Final Flashcards
The study of the moon is called
Selenologists
Most places on earth experience ____ high ___ and ___ low ___
two high tides & two low tides
Tides are created mainly by the influence of this celestial object:
moon
The ___ also causes earth’s tides, but it only has about ___ the effect of the moon.
sun; 1/2
When the moon is full or new, we experience ___ tides.
Spring
When the moon is at quadrature (1st or 3rd Quarters), we experience ___ tides
Neap
___ tides are the most exaggerated tides (really high high tides and really low low tides)
Spring
We have ___ tides and ___ tides each month
Spring; Neap
Explorer 1 discovered these belts of trapped, electromagnetically-charged particles:
Van Allen Belts
The moon’s crust, like other terrestrial bodies, is made of these two rocks:
granite & basalt
3 principal layers of a terrestrial planet or moon:
crust, mantle & core
The Earth’s core is principally made of these metals:
magnesium & iron
The arrangement of materials from densest at the core to least dense outward, is caused by this process:
chemical differentiation
Lunar maria are made principally of this rock type:
dark basalt
How is lunar far side different from its nearside?
Twice as thick crust
Why is the lunar far side different from its nearside?
Long axis aligned with Earth’s gravitational pull
This process is responsible for the movement of Earth’s surface features:
plate techtonics
The margins of tectonic plates are places where these occur:
earthquakes & volcanoes
Over 200 million years ago, this “supercontinent” existed:
Pangea
This plate boundary, such as in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, is where new crust is being made:
Divergent (Iceland)
This plate boundary, such as at Indian and Nepal, is where continental crust collides:
Convergent (Himalayas)
This plate boundary, such as at San Andreas, is where two plates run past each other:
strike-slip
Geologically speaking, the moon is:
dead
Scientific name for lunar soil:
regolith
If the moon has no volcanic activity or moonquakes or atmosphere, where does the regolith come from?
micrometeriorites from Earth’s atmosphere
All of the planets revolve in this direction:
counterclockwise
A planet’s rotational speed is directly related to its distance from the sun: T/F
False
The order of the planets outward from the sun:
rocky inner, gas giants outer
What are the two classes of planets?
Jovians (gas giants) & Terrestrials (rocky planets)
Terrestrials are found in the ___ solar system
inner
Jovians are found in the ____ solar system
outer
Largest planet in the solar system:
Jupiter
2nd largest planet in the solar system:
Saturn
The jovian planet’s main constituents:
hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia
Largest terrestrial planet:
Earth
2nd largest terrestrial planet:
Venus
3rd largest terrestrial planet:
Mercury
Liquid water is found only on this planet:
Earth
The number of sunspots in the solar photosphere reaches a peak every ___ years
11
The suns’s visible surface:
photosphere
Large dark spots in the suns photosphere:
sunspots
Sunspots are dark because they’re ___ than the surrounding solar photosphere.
cooler
Photosphere temperature:
11,000 degrees
Sunspot parts - cooler, inner ___; slightly warmer, out ___
umbrea; penumbra
Sunspots are permanent features: T/F
false
Great glowing jets or clouds of gas int he solar chromosphere:
prominences
Outermost layer of the sun containing superheated plasma:
chromosphere
Large, powerful sunspots can often release these vast explosion eruptions:
flares
Subatomic particles ride the ___, creating ___ in Earth’s atmosphere
solar wind; aurora
Three early ideas of how the sun made energy:
chemical burning; gravitational contraction; bombardment by asteroids
___ devised the absolute magnitude scale, where 0 degrees - the point where all molecular activity stops
Williams Thompson (Lord Kelvin)
“Heat flows from a hotter body to a colder one” is the ___ of thermodynamics.
2nd
Besides the Kelvin scale, what are two other commonly used temperature scales:
fahrenheit & celsius
Convert to Fahrenheit: 0 degrees Celsius
32 degrees (freezes)
Convert to Fahrenheit: 100 degrees Celsius
212 degrees (boils)
Convert to Fahrenheit: 0 degrees Kelvin
-459 (molecular activity presumably stops)
Why weren’t geologists okay with Kelvin’s 30 million year estimate for the sun’s age?
