Astronomy(Gowdy) Exam 2
An ion rocket engine produces 1 Newton of thrust. What acceleration can it give to a space probe with a mass of 1000kg?
0.001 m/s2.
The axial tilt of Mercury is
0.01 degrees.
As of 2009, how many space probes have flown past Neptune?
1
How many of the moons of Saturn are larger than the Earthís Moon?
1
What total force will cause an object with a mass of 2kg to gain 5 meters per second every second?
10 Newtons
Saturn rotates on its axis once in about
10 hours
Uranus rotates on its axis once in about
17 hours
If the planets are numbered from 1 to 8, going outward from the Sun, the planet Mars is number
4
Which of the following objects has no magnetic field at all?
Earth's Moon
Who discovered Newton's First Law of Motion?
Galileo.
Mariner 9 was an early space probe sent to orbit
Mars
Which of the following situations does the Law of Inertia say will cause an object to have zero acceleration.
No external forces push or pull on the object.
The range of temperatures on Mars is
Similar to those in Antarctica.
The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is
about 1% the surface pressure of Earthís atmosphere.
Kuiper Belt objects are usually made of
ice and possibly frozen gas.
The presence of frozen water on Venus is
impossible because every part of it is too hot for water ice.
According to Newton's Law of Gravity, the gravitational attraction of the Earth for other objects, such as the Moon, apples on trees and space shuttles in low earth orbit,
is smaller for objects farther from the Earth but never vanishes entirely.
The Surveyor series of spacecraft
made unmanned landings on the Moon in the 1960s.
Apollo 11 made the first
manned landing on the Moon.
A full cycle of day and night on Mars is called a 'sol' In terms of 24 hour Earth days, a Martian sol is
slightly longer than one Earth day.
In comparison to Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, Newton's theory of Universal Gravitation predicted almost the same motions, but with small corrections due to
the gravitational attractions between different planets.
The heat that reaches the surface of Saturn comes mostly from
the interior of Saturn.
According to our current model of how magnetic fields arise, the magnetic field of Earth's Moon is
understandable since the Moon rotates slowly and probably has no iron core.
The distance from the Earth to the Moon
varies enough that sometimes we get an annular solar eclipse.
Which of the following planets is 11 times the size of the Earth?
Jupiter
It is currently thought that moons typically do not form near
Terrestrial planets such as Earth and Mars.
A large vortex or hurricane on Jupiter has been named
The Great Red Spot.
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
Went into orbit around the planet Saturn and dropped a probe into Titan's atmosphere.
Most asteroids can best be described as
flying rocks or possibly flying mountains.
Mars' orbit is A rocket that leaves the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 4 miles per second will
follow an elliptical path that is partly below the surface of the Earth.
Galileo had no difficulty accounting for the motion of a thrown object because
no force was needed to keep the object moving.
The observed magnetic field of Mercury is surprising because it was expected to have
no magnetic field at all because it rotates so slowly.
The moons of Mars are
not large enough to be spherical.
The distance from the Earth to the Sun is
one astronomical unit.
The angle between a planetís rotation axis and the perpendicular to the plane of its orbit determines the variability of its seasons. For Jupiter, this axial tilt angle is
only a few degrees so seasons are negligible.
Which of the following temperatures is closest to what you might expect on the planet Jupiter?
-250F.
The first human landing on the Moon was Apollo 11 in
1969
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 would indicate an object that might consist of rock surrounding an iron core?
4000kg/m3
The density of water is 1000kg/m3 while the density of rock is 3000kg/m3. Which of the following values is a plausible value for the density of a Jovian planet?
700kg/m3
Suppose that you drop two objects from the same height at the same time. Both objects are heavy enough to be unaffected by air resistance and one object is twice as heavy. Who predicted that the heavier object would hit the ground long before the lighter one?
Aristotle
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field with about ten times the intensity of the Earth's field?
Jupiter
Which of the following planets does the moon Ganymede 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
Which of the following was the spacecraft that operated in Mars orbit for nine years, finding traces of water and an early magnetic field?
Mars Global Surveyor
The temperature on Neptune is
Much colder than anywhere on Earth.
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 or moons has an atmosphere consisting mainly of Hydrogen and Helium with some methane?
Neptune
Which of these planets is the farthest from the Sun?
Neptune
The first space probes to land on another planet were from the
Russian Venera series.
