Exam #2 Flashcards
TERRESTRIAL planets in order of semi major axis from SMALLEST to LARGEST
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
TERRESTRIAL planets in order of PLANET SIZE from LARGEST to SMALLEST
Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury
Which lists the JOVIAN planets in order of SEMI MAJOR AXIS from SMALLEST to LARGEST
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
JOVIAN planets in order of PLANET SIZE from LARGEST to SMALLEST
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Which is the largest object with the most moons?
Jovian Planets
Jovian planets are mostly made of
Hydrogen and helium like the sun
How do astronomers know what a planets atmosphere is made of?
They looked at a spectrum and matched the unique color barcodes to lab results
What trait of a planet determines its length of day
Rotation rate
What trait of a planet determines its length of year
Orbit semi-major axis
How does a terrestrial planet first get an atmosphere?
Active volcanoes release gas
“The atmosphere is crushing me and I think my suit is being disolved by acid. It’s hot but really dark even though the sun is up. I got to walk up a volcanoes”
Venus
“I thought this was earth but when I took my helmet off I couldn’t breathe. Anyway I’m in a dusty desert and I don’t think any rain has fallen in ages. Even though the sun is up it’s really cold.”
Mars
“I’m floating near a yellowish planet. Take your time getting me, since the view is great because of the spectacular rings.”
Saturn
“I’m floating near a huge striped planet with a large red storm. I think one of the moons near me just had a volcano go off.”
Jupiter
What would have helped Venus avoid the runaway greenhouse effect”
Having plate tectonics
Jupiters core is hotter and it has more liquid metallic hydrogen than Saturn because Jupiter
Has more mass than Saturn
Why are Uranus and Neptune blue colored and Saturn and Jupiter are not
They have methane (an ice) in their atmosphere
Jupiters moon Io is so incredibly volcanic because it
Is heated by tidal forces
The Roche limit for a planet is the
Closest a moon can get before the planets tidal forces rip it apart
Compared to Jupiter, Saturn is ___ so it’s clouds form __ in the atmosphere
Colder, deeper
What would have helped mars stay Earth like for longer?
Being more massive “like a large turkey terrestrial”
Venus’ surface is very hot because
It has a strong greenhouse effect
A comet that has a semi major axis of 35 AU is located in the…
Kuiper belt
Which region has objects with the largest orbital periods?
Oort cloud
How would we get mercury to be reclassified as a dwarf planet?
Put in the asteroid belt
Pluto is considered a dwarf planet because
It hasn’t cleared out the other small bodies in the region of its orbit
Comets only have tails when…
They’re close to the sun
True or false: an asteroid is just a comet nucleus without a tail
False
Kuiper belt orbits are tilted by how many degrees
No more than 45 degrees
Port cloud orbits are tilted by how many degrees
By any possible inclination
We determine an objects mass by measuring
It’s orbital period and orbit size and apply Kepler 3rd law
What is the difference between an asteroid and a comet
An asteroid is made of rock and metal while a comet is made of ice and some rock
Dwarf planets are made of
Rock and ice
Which observation helps us learn the age of our solar system
Radioactive dating of asteroids and meteorites show they are 4.5 billion years old
What observation suggests that the planets migrated?
Other stars are found to have Jovian planets orbiting very close to their star
The gas cloud from which the sun formed was made mostly of
Hydrogen and helium
In the disc that would become our solar system, Jovian planets formed ____ where there were a lot of solid particles
Outside the frost line
In the disc that would become our solar system, Terrestrial planets formed ____ where there weren’t as many solid particles
Between the scoot line and the frost line
Stages in formation of solar system
1- collapse 2- baking 3- accretion 4- fusion 5- migration