Earth was estimated to several hundred million years old
___ devised the laws of special and general relativity.
Albert Einstein
This formula explains how matter is converted into energy, is the secret of the sun’s success:
E=MC2
In E=MC2, E = ___
energy produced
In E=MC2, M = ___
mass detroyed
In E=MC2, C = ___
speed of light
Temperature of the solar core:
27 million degrees
In the solar core, hydrogen is converted into ___
helium plus energy
The process fo splitting heavy elements into smaller units is nuclear ___
fusion
The combining of light elements into heavier ones is nuclear ___
fission
The sun’s nuclear fusion process, whereby hydrogen atoms combine to ultimately form helium and energy is called the ___
proton-proton chain
In more massive stars, the nuclear fusion process is called the ___
carbon cycle
The sun’s gravity field is so powerful that it can ___ light
bend
In 1919, during a ___, the deflection of starlight by the sun’s gravity field was first detected by Sir Arthur Eddington
total solar eclipse
These “wrinkle” in the Mercurian crust are the result of shrinkage of the planet:
lobate scarps
Impact feature on Mercury, over a thousand miles across:
caloris basin
This spacecraft once orbited Mercury, but it recently smashed into it:
Mercury Messenger
Compared to its crust and mantle, Mercury’s metal core is comparatively:
large
The atmosphere of Mercury is ___
non-existent
Venus’ atmosphere is made of:
carbon dioxide
Our sister planet:
Venus
The air pressure eon Venus is ___ that of Earth’s
90 times
The surface temperature on Venus:
900 degrees Fahrenheit
This effect has caused Venus’ atmosphere to become superheated:
greenhouse effect
With coronae and volcanoes and tectonics, geologically speaking, Venus is ___
active
Impact craters on Venus are not generally very big or very small, but mostly ___
mid-size
Mars is ___ the size of Earth
1/3-1/2
Mars rotation rate compared to Earth’s:
24 1/2 (slightly longer)
Mars has these cold polar features that grow and shrink with the seasons:
ice caps
Mars ice caps are made up of both water ice and ___
dry ice
In 1887, a ___ brought us within 35 million miles of ___
perihelic opposition; Mars
At the U.S. Naval Observatory, ___ found Mars’ two small moons.
large 26” refractor
Mars two small moons:
Phobos; Deimos
___ observed canali (channels) on Mars; the wod was mistranslated as ___.
Giovanni Schiaparelli; canals
He advanced the idea of intelligent Martians who built irrigation canals:
Percival Lowel
15 mile high volcano on Mars:
Olympus Mons
3000 mile long crack in the ground on Mars:
Valles Marineris
Dry river valleys, flood zones, alluvial fans and sea or lakebed, as well as hematite “blueberries” on the Meridian plains are a good indicator of ___ in the past on Mars.
liquid water
Gaspra, Ida, Mathilde and Eros are all examples of these:
Asteroids
Another name for an asteroid:
minor asteroids
He found the first asteroid telescopically, and named it Ceres:
Father Guiseppi Piazzi
___ Law is a numerical sequence which suggested the existence of the ___ as well as planets beyond the orbit of Uranus
Bode’s; asteroids
Bode’s Law is not a law because its is not ___ and it doesn’t always ___
universal; work
A popular scientific theory suggests that the dinosaurs were killed off by ___
meteors
A streak of light in the night sky is called a ___
meteroid
The rock in outer space prior to its burning up in the Earths atmosphere is called a ___
meteor
When a meteor hits Earth, it’s call a ___
meteorite
A bright meteor is known as a ___
fireball
If a meteor loudly explodes, it’s called a ___
bolide
Characteristics of meteorites:
heavy, magnetic, with fusion crust
This type of meteorite is metallic and readily identifiable as meteoritic in nature:
iron-nickel
Iron meteorites, cut, polished and etched, reveal these iron crystals:
widmanstatten pattern
These meteorites are made of stony materials, like earth rocks:
achondrites
These stony meteorites contain rounded bits of glassy rock:
chondrites
This meteorite type is a mixture of stony and iron
tektites
Jupiter is 1/2 billion miles from the sun, Saturn is 1 billion miles from the sun, Uranus is ___ billions miles from the sun
2
Because of its fast rotation and resulting centrifugal force, the planet Jupiter is wider at the equator than from pole to pole, making it ___
oblate
