Honors Astronomy Semester 2 Final
What is interesting about Jupiter’s rotation period?
Fastest in the solar system
Essentially, the Great Red Spot is
A large cyclonic system (hurricane)
Alternating zones of rising & sinking gas in Jupiter’s atmosphere create
Light & dark bands
What is thought to lie at the center of Jupiter?
A massive core of rocky materials w/some iron
Which of the Galilean moons is the densest & most geologically active?
Io
The surface of which Jovian moon most resembles the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean?
Europa
Of the Galilean moons, the one w/striking grooved terrain & icy tectonic features as well as older craters is:
Ganymede
Which of the Jovian moons is the largest & also the largest moon in the solar system, even larger than Mercury?
Ganymede
What are Saturn’s rings?
Small icy particles moving in orbit around Saturn
The Roche limit is the point of which
The external tidal forces on an object becomes greater than the internal forces that hold it together
How many large moons does Saturn have?
1
How many medium sized moons does Saturn have?
6
What is interesting about Saturn’s large moon Titan?
Has an atmosphere
The only spacecraft to have visited Uranus & Neptune was
Voyager 2
Uranus was discovered
Less than 250 yrs ago
Which 3 played a role in finding Neptune?
Adams, Leverrier, & Galle
Uranus is
Barely visible with the naked eye
In terms of axial tilt, which of the Jovian shows the largest inclination?
Uranus
At which plant can the pole remain in darkness for 42 years then have 42 yrs of constant daylight?
Uranus
The orbits of most asteroids
Lie entirely beyond the orbit of Mars
What is the typical size of most known asteroids
A few km
What are dactyl, Gaspra, Mathilde, Eros, & Ida?
The only 4 asteroids explored by spacecraft to date
The orbits of most comets
Lie almost entirely beyond the orbit of Neptune
What are comets made of?
Silicates & rocky dust, metallic dust particles, dark complex hydrocarbons, methane, water ice, & ammonia
The Oort Cloud is thought to be
The spherical cloud of comets & some larger icy bodies surrounding the outer solar system
The Kiuper belt objects have orbits that
Stay out just beyond Neptune & close to the ecliptic
The largest Kiuper belt object is
Eris
The Perseid meteor shower gives us about a meteor every minute in mid
August
Few _______ actually Strike the earth, b/c most are small & burn up in the atmosphere
Meteors
Most meteor showers occur________, as we again intersect the comet’s orbit
Biannually
How do the atmospheres of the moon and mercury compare?
Neither has a permanent atmosphere
Lunar Maria are found
Almost entirely on the earth side, where the crust was thinner
Lunar highlands are
More rugged, easily cratered, & older than the lunar mare
What is true of the Moon’s orbital & rotational periods?
They are =
Mercury’s surface most resembles that of which other body
Moon
Mercury’s Caloris Basin is aptly names, since
It is the hottest region, Turing to face the sun when mercury is @ perihelion
Venus’s rotation
Takes longer than its orbit around the sun
Through radar observations, it was found that Venus’
Rotation on its axis is retrograde
Which statement is true of Venus’s surface?
2 continent sized uplands
What is Aphrodite Terra
Continental sized plateau on Venus
Maxwell mons
Huge shield volcano on Venus
What is the main problem spacecraft have encountered in landing on Venus?
Extremely high temperatures
Why does Mars appear fairer than Venus as seen from earth
It is smaller, farther away, and less reflective
Give the correct size order of Venus, mercury, and Mars from smallest to largest
Mercury, mars, Venus
How long is a day on Mars?
24 hrs, 36 min
Where do the names for the moons of mars come from
The sons of Ares and Aphrodite
Most prominent feature of Mars observable from earth
Bright polar caps
Deepest depression found on surface of Mars
Hellas Basin
Largest shield volcano yet discovered
Olympus mons on Mars
NASA missions that landed on Mars in 1976
Vikings 1 &2
That’s is bulge on Mars is roughly the size of
North America
What is thought to be the reason that there are no small impact craters on Mars?
Wind blows small dust particles, eroding the surface of Mars, erasing small impact craters faster than they form
Why is Mars red?
Iron in the surface rocks have been oxidized over time
How many moons does Mars have?
2
How many earths could fit inside the sun?
A little over a million
About heat percent of the incoming energy from the sun reaches earth’s surface?
50-70%
From inside out what is the correct order for the structure of the sun?
Radiative zone, convective zone, the chromosphere
Hydrostatic equilibrium in our sun is the balance between
Gravitation and pressure
A loop of gas following the magnetic field lines between sunspots’ poles is
A prominence
How long does the sunspot cycle last on average?
About 11 yrs
Sunspots
Come in pairs, representing the north and south magnetic fields
If a star appears to move back and forth relative to other stars over a 6 mo period, this motion is
Parallax shift
What is the absolute magnitude of our sun?
+4.8
The star’s color index is a quick way of determining its
Luminosity
The Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram plots ______ again the spectral type or temp
Luminosity or absolute magnitude
A hypernova creates a
Blackhole
What are the 2 main points of Einstein’s general theory of relativity
Speed of light is constant everywhere
Spacetime is the 4th dimension
Spacetime is the 4th dimension
If light from a distant star passes close to a massive body, the light beam will
Bend toward the star due to gravity