final exam quizzes Flashcards
To date, about how many asteroids have been discovered between Mars and Jupiter?
1,000,000 (1m)
Why did Percival Lowell believe that there’s intelligent life on Mars?
He believed that he saw canals on Mars, built by Martians to direct water around the dying planet
What are the names of the currently known Dwarf Planets?
Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake
Pluto is…
is no longer considered a planet because it fails the IAU’s requirement that a planet must have cleared the debris along its orbit
How do scientists believe Earth’s Moon formed?
A large impact early on in the solar system
Which of the following statements about Bode’s Law is FALSE?
a.
It predicted that a planet should exist between Mars and Jupiter, which led to a search for an object in this region
b.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law
c.
The connection between Bode’s Law and the orbits of the planets is a coincidence
d.
It is a number sequence discovered in the 18th century to match the distances between the known planets and the Sun
b.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law
What is the explanation for the existence of the asteroid belt?
a.
Asteroids are the fragments from collisions in the Kuiper Belt that have gotten thrown out of the Kuiper Belt and caught in the strong gravity field between Jupiter and Saturn
b.
Asteroids are the leftover rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter that weren’t able to coalesce into a planet owing to the gravitational pull from nearby Jupiter
c.
Asteroids are the leftover fragments of a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object
d.
Asteroids are the rocky debris from the tails of comets that are left behind whenever comets complete the perihelion segment of their orbit
b.
Asteroids are the leftover rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter that weren’t able to coalesce into a planet owing to the gravitational pull from nearby Jupiter
Which of the following is NOT true about asteroids?
a.
Most of them are round or spherical
b.
Most asteroids are found between Mars and Jupiter
c.
They are lumpy or potato-like in shape
d.
We have visited a number of Asteroids with spacecraft
a.
Most of them are round or spherical
What defines an object as a dwarf planet, according to the IAU? Choose all that apply.
a.
The object is really small
b.
The object orbits a star/the Sun
c.
The object orbits a planet
d.
The object is spherical
e.
The object has cleared its orbit from other objects of similar size
b.
The object orbits a star/the Sun
d.
The object is spherical
Which of the following statements about the regions of our solar system is TRUE?
a.
The asteroid belt is a ring of rocky debris between Earth and Mars
b.
The Oort cloud is a flat ring of icy debris that surrounds our entire solar system and is the home of Pluto and Eris
c.
The Kuiper belt is a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune and contains Ceres, the largest known dwarf planet
d.
None of these answers are true
d.
None of these answers are true
What is today’s theory for why all the planets in our solar system orbit the Sun in the same direction and in roughly the same plane?
The planets were all formed from the same spinning circumstellar disk around the Sun
Which of the following statements about dwarf planets is TRUE?
a.
Pluto is not considered a planet because it is not a perfect sphere
b.
Ceres is not considered a planet because it is not a perfect sphere
c.
Dwarf planets are suspected to be rare in our solar system; there are currently 5 known dwarf planets and astronomer suspect that there aren’t any more to discover
d.
Europa is not considered a planet because it is not in solar orbit
d.
Europa is not considered a planet because it is not in solar orbit
What two things about William Herschel’s telescopes allowed them to be particularly suited for searching for planets?
a.
They were hand-built
b.
They had highly polished lenses
c.
The had large primary lenses
d.
He had the most money
e.
They had large tube lengths
c.
The had large primary lenses
e.
They had large tube lengths
What was the significance of the object now known as Eris?
a.
It revealed that there are objects at least as massive as Pluto beyond Pluto’s orbit
b.
It was the first Kuiper Belt Object discovered to have planetary rings
c.
It solved the mystery of Uranus’s orbital deviations after Pluto was declassified as a planet
d.
It was the first asteroid-moon system ever discovered
a.
It revealed that there are objects at least as massive as Pluto beyond Pluto’s orbit
Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres in 1801, why did he name the object ‘Ceres’
To honour his home country
Originally, Asteroids were known as ___________ ?
