Exam 1 Flashcards
What was Kepler’s First Law?
Planets revolve around the sun in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus of the ellipse
What best describes the orbit of the Earth around the Sun?
An ellipse that is very close to being circular
What is Kepler’s Second Law?
When a planet is closer to the sun, it’s speed is greater than when it is farther away
How was Kepler’s Second Law originally stated?
A line joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time
What is Kepler’s Third Law?
The orbital time period time squared is proportional to the average distance from the sun (P^2=a^3)
If Saturn is 10 times farther from the sun than Earth, or a=10, what is the orbital period of Saturn?
about 30 years
Besides the discovery that moons orbit Jupiter, what other discovery made by Galileo Galilei, with an early telescope, proved that the earth is not at the center of the universe?
The phases of Venus
What is P in Kepler’s Third Law?
Orbit period
Of the four Galilean moons, which is closest to Jupiter?
Io
Which moon of Jupiter is believed to have a liquid ocean beneath a layer of ice?
Europa
Which moon of Jupiter is the largest?
Ganymede, also the largest moon in the solar system
Venus speed of rotation: fast or slow
Slow
For someone watching the sky from Venus’s surface, where does the sun rise and fall?
It would rise in the West and set in the East
How do craters on Venus compare to those on Earth, the moon, and Mars?
They are significantly larger
Does Venus have volcanos, and if so, how much of the planet’s surface does the lava flow cover?
Yes; at least 85%
Where do mountains on Earth come from?
In some locations, plates of rock on the planet’s surface press together and the plates rise together
Where are auroras likely to be seen most frequently and what causes them?
Locations near the poles. Charged particles come down over the poles and light up when they hit the atmosphere
Which planet has more carbon dioxide and thus a greater greenhouse effect, Earth or Venus?
Venus
What is ozone?
Three oxygen atoms bonded together into a single molecule (O3)
What would happen if the ozone layer were completely destroyed?
Ultraviolet radiation from the sun would get through the atonischere and chase damage to life
Why is Venus’s day so long?
Venus’s rotation time is very long compared to Earth’s
Which terrestrial planets have the least amount of atmosphere?
Mercury and Mars
The densities of the four terrestrial planets are similar to each. This means:
They are made of similar substances
A meteor shower can occur when:
Earth’s orbit crosses a trail of debris left behind from a comet
Most meteors:
are very small (centimeters) pieces of rock burning in the Earth’s atmosphere
A comet’s nucleus is composed of:
Dust, dry ice, and water ice
Meteorite age
Roughly as old as solar system
Characteristics of Jovian planets
Many moons, higher mass, higher radius, farther apart from each other, lower density, deep atmospheres made of hydrogen and helium compounds
Which moon has many sulfur volcanoes and which planet does it belong to?
Io; Jupiter
What properties characterize all the Jovian planets?
Many moons, large size, low densities
Asteroids
Found in large quantities in main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Found in both small and large sizes; solid, rocky, or metallic, and can have craters
Moon phases:
Waning on left side, waxing on right side; crescent on top, gibbous on bottom; first quarter left side, third quarter right side, new moon up, full moon down
Solar eclipse
Moon is in between sun and earth
What is a meteorite?
a meteor that passes through the earth’s atmosphere and survives to hit the Earth?
What is the size of a meteor?
between the size of a small grain and a large boulder
meteorites come from:
Asteroids
When do comets develop a tail?
Only when they get closer to the sun in their orbit
What is the size of the head of a comet and what is it made of?
About the size of a city and is made of frozen gases, rock, and dust
Which planet rotates in the opposite direction as the other planets?
Venus
Why do orbits of the planets all lie in nearly the same plane?
The early solar nebula flattened into a dism
Of these choices, which planet has the most moons: Earth, Mercury, Saturn, Mars, Venus
Saturn
When is Venus visible to us?
near sunrise or sunset
How many Earth years does it take Uranus to orbit the Sun?
84
What makes Neptune blue?
methane in its atmosphere
Which planet(s) have a dark/ black sky, even in the daytime?
Both the Moon and Mercury
Of asteroids, meteors, and comets, which one’s tail always points away from the sun?
Meteors and comets
Things required to classify a solar system object as a planet
It must not be a moon around another objects, it must be massive enough to be nearly round, it must orbit, it must clear the region around its orbit
What planet looks most like Earth’s moon?
Mercury
Characteristics of comets
Tail points away from the sun, tails become more prominent when comet is close to the sun, highly elliptical orbit, move slowly across the sky
What causes an aurora?
Solar wind particles that hit the atmosphere of a planet
Io
Yellow color with black spots; lots of volcanoes
Europa
Pale tan/ white; covered in fine cracks, appears very smooth
Ganymede
Marbled look, alternates between dark and light spots
Callisto
Looks like Ganymede with no dark and light spots
Titan
Bright orange
Miranda
dull and grey, odd jumbled/ striped look
Triton
Looks like Miranda but is bumpy
If you were to sit on the ground, there would be a force due to gravity pulling you toward the Earth. Which of the following is true according to Newtons’s 3rd Law?
You are pulling the earth toward yourself with the same force
What month is always dark at the south pole?
June, summer in general for us is dark for south pole
How many degrees is the moon tipped relative to Earth’s orbit
5 degrees
The spectrum of an oxygen lamp looks different than the spectrum of a sodium lamp because:
each atom has a unique set of electron orbits
Dark lines in an absorption spectrum represent:
Particular energies of light coming from a distant object that are absorbed by material in between
Even the largest ground based telescopes have resolution restrictions imposed by:
atmospheric blurring of images
