Final Exam. Surface Features of Mercury, Venus, & Mars, Jovian Planets and moons. Flashcards
Mercury
Flood plains (volcanism) and craters (early heavy bombardment).
deep flood plains due to lack of atmosphere.
Scarp.
Flood plains
result of volcanism. Can occur if a volcanic structure erupts and can also occur if an impact crater is deep enough.
Craters
result of impacts.
Venus
We don’t really understand Venus’s surface. fewer impact craters than mercury. Young surface. Desert like. Many mountains. A lot of volcanoes.
basaltic flooding
basalt=solidified lava
Causes of Venus’s Mountains
- Convection currents underneath the crust that pushed the crust upward.
- Folded crust.
Mars
Desert like, rocks. Orange/reddish appearance.
Heavily cratered–flat-floored b/c dust fills them.
Extremely large volcanoes. Polar caps. lowlands, highlands. Canyon.
Largest volcano on Mars
Olympus Mons
Canyon on Mars
Valles Marineris. 4X deeper and 10X wider than grand canyon. Caused by crustal stresses.
Mars Highlands and Lowlands
Highlands: heavily cratered. older.
Lowlands: smoother, younger. Once believed to have contained an ocean.
What kinds of features suggest erosion by flowing water?
Outflow channels (look like river beds).
Water on Mars
No liquid water because low air pressure, it would boil away. A lot of water is frozen in the soil as permafrost and the rest is in ice caps. Liquid water: about 3 billion years ago.
Polar Caps
Water: permanent
CO2: seasonal.(dry ice)
Mars- sky
pink/yellow because dust.
Jupiter (& Saturn) Layers
Core: rocks, metals, ices, H compounds.
Mantle: H/He mixture. Metallic/Liquid H.
Atmosphere: Gaseous H. Clouds.
Jupiter - Interior
Is so hot because the core area is made of material left over from the formation of the planet, which was really hot, so that material is still emitting heat out into space.
Jupiter’s Atmosphere
Multiple layers of clouds because certain substances condense at certain temperatures.
Condense
build up onto one another so the molecules of the compound are attaching to one another, forming clouds.
Jupiter’s Atmosphere layers
Substances condense at different temps.
Top: ammonia b/c it condenses at lower temp.
As you move down temp to condense increases.
Ammonia hydrosulfide.
Further: Water will condense.
Color of Jupiter’s clouds
From top to bottom.
Yellowish/Brown
Greenish
Blue
Jupiter’s Major Gasses
H and He. H is most abundant.
Others randomly mixed in small amounts. Water Vapor, methane, ammonia, and some sulfur.
Sulfur can give off the yellow/brown color.
What causes Jupiter’s color?
We don’t know. Thought it could be sulfur but no sulfur has been detected spectroscopically.
Great Red Spot
Giant circulating storm. Bigger than Earth and is like a hurricane.
Layers of Uranus & Neptune
Uranus: basically ice. also, its bluish green.
Core: Rock, ice, (heavy materials like rock and metals).
Mantle: Water, ammonia, methane ices
Atmosphere: H, He, methane gas (mainly H)
Upper Atmosphere: clouds
Why is Neptune blue?
Due to methane in atmosphere which absorbs red and reflects blue colors of the spectrum.
Methane is the 3rd most abundant gas in atmos. of Neptune and Uranus.
Neptune
A small core of heavy elements lies withing the slushy mantle of water, ices, and rocky materials below a H rich atmosphere.
Jovian Moons
Formed by accretion. Most are small and icy and have no atmospheres. heavily cratered, same side is always facing planet (like Earth’s moon).
Jovian Moons Densities
Most moons
1. icy; <2gm/cubic cm
formed from cold Jovian nebulae
Jovian Moons Surface Features
- Impact craters (heavily cratered)
Flood plains (water “volcanism”
Crustal faults and ridges (tectonic features)
Tides
Tidal forces are referred to as tidal stretching b/c the forces of the moon (and sun) are exerting a force on the earth. The side facing the moon feels a larger force.
However, some of this force is left over relative to the center of the planet.
The leftover combined with the force already exerted helps explain why it is stretching.
Latitude of the location on the planet with high tides can help explain why high tides are not all equally as high at different locations.
Europa
Jupiter. Density=3.0 meaning its mainly rock so we could walk on it.
Crust: thin and icy. very few craters. so, flooding has prob taken place. (same as basaltic flooding but cooler liquid)
Europa - Crust
Cracks in ice indicate the crust flexes as tidal forces act on the moon. Cracks look like folding.
Deep ocean possible beneath icy crust.
Io
Jupiter. Density=3.6. So, we could walk on it.
Over 100 volcanic vents on its surface, could be volcanoes, cracks, geysers, fissures, whatever.
No impact craters b/c ash from volcanic vents spews ash on surface. Has Volcanic mtns. (only active volcano)
Large Metallic core, Rocky Mantle.
Io - Tidal Heating
(Kept hot by Jupiter. Mostly liquid state.)
Tidal heating allows the liquid water to exist on the moons, otherwise they would be cold and frozen solid like other moons.
Io - Gravitational Field
a lot of tidal stretching.
flexing the moon causes the friction which can also cause the tidal forces and allow the heat from the interior to exist, allowing liquid water to be there.
Saturn’s moons
Only one moon has an atmosphere: Titan. There is a goo substance that is unique on the surface.
Orange smog dev after sunlight converts Methane into a Carbon element., then settles on surface as goo. So, goo must be semi-liquid.
Enceladus
Small, can’t hold atmosphere. Ice plumes. ice particles within the moon (Titan). are erupted through geysers on the surface and the ice particles fly into space. These ice particles collected around the planet moon orbits (Saturn) and helped form the E-ring.
Io - Having molten rock (lava) requires heat source. What is it?
Not accretion: Io is too small to hold heat for that long.
Answer: Tidal heating.
Io - Surface
Sulfur rich. Vocanic mountains and flood plains.
no craters b/c frequent flooding.