Minor Planets
When William and Caroline Herschel discovered Uranus, they were actually looking for something else. What were they searching for?
Stellar Parallax
Why were astronomers looking for another planet beyond Neptune?
Neptune’s (mistakenly calculated) mass couldn’t account for the deviations in Uranus’ orbit
The term ‘asteroid’ means…
‘star-like’, because asteroids are so small that they appear as small points of light in the sky, even through the telescope
Why did Herschel want to find satellites of Neptune really quickly?
Because England had been snubbed on Neptune’s discovery
Which of the following statements about exploration of the outer solar system is FALSE?
a.
The New Horizons mission is obtaining information about objects in the Kuiper Belt
b.
Titan is the only moon in our solar system to possess lakes of liquid water on its surface
c.
Carbon and water have been observed in the plumes ejected from cryovolcanoes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus
d.
Cracks in Europa’s icy surface suggest the existence of a liquid subsurface ocean
b.
Titan is the only moon in our solar system to possess lakes of liquid water on its surface
Uranus was found to be 20 au from the Sun; how much further away is that compared to Saturn?
2x
Which of the following statements about the discovery of the planet Uranus is FALSE?
a.
It was named after the Greek god of the sky and father of Saturn
b.
It was found to have a highly elongated elliptical orbit around the Sun
c.
It was seen to move relative to the stars
d.
It was discovered by William Herschel, who had constructed telescopes that were the largest of their time
b.
It was found to have a highly elongated elliptical orbit around the Sun
Which of the following correctly describes the seasonal experience on Uranus owing to its ‘sideways’ spin?
a.
Uranus experiences 2 seasonal extremes lasting several decades each
b.
Uranus experiences all 4 seasons, each with equal length
c.
Uranus’ northern hemisphere experiences constant winter and Uranus’ southern hemisphere experiences constant summer
d.
There are no seasons on Uranus
a.
Uranus experiences 2 seasonal extremes lasting several decades each
While an objet in the Oort cloud has never been observed, why do we think it exists?
The shapes and orientations of cometary orbits
Which of the following statements about the moons in our solar system is TRUE?
a.
Earth’s moon is unusually small, given the large amount of matter in the inner orbits of the circumstellar disk from which the Earth and Moon were formed
b.
The composition of Mars’ moons is similar to the composition of Earth, which suggests that Mars’ moons were formed from an impact with Earth
c.
Triton is Neptune’s largest moon and is suspected to have been knocked into a retrograde orbit owing to an impact with another object
d.
Earth’s moon is believed to originally have been a Kuiper Belt object that travelled close enough to Earth to get trapped into its orbit
c.
Triton is Neptune’s largest moon and is suspected to have been knocked into a retrograde orbit owing to an impact with another object
Percival Lowell became world famous for his observations of which planet?
Mars
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the Outer Planets?
a.
They have relatively thick atmospheres
b.
Their orbits are separated by relatively large spaces
c.
They are primarily made of hydrogen, helium, and hydrogen compounds
d.
They have rings
e.
They have relatively high densities
e.
They have relatively high densities
Which of the following statements about Bode’s Law is FALSE?
a.
The connection between Bode’s Law and the orbits of the planets is a coincidence
b.
It predicted that a planet should exist between Mars and Jupiter, which led to a search for an object in this region
c.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law
d.
It is a number sequence discovered in the 18th century to match the distances between the known planets and the Sun
c.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law
Which of the following statements about the properties of planets in our solar system is TRUE?
a.
None of these answers are true
b.
All the planets have planetary rings, but only the rings of the gas giants are bright enough for us to see them
c.
The terrestrial planets are primarily solid in composition while the gas giants are significantly higher in density
d.
The terrestrial planets are Mercury, Venus and Earth, the gas giants are Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giants are Neptune and Uranus
e.
The gas & ice giants all have multiple moons while the terrestrial planets have few, if any, moons
e.
The gas & ice giants all have multiple moons while the terrestrial planets have few, if any, moons