Pioneer 11 was an early space probe sent to fly past
Saturn
A motorcycle is accelerating from rest. Which of the following pairs of forces is an action-reaction pair?
The force of the motorcycle on the road and the force of the road on the motorcycle.
A book, weighing 10 Newtons, sits on a table. Which of the following pairs of forces is an action-reaction pair?
The force that the book exerts on the table and the force that the table exerts on the book.
Which of the following objects is the largest moon of Neptune?
Triton
What planet 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
The first space probe to land on Venus was
Venera 7
Which of the following planets has no moons at all?
Venus
Which of the following three systems is regarded as the most normal for a terrestrial planet?
Venus, with no moons at all.
Newton's explanation of Kepler's Laws relied upon a force that
acts on all objects.
Newton's explanation of Keplerís Laws relied upon a force that
acts on all objects.
Hydrated minerals on the Moon
are almost completely absent.
On the present surface of Mars, water has been confirmed to exist
as ice at the poles and water vapor in the atmosphere.
Space probes often use gravitational slingshot maneuvers. The main purpose of these maneuvers is to
change the direction and speed of the probe without using rockets.
Relative to the distant stars, Venus
completes less than one full rotation each time it orbits the Sun.
The dark side of the Moon, where the Sun never shines,
does not exist.
Mars' orbit is currently
elliptical enough to make the intensity of sunlight vary by 40 percent.
A rocket that leaves the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 8 miles per second will
escape from the Earth's gravity forever.
The magnetic field of Mars is
essentially zero.
Earthís orbit is currently elliptical enough to make the intensity of sunlight vary by 6 percent. The shortest Earth-Sun distance (and highest intensity sunlight) currently occurs
every January.
Mars
has a solar day that is very close to an Earth day in length
The moon Miranda is peculiar because it
has a surface feature that looks like a giant check mark.
According to our current model of how planets form magnetic fields, the magnetic field of Saturn is much less than the magnetic field of Jupiter because Saturn
has less metallic hydrogen in its core than Jupiter.
For a planet that is following Kepler's Laws, the magnitude of the planet's acceleration is
inversely proportional to the square of the planet's distance from the Sun.
The Earth's Moon
is 1/4 the size of the Earth, which is unusually large for a moon.
The Moonís orbit around the Earth
is elliptical enough to give us an annular solar eclipse when the Moon is near its apogee.
An artificial satellite such as the Space Shuttle stays up because
it falls below a straight-line path in exactly the same way that the curved surface of the Earth does.
According to the Law of Inertia, a moving object that feels no outside force will
keep moving.
Ancient lava flows on the Moon are called Lunar
maria.
The Earthís magnetic field plays an essential role in
protecting the Earth from charged particles from the Sun.
As viewed from the star Polaris, Venus
rotates clockwise and goes around the Sun counter-clockwise.
The current model for the way that planets acquire magnetic fields requires which of the following combinations of things?
rotation and a core that contains a liquid electrical conductor.
Jupiter has the most mass of any planet in our Solar System and is also the largest planet. Objects that have still more mass than Jupiter and are not stars are usually
smaller than Jupiter.
Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter you find
the Asteroid Belt.
In Newton's Theory,
the Earth and Moon move around a common point which, in turn, goes around the Sun.
Our Sun sends out intense streams of charged particle radiation. The radiation is prevented from hitting the Earth's atmosphere by
the Earth's magnetic field.
The capture theory, in which the Moon forms as a separate object similar to Earth and is then captured by the Earth, would predict that
the Moon should have an iron core similar to Earthís.
In Kepler's Laws of planetary motion the Earth moves around a Sun that is fixed in space. In Newton's theory,
the Sun and Earth move around a common center of mass.
An astronomical unit is defined to be
the average distance from the Earth to the Sun.
Suppose that you drop a wooden ball and an iron ball, both the exact same diameter, from the same height at the same time. Aristotle would predict that
the iron ball would hit the ground long before the wooden ball.
Satellites such as the International Space Station orbit above most of the Earthís atmosphere because
there is no air friction to slow the satellite down.
The magnetic field of Jupiter is
tilted relative to the planetís rotation axis but not offset from its center.
A planet that is following Kepler's Laws, accelerates
toward the Sun
The Law of Inertia says that if an object is not acted on by any outside force, its acceleration
will always be zero.