Large hurricane on Jupiter, 2-3x the size of Earth, w/ 400 mph winds:
Great Red Spot (GRS)
The GRS has been observed telescopically for ___ years
400
These atmospheric phenomena are to be found at Jupiter:
storms, lighting, and aurorae
This comet smashed into Jupiter in 1994:
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Jupiter’s outer moon - ancient, heavily cratered terrain:
Callisto
Largest moon in solar system (Jupiter) featuring ice, grooved terrain:
Garymede
Fresh, smooth-surface moon of Jupiter with fine cracks in icy crust and subsurface water:
Europa
Tidally heated, sulfur covered Jupiter moon with many active volcanoes:
Io
Which of the gas giant planets has rings:
Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus
Volume of space controlled by a planet’s magnetic field:
magnetosphere
What are Saturn’s rings mainly made of:
tiny water ice chunks
Saturn’s density is less than:
water
Besides the ___ gap, there is also ___ division in Saturn’s rings
cassini; enke
Electrostatically charged dust suspended above Saturn’s rings:
spokes
Titan possess a thick atmosphere made principally of this gas:
nitrogen
This musician discovered the planet Uranus (almost named, “George”) in 1781:
William Herschel
What may have caused Uranus’ sideways tilt?
Collision, or planets may tip time to time
Of Uranus’ dozens of moons, this one has ice cliffs several miles high:
Miranda
This Earth-sized Neptunian feature has recently disappeared:
The great dark spot
This Neptunian moon orbits backwards or retrograde
Triton
These eruptive features are found on Triton:
Cryovolcanoes
Besides promoting Martian canals, Lowell postulated a ninth planet known at the time as ___
Planet X
Planet X was discovered in 1930 by ___
Clyde Tombaugh
Tombaugh discovered the planet one night while looking through a telescope: T/F
False
Planet X was soon named:
Pluto
Because Pluto’s orbit is more elliptical and offset from the others, it sometimes slips inside ___ orbit.
Neptunes
Besides Charon, Pluto has four more moons discovered only recently;
Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos
The amount of reflectivity of a planet:
albedo
Kuiper belt objects such as Quaor, Sedna and Eris are classified as ___
ice dwarfs
Short-period comets may come from this belt outside Neptune’s orbit:
Kuiper belt
This spherical cloud of comets surrounds our solar system:
Oort Cloud
In 1682 he saw the comet that would later be named for him:
Edmund Halley
Haley thought that the comets did not travel in straight lines, but instead had ___
elliptical orbits
The orbits of many comets are highly ___
elliptical
Recent apparitions of Halley’s Comet:
1682, 1759, 1835, 1920 (142 years)
Halley’s Comet reappears in:
2052
Comet Hale-Bopp is a good example of a ___ period comet
long
Halley’s comet is a ___ period comet
short
Comet tails always point ___ from the sun due to the pressure of solar radiation and flow of subatomic particles outward - the solar wind.
away
Parts of a comet: the atmospheric head, called a ___
Coma
Parts of a comet: the dust and gas blown off the coma by the solar wind:
tail
The ___ tail of a comet extends out in a straight line
iron or gas
The ___ tail curves away from a comet in an arc
dust
Spacecraft have flown past comet tails, struck comets, and brought back comet tail material to Earth: T/F
True
The dense worlds are found in the ___ solar system
inner
The gas giants are located in the ___ solar system
outer
This kind of material boils at fairly low temperatures:
volatile
This kind of material remains solid at high temperatures:
refractory
This hypothesis best explains the moon’s origin:
large impact theory
The ___ suggested that a passing star pulled material from the sun to form planets
planetismal theory
The ___ suggested that hot gas blew off the sun to form planets
tidal theory
The ___ suggested the sun was a binary, but the companion blew up making planets.
double star theory
The ___ was the basis for our modern ___; suggesting that the sun and planets formed from a cloud created by exploding stars
condensation theory; solar nebula
According to the solar nebula theory, the solar system began about ___ billion years ago
4.6
How was this age determined? (universe)
Radioactive dating of meteorites
Large planet-building objects that formed from the solar nebula:
planetesimals
