Chapter 27 Questions Flashcards
What are the major planets?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
What causes impact craters?
Collisions of the planets with other objects in space.
What two factors contribute to Mercury’s daily temperature fluctuations?
The absence of a significant atmosphere and the planet’s slow rotation.
What is Neptune’s Great Dark Spot?
A great storm.
When did early fresh-water oceans become salty?
Rainfall fell to Earth and dissolved some of the rocks on land, carrying dissolved solids into the oceans.As the water cycled back into the atmosphere through evaporation, some of the chemicals combined with salts.
Which planet has seasons like Earth?
Mars
What separates the outer planets from the inner planets?
An Astroid Belt.
What gases make up Jupiter?
Hydrogen and helium.
Describe Uranus’s axis?
While most planets rotate their axes perpendicular, Uranus’s axis is almost parallel to the plane of its orbit and rotates once about every 17 hrs.
***What three elements must be in proper balance to make life possible on Earth? If different conditions had developed over time, how might life on Earth have been different?
Water, Tempature and oxygen. If temperatures had become warmer or colder, animals would have developed ways to cool or hear their bodies to survive.If fewer bodies of water had developed, more desert-typed plants would have grown.If there were less oxygen in the air, mammals’ lungs would have had to become more efficient at utilizing the available oxygen.
***Suppose that a new planet has just been discovered. It is very large, has 18 moons, is surrounded by overlapping rings, and has a blue tint. In what group of planets would this new discovery belong? Explain your answer.
It would be with the outer planets, the gas giants because it has rings and none of the inner planets have rings also because of its size its large like the outer planets and because of its many moons.
***Describe Venus’s atmosphere. Venus’s atmospheric pressure is about 90 times the pressure on Earth.
Venus’s atmosphere is about 96% carbon dioxide. The high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere blocks most of the infrared radiation from escaping.
***What evidence indicates that Mars once had liquid water on its surface?
Surface features on Mars are characteristic of erosion by water, such as branching paths that look like gullies and evidence of vast flood plains.
***How do scientists locate exoplanets?
Through telescopes, they can be detected because their gravity tugs on stars that they orbit.
Where does 99% of all matter in a solar nebula exist?
The sun.
