Final Exam. Surface Features of Mercury, Venus, & Mars, Jovian Planets and moons.

Question 1

Mercury

Answer 1

Flood plains (volcanism) and craters (early heavy bombardment).
deep flood plains due to lack of atmosphere.
Scarp.

Question 2

Flood plains

Answer 2

result of volcanism. Can occur if a volcanic structure erupts and can also occur if an impact crater is deep enough.

Question 3

Craters

Answer 3

result of impacts.

Question 4

Venus

Answer 4

We don’t really understand Venus’s surface. fewer impact craters than mercury. Young surface. Desert like. Many mountains. A lot of volcanoes.

Question 5

basaltic flooding

Answer 5

basalt=solidified lava

Question 6

Causes of Venus’s Mountains

Answer 6

1. Convection currents underneath the crust that pushed the crust upward.
2. Folded crust.

Question 7

Mars

Answer 7

Desert like, rocks. Orange/reddish appearance.
Heavily cratered–flat-floored b/c dust fills them.
Extremely large volcanoes. Polar caps. lowlands, highlands. Canyon.

Question 8

Largest volcano on Mars

Answer 8

Olympus Mons

Question 9

Canyon on Mars

Answer 9

Valles Marineris. 4X deeper and 10X wider than grand canyon. Caused by crustal stresses.

Question 10

Mars Highlands and Lowlands

Answer 10

Highlands: heavily cratered. older.
Lowlands: smoother, younger. Once believed to have contained an ocean.

Question 11

What kinds of features suggest erosion by flowing water?

Answer 11

Outflow channels (look like river beds).

Question 12

Water on Mars

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Polar Caps

Answer 13

Water: permanent
CO2: seasonal.(dry ice)

Question 14

Mars- sky

Answer 14

pink/yellow because dust.

Question 15

Jupiter (& Saturn) Layers

Answer 15

Core: rocks, metals, ices, H compounds.
Mantle: H/He mixture. Metallic/Liquid H.
Atmosphere: Gaseous H. Clouds.

Question 16

Jupiter - Interior

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

Jupiter’s Atmosphere

Answer 17

Multiple layers of clouds because certain substances condense at certain temperatures.

Question 18

Condense

Answer 18

build up onto one another so the molecules of the compound are attaching to one another, forming clouds.

Question 19

Jupiter’s Atmosphere layers

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Color of Jupiter’s clouds

Answer 20

From top to bottom.
Yellowish/Brown
Greenish
Blue

Question 21

Jupiter’s Major Gasses

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

What causes Jupiter’s color?

Answer 22

We don’t know. Thought it could be sulfur but no sulfur has been detected spectroscopically.

Question 23

Great Red Spot

Answer 23

Giant circulating storm. Bigger than Earth and is like a hurricane.

Question 24

Layers of Uranus & Neptune

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Why is Neptune blue?

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Neptune

Answer 26

A small core of heavy elements lies withing the slushy mantle of water, ices, and rocky materials below a H rich atmosphere.

Question 27

Jovian Moons

Answer 27

Formed by accretion. Most are small and icy and have no atmospheres. heavily cratered, same side is always facing planet (like Earth’s moon).

Question 28

Jovian Moons Densities

Answer 28

Most moons
1. icy; <2gm/cubic cm
formed from cold Jovian nebulae

Question 29

Jovian Moons Surface Features

Answer 29

2. Impact craters (heavily cratered)
   Flood plains (water “volcanism”
   Crustal faults and ridges (tectonic features)

Question 30

Tides

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

Europa

Answer 31

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)

Question 32

Europa - Crust

Answer 32

Cracks in ice indicate the crust flexes as tidal forces act on the moon. Cracks look like folding.
Deep ocean possible beneath icy crust.

Question 33

Io

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

Io - Tidal Heating

Answer 34

(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.

Question 35

Io - Gravitational Field

Answer 35

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.

Question 36

Saturn’s moons

Answer 36

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.

Question 37

Enceladus

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

Io - Having molten rock (lava) requires heat source. What is it?

Answer 38

Not accretion: Io is too small to hold heat for that long.

Answer: Tidal heating.

Question 39

Io - Surface

Answer 39

Sulfur rich. Vocanic mountains and flood plains.

no craters b/c frequent flooding.