Final. Planetary Rings, Asteroids & Comets, Meteors & Meteorites.

Question 1

Jupiter’s Rings

Answer 1

Rocky, very fine rocky dust. Broad, diffuse rings.

Question 2

Roche Limit

Answer 2

the distance from a planet within which a moon cannot hold itself together by its own gravity. If a moon went in, it would be ripped apart by tidal forces.
Rings lie in this area b/c the material cannot condense together to form an object, so it is just debris scattered around the planet forming a ring.
(If moons were in roche limit, they would be egg shaped b/c tidal stretching.)

Question 3

Saturn’s Rings

Answer 3

Made up of billions of ice particles (large chunks). Not as old as the planet itself. Golf ball to boulder sized. Further: dust size.

Question 4

What caused Saturn’s rings

Answer 4

(maybe) Instead of nebula forming them when the planet formed, may have formed from the debris from impact collisions on Saturn’s moons. Same for Neptune and Uranus. Rings we see today may be temp b/c they were caused by impacts and eventually the ice will dissipate.

Question 5

Shepard Satellite

Answer 5

a satellite or chunk of debris that confines particles to planetary rings b/c gravity.

Question 6

Asteroids

Answer 6

Sometimes called minor planets, small rocky worlds, most orbit sun b/w Mars and Jupiter.

Question 7

Kuiper Belt

Answer 7

located in the outer fringes of our solar system, more than a million dark, icy bodies, some of which are very large. This is larger than the asteroid belt.

Question 8

comet

Answer 8

A chunk of debris that is composed of frozen icy material and frozen grains of rock. They can be very bright as they orbit the sun. Have a tail that is rather bright.

Question 9

Meteors

Answer 9

“shooting stars” parts of an asteroid (usually) that pass through our atmosphere and burn up, creating a small flash across the sky.

Question 10

Meteoroid

Answer 10

The object that is going to enter the atmosphere before it actually enters. So when you see the meteor, before it entered the atmosphere, it was a meteoroid while it was still outside the planet.

Question 11

Meteorite

Answer 11

Any part of an object that actually makes it to earth’s surface.

Question 12

Why do comets develop tails?

Answer 12

since they are frozen and are orbiting the sun, the heat from the sun will cause the comet’s body to melt a bit as it gets closer and closer. The icy material will vaporize and it releases gas as dust, giving it a tail. Can be longer than an AU.

Question 13

Solid frozen part of a comet

Answer 13

nucleus. only a few km in diameter.

Question 14

Meteor and Meteoroid

Answer 14

not the same thing.

Question 15

Asteroid - shape

Answer 15

irregular shape and have a lot of impact craters on surface. look like chunks of rubble.

Question 16

Combined mass of asteroid belt

Answer 16

not enough to make up the size of the earth. only 1/20th the size of earths moon.

Question 17

Some of the largest asteroids

Answer 17

could be broken into planetesimals.

Question 18

Oort cloud

Answer 18

spherical, can extend from 10,000 to 100,000 AU from the sun.
Astronomers think the objects in Oort cloud formed in the region among the Jovian planets. As the planets grew larger, they prob ejected much of the icy debris out toward the Oort cloud where they developed into comets.

Question 19

Objects in Kuiper belt

Answer 19

evidently formed as icy planetesimals in the outer solar nebula not much further from the sun than the outer planets.

Question 20

How big are the particles that produce typical meteors?

Answer 20

less than 1 gram in mass. Therefore, we don’t have nearly as many meteorites as we do meteors because most can’t survive the burning long enough to make it to the surface of the planet.

Question 21

Meteor Showers

Answer 21

displays of meteors that all seem to come from one origin in the sky, so they are related. Happen when the Earth passes near the orbit of a comet. As we do this, the particles of dust and debris that are flying off of the nucleus of the comet are left floating in space as they enter our atmosphere in a parallel pattern as we move in our orbit.

Question 22

Most meteors we see come from

Answer 22

tiny bits of debris from comets.

Question 23

Meteorites come from

Answer 23

asteroids. The chunks broken off the asteroids are the only particles that can be large enough to survive vaporizing within the Earth’s atmosphere.