger bodies were pulled towards its center by gravity

• Know the order of the planets in our solar system

• Inertia and gravity cause planets and other space objects to revolve around the Sun rather than traveling in a straight line.  inertia - once an object is traveling in a circle it will keep traveling in a circle. gravity - the Sun is pulling the object toward it. 

• Space and all the matter and energy make up the universe

• The three types of galaxies are spiral, elliptical, and irregular

• The sun makes up 99% of the mass in the universe

• Pluto is a dwarf planet that used to be considered the ninth planet in our solar system