ASTR

By far the most abundant element in the giant (jovian) planets is:

Hydrogen

The element that can act like a metal when it is under tremendous pressure is:

Hydrogen

According to our textbook, what is the best way to defend ourselves against an asteroid which is on course to collide with the Earth in 7 years?

If we do it early enough, we could explode something on or near the asteroid to deflect it slightly, so that years later it would then miss the Earth

A very rich and eccentric tourist in the future hires you to fly him to a region of Venus' atmosphere where the temperatures and pressures are the most Earth-like. Where would you take him?

In the cloud layers about 50km above the surface

In the far future, a daring interplanetary tourist wants to go "hang-gliding" on the Jovian planet with the highest equatorial wind speeds. Which planet would have the fastest wind at its equator?

Neptune

The moon Triton orbits which of the planets?

Neptune

Which of the gas giants has the largest icy/rocky core compared to its overall size?

Neptune has the largest core, extending out to about 20,000 km from the center of the planet.

The largest volcano on mars is called

Olympus Mons (Mt. Olympus)

The large reservoir of comet nuclei far beyond Pluto, from which we believe new long-period comets come into the inner solar system, is called:

Oort Cloud

Two small moons in the solar system, known since the 19th century, turn out to be captured asteroids. These two moons are:

Phobos and Deimos around Mars

Which of the following worlds does NOT have a ring?

Pluto

What do astronomers think is the origin of the many irregular moons around the outer planets (irregular meaning they are orbiting backwards and/or have eccentric orbits)?

These moons were likely formed elsewhere and captured by the giant planets

How can astronomers measure the age of a meteorite that fell from the skies?

They measure the amount still left of radioactive materials in the meteorite, and how much has turned into decay products

The satellite which has the thickest atmosphere (so thick that it's quite a surprise for a satellite) is:

Titan

The planet that orbits "on its side" has its rotation axis perpendicular to the plane of its orbit) is:

Uranus

Which planet orbits "on its side"

Uranus (98 degree tilt)

A main difference between asteroids and comets is that asteroids are mostly made of rock and comets are mostly made of

ice

The world in the solar system that is most active volcanically is:

io

Which element plays the same role on Titan as water does on Earth (existing as gas, liquid, and solid)?

methane

When larger fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter in 1994,

they exploded in Jupiter's atmosphere, releasing energy equal to millions of megatons of TNT

The Red Spot of Jupiter is:

variable in size a high pressure storm system in the atmosphere made of a reddish colored material (but we don't know what gives it the reddish color) long-lived (observed since the 1600's) (ALL OF THE ABOVE)

Saturn's ring particles are composed mainly of:

water ice

What evidence can you give that shows the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa must be relatively young?

we see very few craters compared to the surfaces of Callisto and Ganymede

Which of the jovian planets does NOT have any satellites?

you can't fool me, all the jovian planets are accompanied by satellites

In 2013, a small stony asteroid collided with the Earth above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. What was the result?

A fireball briefly brighter than the Sun could be seen in the sky

One region on Earth that has become a rich source of new meteorites in recent decades (including the meteorite from Mars that got famous because some scientists claimed they had found evidence for the building blocks of life on Mars) is:

Antarctic

When a chunk of cosmic material the size of a golf ball or a baseball hits the Earth's atmosphere it makes a

Fireball

What evidence do we have that there was running (liquid) water on Mars in the past?

From satellite images, the topography of Mars shows runoff channels and outflows carved into the surface, which appear very similar to surface features on Earth caused by liquid water.

What are 3 of the most impressive surface features on Mars?

1) Olympus Mons (the biggest volcano in the whole Solar System) 2) Valles Marineris 3) Hellas Basin.

If everything in the solar system is moving around, why do the Perseid meteors repeat regularly around August 11th or so?

Because the Earth in its orbit intersects the same swarm of meteor particles at the same time each year

On some parts of Mars , it gets cold enough for a gas to freeze out of the atmosphere. This gas makes up some of the polar caps on Mar and is

Carbon Dioxide

On some parts of Mars, it gets cold enough for a gas to freeze out of the atmosphere. What is this gas made of and how does it compare to the gases in Earth's atmosphere?

Carbon dioxide Earth is mostly composed of nitrogen and oxygen

At the pressures in Jupiter's interior, describe the physical state of the hydrogen found there (e.g, gas, liquid, metallic, ...).

Inside of Jupiter, hydrogen can exist as both a gas and a liquid. The liquid state occurs at larger depths, where the atmospheric pressure is large enough to compress the gas.

