Astronomy Final Study guide pt.2
Which of the following is NOT a terrestrial planet?
Jupiter
Which of the following places is most likely NOT to be differentiated?
Jupiter
Which planet in the solar system has not been examined by spacecraft instruments that have either flown by or orbited them?
you can't fool me, spacecraft have visited all the planets in our solar system
On which of the planets (other than Earth) could a human being step out of a spacecraft and survive without any protective gear (special suit, oxygen tanks, etc)?
you can't fool me; there is no other planet on which we could survive unprotected
The planet closest to the Sun in the solar system is:
Mercury
You are the captain of an interplanetary tour ship and a wealthy tourist from Texas asks you to take him to see only the "largest darn planets" in the solar system. Which of the following would you NOT include in your tour?
Mercury
Of the following planets, which do NOT have satellites (moons)?
Venus
On which planet (besides the Earth) do we still see a high level of geological activity on the surface today?
Venus
In studying the surfaces of solid bodies in the solar system, astronomers have learned that the number of craters (per unit area):
is roughly proportional to the age of the surface we are examining
In general, the further planets are from the Sun, the cooler they are. What other factor can have a significant influence on a planet's surface temperature?
its atmosphere (whether it has one and how thick it is)
Which of the following ways that jovian (giant) planets differ from the terrestrial planets is NOT CORRECT?
jovians (being larger) rotate significantly more slowly than terrestrials
In the far future, a visiting tourist from another planetary system asks to see the most massive object in our solar system. Where would you take him/her/it?
the Sun
Which of the following characteristics do all four terrestrial planets have in common?
they all have solid surfaces with signs of geological activity on them
What is the most important reason that astronomers have learned more about our planetary system in the last 30-40 years than all of history before then?
we have been able to send spacecraft to gather information about planets and moons up close
During the process of differentiation,
heavier materials sink to the centers of molten planets
The smaller objects in the solar system made of rock and metal (most of which orbit between Jupiter and Mars) are called:
Asteroids
The smaller objects in the solar system composed mainly of ices (frozen gases) that usually orbit far from the Sun are called:
Comets
In radioactive dating, the measure scientists use to note how long (on average) a particular radioactive nucleus will take to decay is called its
Half-life
If you were to take a large sample of the four giant planets, the most common element you would find in them is:
Hydrogen
A planet in our solar system whose composition resembles that of our Sun is:
Jupiter
The material that would eventually make all the major bodies in our solar system first gathered together as smaller pieces which astronomers call:
Planetesimals
The first trans-Neptunian object astronomers found (in 1930) is called
Pluto
On Earth, we can get the age of various parts of our planet by finding rocks that contain radioactive atoms. Which other world do have a good number of rocks from to do this kind of age analysis?
The Moon
Radioactive dating techniques have revealed that our Earth and Moon are approximately how old?
about 4.5 billion years
What is one way that astronomers have actually gotten an idea of the age of the surfaces of terrestrial planets other than the Earth?
counting craters
One piece of evidence that can help astronomers sort out how the planets in our solar system formed is
finding circumstellar disks of material around nearby stars
Generally, planets and moons in our solar system are named after
gods and goddesses from mythology
All the planets (without exception)
revolve around the Sun in the same direction
In the four terrestrial planets, the densest, heaviest materials are at the center and not evenly distributed throughout the planet. Scientists interpret this observation to mean that:
the four terrestrial planets must once have been hot enough to be molten (like a liquid)
A future interplanetary tourist whose parents kept him too warm as a baby asks for your help to find a "really cold place" in the solar system. Which of the following would be the coldest place to take him?
the moons of Neptune
Our best evidence and theoretical calculations indicate that the solar system began with a giant spinning system of gas and dust that scientists call:
the solar nebula
