Astronomy Ch. 6-10
Which of the following planets has a system of rings that consists of dark rocks that are difficult to see?
Jupiter
Which of the following planets has at least 62 moons?
Jupiter
Which of the following planets is 11 times the size of the Earth?
Jupiter
Which of the following planets or moons has an atmosphere consisting mainly of Hydrogen and Helium?
Jupiter
Which of these planets has a solar day that is shorter than half an Earth day in length?
Jupiter
The Far Horizons space probe made close approaches to
Jupiter and Pluto.
It is expected that a normal terrestrial planet, with no accidental encounters that could add or subtract moons, should have
No moon.
The Moon Charon orbits a point that is
Not inside Pluto at all.
The first successful soft landing on the Moon was
Surveyor 1 in 1966.
A large vortex or hurricane on Jupiter has been named
The Great Red Spot
Why couldn't we just fly a Space Shuttle to the Moon for at least a fly-by?
The Space Shuttle did not have enough fuel to reach escape velocity.
Why don't we just shoot all of our really nasty waste products into the Sun where they could not possibly bother anyone?
The Sun is actually the hardest part of the Solar System to get to from here.
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
Went into orbit around the planet Saturn and dropped a probe into Titan's atmosphere.
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
Went into orbit around the planet Saturn.
The Tau-Tauri wind from the Sun's final collapse toward ignition
blew away the fuel that Jupiter needed to become a star.
Sedna is thought to be
from the Inner Oort Cloud.
Comets that originate in the Inner Oort Cloud would be expected to have orbits that are
mostly close to the plane of the solar system.
The observed magnetic field of Mercury is surprising because it was expected to have
no magnetic field at all because it rotates so slowly.
As seen from far above the Earth's South Pole,
no planet orbits the Sun counterclockwise.
Which of the following temperatures is closest to what you might expect on the planet Neptune?
-350°F
Which of the following temperatures is closest to what you might expect on the planet Uranus?
-350°F
How many moons does Mercury have?
0
Which of the following planets does the moon Ganymede orbit?
Jupiter
Study: The density of water is 1000kg/m³, the density of rock is about 3000kg/m³, and the density of iron is 7800kg/m³. Which of the following densities is closest to the average density of Jupiter?
1200kg/m³
Uranus rotates on its axis once in about-
17 hours
Which of the following temperatures is closest to what you might expect on the planet Jupiter?
250F
If the planets are numbered from 1 to 8, going outward from the Sun, the planet Earth is number
3
The Earth's distance from the Sun is defined to be 1 astronomical unit. Neptune is about 30 astronomical units from the Sun. An object in the Outer Oort Cloud might be at a distance from the Sun of
40,000 astronomical units.
Study: The density of water is 1000kg/m³, the density of rock is about 3000kg/m³, and the density of iron is 7800kg/m³. Which of the following densities is closest to the average density of the Earth?
5200kg/m³
Which of the following types of objects include things that could reasonably be described as "flying rocks" or, for the larger ones, "flying mountains?"
Asteroids
Which of the following types of object could reasonably be described as "dirty snowballs" or, for the larger ones, "flying icebergs?"
Comets
Which of the following planets has a magnetic field that is thought to be generated by liquid metallic hydrogen?
Jupiter
The radiant of a meteor shower is the point in the sky that the
Earth is moving towards during the shower.
Which of the following objects has no magnetic field at all?
Earth's Moon
Pioneer 10 was an early space probe sent to fly past
Jupiter
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field that is tilted relative to its rotation axis but not offset from its center
Jupiter
Which of the following planets does the moon Callisto orbit?
Jupiter
Which of the following types of object could reasonably be described as "dirty snowballs" or, for the larger ones, "flying icebergs?"
Kuiper Belt objects
Short-period comets are thought to be
Kuiper belt objects deflected by Neptune.
The Asteroid Belt is between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter
The angle between the rotation axis of a planet and the perpendicular to the plane of its orbit is called its "axial tilt." Which of these planets has an axial tilt that is less than one degree?
Mercury
When detailed tracking of asteroid 2008 TC₃ showed that it would hit the Earth, the asteroid officially became a
Meteoroid.
Which of the following objects has a surface feature that looks like a giant check mark?
Miranda
Although the Jovian planets do not have true surfaces, some of them are mostly made of frozen gas and water-ice covered by a thick atmosphere. These planets are called ice giants because they are not made of gas all the way through. Which of the following objects is an ice giant?
Neptune
Voyager 2 is the only space probe so far to have visited
Neptune
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field whose North and South poles are displaced from its rotation axis poles and also from the center of the planet?
Neptune
Which of the following planets does the moon Triton orbit?
Neptune
Which of these planets has a rotation axis that is inclined in much the same way as that of Earth?
Neptune
The part of a protostar where the density first becomes low enough for light to escape is called the
Photosphere.
Pioneer 11 was an early space probe sent to fly past
Saturn
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field similar in intensity to the Earth's field?
Saturn
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field whose North and South poles are almost exactly in line with its rotation axis?
Saturn
Which of the following objects is about 90% as large as the planet Jupiter?
Saturn
Which of the following planets does the moon Titan orbit?
Saturn
Which of the following planets has a hexagon-shaped pattern of clouds near its North Pole?
Saturn
Which of these planets has a rotation axis that is inclined in much the same way as that of Earth?
Saturn
Which of these planets has a solar day that is about 10 hours in length?
Saturn
The capture theory, in which our Moon forms separately and is captured by the Earth,became popular when computer models showed that such a capture would have been possible.
The capture theory was dropped because it predicts that the Moon should have hydrated rocks and it does not.
Which of the following statements describes the relation between what we observe and the predictions of the nebular model of the formation of the Solar System?
