Chapters 9 & 10
The largest impact basin on Mercury (located on that part of the planet which is closest to the Sun at noon) is called:
Caloris
Where has frozen water recently been discovered on the Moon?
Deep inside craters in the regions near the Moon s poles
The spacecraft that really gave scientists their first good close-up look of the planet Mercury was:
Mariner 10
Why is it so much easier to determine the length of the day on Mars than on Venus?
Mars atmosphere is generally pretty clear (so the surface is visible) while Venus is always cloudy
The first human being to step out onto the surface of another world was:
Neil Armstrong
The observation that began the 19th and early 20th century fascination with Mars as a place for life was:
Schiaparelli's seeing what seemed to him to be long straight features on the red planet
Which of the following statements about the rocks brought back from the Earth's Moon by the astronauts is TRUE?
The Moon rocks were puzzling, because they resemble rocks from the Earth's crust in many ways, but also have subtle differences
The spacecraft that soft-landed successfully on the surface of Venus (and briefly sent back pictures while sitting in that destructive environment) were called
Venera
What planet can come closest to the Earth in its orbit and look brightest in our skies?
Venus
We believe the maria on the Earth's Moon are:
ancient impact craters in which lava beds welled up from inside the Moon
Why are the largest craters we find on the Moon and Mercury so much larger than the largest craters we find on the Earth?
because the largest craters were made early in each world's history, and geologic activity has erased all traces of this early period on the Earth's surface
Why are almost all the craters we see on the Moon circular?
because the rocks and comets that hit the Moon are moving so fast, they explode on impact, making a circular hole
On some parts of Mars, it gets cold enough for a gas to freeze out of the atmosphere that does not freeze out by itself at the temperatures and pressures on Earth. This gas makes up some of the polar caps on Mars and is:
carbon dioxide
The same gas makes up most of the atmosphere of Mars and Venus. This gas is:
carbon dioxide
Of the people who landed on the Moon, how many were trained scientists?
exactly one
The Magellan spacecraft revealed a wide variety of volcanic features on Venus, including some that looked like ticks and spiders. What instrument aboard Magellan was used for these investigations?
imaging radar
Astronomers believe that Mars formed with a much thicker atmosphere than it has today. Where did this atmosphere go?
it escaped into space (and some later froze out as Mars got cold)
Valles Marineris is a wide, deep network of chasms stretching for some 2500 miles on the surface of Mars. How do we believe such a big set of canyons formed originally?
it was caused by tectonic pressures from deep within the planet
Which of the following is a way that the planet Mercury is similar to the Moon?
its surface is heavily cratered
The most likely models of the planet Mercury indicate that more than half the planet may be composed of:
metals
A crucial difference that helps explain why Venus is so hot and the Earth isn't is that:
on Venus, there was eventually no ocean to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
The canals that late 19th and early 20th observers thought they saw on Mars turned out to be:
optical illusions
The lunar highlands are made mostly of rocks that
rose to the top as the Moon cooled from a molten state early in its history
Which of the following is NOT YET a way we have studied the planet Mars so far?
sending spacecraft to Mars which have brought samples of the planet back to Earth
The total surface area of planet Mars is roughly equal to the
surface area of the Earth's continents
In its overall composition, the Moon roughly resembles:
the Earth's crust and mantle
Which of the following statements about temperature changes on Mercury is correct?
the difference in temperature between Mercury's daylight side and its night side is the greatest difference of any planet in the solar system
Which of the following is evidence for volcanic activity on Venus?
the fact that the lava plains are only 500 million or so years old the existence of large volcanic mountains such as Sif Mons the discovery of thousands of small volcanic cones of the surface of Venus the pancake domes of Venus ALL OF THE ABOVE
According to the giant impact hypothesis about the formation of the Moon, why did the Earth not break apart into many pieces when the giant impact happened?
the impactor was about the size of Mars or smaller, so it ejected material from the Earth but did not break it
One way in which Mars closely resembles the Earth is:
the length of its day (period of rotation)
What formation or formations are evidence that the planet Mercury may have shrunk (gotten a bit smaller) as it cooled?
the long scarps or cliffs
The process by which Venus became so much hotter than the Earth is called
the runaway greenhouse effect
What is one important way in which both the Moon and Mercury are different from Earth?
they do not have an atmosphere
Mars rovers (such as Opportunity and Curiosity) have identified evidence that their landing sites were once under water. Which of the following is among the kinds of evidence they have identified?
they found rock formations that show the area was under water and also minerals that only form in water