Astronomers believe that Mars formed with a much thicker atmosphere than it has today. Where did this atmosphere go?

It was blow off by sun (and some later froze out as Mars got cold)

Why do astronomers today think that we have an asteroid belt and not a planet between Mars and Jupiter?

Jupiter's gravity prevented material in that zone from getting together

Between 1992 and today, astronomers using large telescopes have discovered many icy pieces that orbit in the same region as the orbit of Pluto. These are believed to be members of the

Kuiper Belt

In the far future, an entrepreneur with a large fleet of space ships decides to capture and bring to Earth some valuable asteroids. If at that time, there is a shortage of usable metals on Earth, what type of asteroids should his employees search for?

M-type

Explain the runaway refrigerator effect and the role it may have played in the evolution of Mars.

Mars has a lower gravity which cannot hold light gases (meaning they escape) B/C of the thinning and the low temperatures, it causes the gas to continuously escape into space.

Describe what we know about the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. How long has it been there?

The Great Red Spot is a hurricane that is a few times bigger than the whole Earth. Its formation is still a mystery, but scientists suspect that it may have formed from the merging of smaller storms.

What are the visible clouds on the four giant planets composed of, and why are they different from each other?

The clouds of Jupiter and Saturn are primarily crystals of frozen ammonia. On Uranus and Neptune, the clouds are composed of methane. The temperatures of these worlds dictate the cloud composition. For Jupiter and Saturn, the temperatures keep methane in a gaseous state, while on Uranus and Neptune, the colder temperatures allow the methane to freeze and condense into clouds.

Describe the current atmosphere on Mars. What evidence suggests that it must have been different in the past?

The current atmosphere of Mars is extremely thin with only .006 bars of atmospheric pressure, Earth's has a atmospheric pressure bar of 1. Mars is mostly composed of carbon dioxide (95%). The appearance of dry lakes provides evidence that water may have been on mars at one point.

Which of the following would NOT be one of the problems faced by an unprotected Earthling stranded on Mars?

The extreme (high) heat at most latitudes

What is the source for Jupiter's strong magnetic field?

The source for Jupiter's strong magnetic field is a combination of internal heat, rotation, and metallic hydrogen.

Astronomers believe that Jupiter's strong magnetic field is caused by

a huge layer of metallic hydrogen inside Jupiter

The typical meteor is

a small solid particle, no bigger than a pea

At their centers, all the jovian planets have cores made of:

a solid mixture of rocky and icy materials under great pressure

If there are at least a million asteroids, how did spacecraft like Galileo survive their trip through the asteroid belt?

although there are many asteroids, they are widely spaced (there is lots of space between them)

One of the key reasons that professional astronomers (as opposed to the public) are interested in comets is that they

are icy pieces left over from the time that our solar system formed that can give us clues about that early time

When astronomers say that Ganymede is a differentiated body, they mean that it:

has layers with a heavier core, surrounded by a lighter, icy mantle and crust

When a periodic comet leaves its dusty debris behind in its orbit, the Earth can intercept this debris and

have a meteor shower as the dust burns up

Which of the following is NOT a way that Jupiter differs from terrestrial planets?

its surface has many more craters from early collisions

Callisto, the fourth moon of Jupiter's, takes 17 days to orbit Jupiter. If I stand on the surface of Callisto and see Jupiter high in the sky over my head, and then wait 8.5 Earth days in the same spot, where will I see Jupiter?

overhead, where it was before

One way to find a new meteorite is to:

search the area beneath or close to the point where a bright fireball was seen to burn out

What would be some of the problems faced by an unprotected Earthling stranded on Mars?

such as the low temperature, dust storms, low atmospheric pressure, lack of water, no food, and high solar radiation (no ozone layer).

What method was used to discover Pluto in 1929-1930

take pairs of photographs several days apart and "blink" them

The ages of stony meteorites have been measured to be roughly equal to:

the oldest ages we have measured for any bodies in the solar system

One reason that we have such a complex system of belts/zones/storms in Jupiter's atmosphere is that:

the planet rotates very rapidly

Halley's Comet was given that name because Edmond Halley was

the scientist who pointed out that the orbit of the comet was such that it should return every 76 years or so

At the moment when the Voyager spacecraft got closest to Uranus, the Sun was shining directly on the planet's south pole. Uranus takes about 17 hours to rotate once on its axis. If Voyager took a photo of the south pole 8.5 hours later, what would it observe?

the south pole was brightly lit, with the Sun shining down on it