The model predicts icy planets farthest from the Sun and we observe icy planets there.
Which of the following circumstances would suggest that a rotating planet contains a core of liquid iron?
The planet is much denser than rock and has a magnetic field.
One model for the formation of the Solar System is that the planets formed from a cloud of material extracted from the Sun by a chance encounter with a passing star.
This model incorrectly predicts planets orbiting out of the plane of the Sun's equator.
Voyager 1 was the first space probe sent to fly past
Titan
Which of the following planets or moons has an atmosphere with about 1.6 times the surface pressure of Earth's?
Titan
Which of the following objects is the largest moon of Neptune?
Triton
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field whose North and South poles are displaced from its rotation axis poles and also from the center of the planet.?
Uranus
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field whose origin is not explained by any currently accepted model?
Uranus
Which of the following planets is about 4 times the size of the Earth?
Uranus
Which of the following planets or moons is blue in color because of the presence of methane in its atmosphere?
Uranus
Which of these planets has a rotation axis that is almost in the plane of its orbit so that its ring system can sometimes be seen as near-circles.
Uranus
Which of these planets has a solar day that is about 17 hours long?
Uranus
The axial tilt of Pluto is most similar to that of
Uranus.
The temperature at the poles of Mercury is expected to be
Very hot all of the time on mountain peaks hit by the Sun and very cold all of the time in craters never hit by the Sun.
Which of the following spacecraft is the only one to have flown past Uranus?
Voyager 2
Based on our observations of planetary systems that are forming now, which of these situations is LEAST likely to occur on a planet in a distant binary star system?
You see two suns, both of them looking similar in size to our own Sun, in widely separated parts of the sky.
The surface of Pluto is now thought to be
Young and in constant change.
It is expected that a normal Jovian planet, with no accidental encounters that could add or subtract moons, should have
a family of moons, all orbiting in the plane of the planets equator.
Since 1990, the major spacefaring nations, Europe, China, Russia, Japan, India, and the U.S., have begun to return to the Moon. As of 2020, of these six space programs,
all except Russia have sent probes or orbiters to the Moon.
Jupiter has
an atmosphere of Hydrogen and Helium with no real surface.
Large numbers of protostars can be seen by using
an infra-red telescope.
Hydrated minerals on the Moon
are almost completely absent.
Comets that originate in the Outer Oort Cloud have orbits that are
at all angles to the plane of the solar system.
According to the current model of the early history of the Solar System, the formation of the Oort Cloud happened
at the same time as the the rain of comets that supplied water to the Earth and other planets.
In Astronomy, the term "Microlensing" refers to the
bending of light from a distant star by the gravity of a nearer object such as a planet.
Stars usually come in clusters, all born at about the same time, because
collapsing interstellar clouds usually fragment.
When a space probe uses a gravitational slingshot maneuver, it
comes close to a planet to change the probe's speed and direction.
The discovery that there is water ice on the Moon has motivated many nations to launch Moon missions because it
could make a Moon base possible.
According to our current (very tentative) estimates, a spaceship travelling from our Sun to one of the nearest stars such as Alpha Centauri A probably
could make the trip in many short hops between rogue planets along the way.
The impacts of large objects on the surface of the Moon have caused
craters.
Apollo 8 made the first
crewed orbit of the Moon.
Far from the Sun, a comet is basically a
dirty lump of frozen gas and ice.
Neptune's magnetic North and South poles are
displaced from its rotation axis poles and also from the center of the planet.
Uranus' magnetic North and South poles are
displaced from its rotation axis poles and also from the center of the planet.
The atmosphere of Pluto is now known to
extend a thousand miles above its surface.
According to our current (very tentative) estimates, a spaceship travelling from our Sun to one of the nearest stars such as Alpha Centauri A would probably be traveling through the Oort cloud of our Sun and that of Alpha Centauri A for a distance that is
half of the whole trip.
The side of the Moon that faces away from the Earth
has only a few small lunar maria.
The Kuiper Belt is thought to have originated when
icy objects condensed out just beyond Neptune.
The oceans and atmosphere of Earth are thought to have originated, in part, when
icy objects were ejected inward from among the Jovian planets.
A model in which the Moon forms from the same rotating cloud of gas and dust as the Earth would predict that the Moon's orbit should be
in the plane of the Earth's equator.
The dust tail of a comet
is curved and fuzzy-looking.
The Moon's orbit around the Earth
is elliptical enough to give us an annular solar eclipse when the Moon is near its apogee.
Pluto
is sometimes closer to the Sun than Neptune and sometimes farther from the Sun.
The Lunar Maria are
large dark markings that make up the face of the Man in the Moon.
The debris of long-dead comets causes
meteor showers.
Space probes often visit several planets before getting to their final destinations. The main reason they do this is to
reduce the amount of rocket fuel needed.
The Soviet Union had a secret program to put the first human on the Moon. This program
test launched their Moon Rocket several times, but it blew up each time.
An astronomical unit is defined to be
the average distance from the Earth to the Sun.
The Kuiper Belt was named after Gerard Kuiper, who said that
the belt formed early in the history of the solar system but should not still be there because Pluto would have cleared its neighborhood of smaller objects.
The heat that reaches the surface of Saturn comes mostly from
the interior of Saturn.
The Moon rotates on its axis so that it always keeps
the same side (its far side) pointed away from the Earth.
Study: Mercury rotates so that its sidereal day lasts for
two thirds of a complete orbit around the Sun.
A comet that is passing close to the Sun will have a tail that is most likely
very long because sunlight is pushing on it.
The spacecraft Galileo
went into orbit around the planet Jupiter and dropped a probe into its atmosphere.