Chapter 13 Flashcards
One of the best known craters on Earth is the Barringer Crater in Arizona. It was formed by:
the impact of an asteroid whose mass was around 200,000 tons
The major impact in the Yucatan wiped out the dinosaurs:
about 65 million years ago
The Perseid meteor shower gives us about a meteor every minute in mid:
August
Dactyl was photographed by the Galileo spacecraft. It is:
a moon of the asteroid lda
What is the typical size of most known asteroids?
a few kilometers
Pluto was discovered in:
1930
The Trojan asteroids have orbits that:
stay sixty degrees ahead of or behind Jupiter
Meteor shower debris is believed to come from:
the disintegration of a short period comet over many returns to the Sun
When a formal definition of a planet in the solar system was adopted, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. What characteristic of planets does NOT describe Pluto?
planets have cleared the neighborhood around their orbit
Which statement about Pluto’s discovery is FALSE?
it was the massive jovian Lowell described as “Planet X” in his calculations
What are comets made of?
all of the above
Charon’s orbit:
is highly inclined to Pluto’s orbital plane
The orbital resonances with Jupiter are shown in the:
kirkwood gaps
The orbits of most comets:
lie almost entirely beyond the orbit of Neptune
What is the defining property of the Trojan asteroids?
they have orbits at the distance of Jupiter and 60 degrees ahead of or behind it
