PHYS 103- Gowdy EXAM 3
The oxygen atom in a water molecule
carries a negative electrical charge
An advantage of carbon dioxide as the starting form of carbon for use by living things is that it
dissolves in liquid water
As of 2018, the search for near-Earth asteroids that could threaten global effects has most likely
found more than 90% of them
One difficulty with the microfossils that were found in the martian meteorite ALH84001 is that they
are too small
The Oort cloud of our Sun reaches
at least a quarter of the way to the nearest star
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
When a large interstellar cloud collapses, it usually
fragments into several smaller clouds which then form stars
A spectrum is defined to be the set of
frequencies or colors present in a light source
Sedna is thought to be
from the Inner Oort Cloud
Ultraviolet light is sometimes described as either UV-A or UV-B. The UV-B variety is supposed to be more damaging to your skin. You can conclude that of the two types, the UV-B variety has the
higher frequency
The troposphere is where one finds
hurricanes
Which of the following types of radiation has the lowest frequency on this list?
microwaves
The reason that most SETI programs choose to listen at microwave radio frequencies is that
microwaves are the most energy efficient way to send information
On Earth, the carbon that ends up as ocean sediment and limestone is
returned to the atmosphere by volcanoes when the sea floor is pulled deep into the Earth.
Which of the following planets has a system of rings made of ice-covered rocks?
saturn
The term greenhouse effect refers to
the absorption of infrared light by gases in the atmosphere
Compared to the frequency of photons absorbed during a transition from a -5ev state to a -4ev state, transitions from the -5ev state to a -2ev state would correspond to absorbing photons whose frequency is
3 times as high
The inclination angle of a planet's rotation axis is defined so that a planet that is rotating in the usual direction about an axis that is perpendicular to the plane of the solar system would have an inclination of 0 degrees , while a planet that is rotating in the opposite (retrograde) direction about an axis that is perpendicular to the plane of the solar system would have an inclination angle of 180 degrees .The inclination angle of the planet Neptune is closest to
30 degrees
In the Earths atmosphere, the percentage that is Nitrogen is roughly
80%
Which of the following discoveries would lead to the conclusion that the universe is probably filled with life, both in our own solar system, and in the planetary systems of other stars?
A few microbes with a completely alien biochemistry are found beneath the soil of Mars
Which of these is a statement of the Fermi Paradox?
Any long-lasting technological civilization should be obvious and might even be visiting us, so where are they?
Which of these moons has geysers of water shooting out through cracks in the moon, indicating a subsurface ocean?
Enceladus
Which of the following objects has a magnetic field with about ten times the intensity of the Earth's field?
Jupiter
An example of a planet which may occasionally have liquid water but retains an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide is
Mars
Which of the following planets does the moon Triton orbit?
Neptune
Which of the following planets or moons has an atmosphere consisting mainly of Hydrogen and Helium with some methane?
Neptune, Uranus
The Moon Charon orbits a point that is
Not inside Pluto at all
A single sugar phosphate chain with nitrogenous bases attached along it describes a molecule of
RNA
A large vortex or hurricane on Jupiter has been named
The Great Red Spot
Which of the following spacecraft is the only one to have flown past Neptune?
Voyager 2
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
Went into orbit around the planet Saturn and dropped a probe into Titan's atmosphere.)
The Earth's core consists of
a central core of solid iron and an outer core of liquid iron
Underneath a place where the sea floor is disappearing into a deep ocean trench, one expects there to be
a descending convection current in the Earth's mantle
Pluto rotates on its axis
about once a week
The Earth orbits nearly in the plane of the Sun's equator as do
all of the other planets
Titan has
an atmosphere whose temperature and pressure permit liquid methane
The tail of a comet always points
away from the Sun
The Tau-Tauri wind from the Sun's final collapse toward ignition
blew away the fuel that Jupiter needed to become a star
The energy that is released when hydrogen combines with oxygen to form a kilogram of water is always
exactly equal to the energy needed to separate the hydrogen and oxygen in a kilogram of water
The Oort Cloud is located
far beyond the orbit of Pluto
The range of distances of a planet from its primary star that will permit the existence of liquid water on the planet's surface is called the
habitable zone
The second most common element in the universe is
helium
The moon Ganymede is
larger than the planet Mercury but smaller than the planet Mars
The eclipse or transit photometry method of searching for exoplanets can be expected to find
less than one out of every 10 exoplanets
When the fireball of its entry into the atmosphere was spotted from a KLM airliner, asteroid 2008 TC3 had officially become a
meteor
The gravitational influence of the planets causes asteroids to
move from the asteroid belt into the inner solar system
The part of a protostar where the density first becomes low enough for light to escape is called the
photosphere
Colder air always
sinks
The Alpha Centauri star system consists of
two stars in close orbit around each other and a third star orbiting farther out
