Astronomy Chapter Six

20 Questions I 396 Attempts I Created By moonshark13 920 days ago

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Question Excerpt From Astronomy Chapter Six

Q.1)	Which of the following observations indicates that conditions on Mars may have been suitable for life in the past?

A.	There are very large extinct volcanoes on Mars.

B.	There is a very deep and long canyon that extends across Mars.

C.	There are dried-up riverbeds on Mars.

D.	Mars has polar caps made of "dry ice."

E.	Mars has two small moons.

Q.2)	Which is the densest planet in the solar system?

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Q.3)	What are the main constituents of the jovian planets?

A.	rocky minerals and water, as on Earth

B.	hydrogen and helium

C.	ammonia and methane

D.	ammonia and water

E.	nitrogen and methane

Q.4)	Why did the solar nebula heat up as it collapsed?

A.	Nuclear fusion occurring in the core of the protosun produced energy that heated the nebula.

B.	As the cloud shrank, its gravitational potential energy was converted to thermal energy.

C.	Radiation from other nearby stars that had formed earlier heated the nebula.

D.	The shock wave from a nearby supernova heated the gas.

E.	Collisions among planetesimals generated friction and heat.

Q.5)	Why did the solar nebula flatten into a disk?

A.	The interstellar cloud from which the solar nebula formed was originally somewhat flat.

B.	The force of gravity pulled the material downward into a flat disk.

C.	As the nebula cooled, the gas and dust settled onto a disk.

D.	It flattened as a natural consequence of collisions between particles in the nebula, changing random motions into more orderly ones.

Q.6)	According to our theory of solar system formation, why do all the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction and in nearly the same plane?

A.	The original solar nebula happened to be disk-shaped by chance.

B.	Any planets that once orbited in the opposite direction or a different plane were ejected from the solar system.

C.	The laws of conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum ensure that any rotating, collapsing cloud will end up as a spinning disk.

D.	The Sun formed first, and as it grew in size it spread into a disk, rather like the way a ball of dough can be flattened into a pizza by spinning it.

E.	Luck explains it, as we would expect that most other solar systems would not have all their planets orbiting in such a pattern.

Q.7)	What percentage of the solar nebula's mass consisted of hydrogen and helium gases?

A.	0.5 percent

5 percent

C.	50 percent

D.	98 percent

E.	100 percent

Q.8)	What percentage of the mass of the solar nebula consisted of elements other than hydrogen and helium?

0 percent

B.	0.1 percent

2 percent

D.	20 percent

E.	80 percent

Q.9)	What kind of material in the solar nebula could remain solid at temperatures as high as 1,500 K, such as existed in the inner regions of the nebula?

rocks

metals

C.	silicon-based minerals

D.	hydrogen compounds

E.	molecules such as methane and ammonia

Q.10)	Which of the following has not been detected around other stars in the Galaxy?

A.	a collapsing nebula of gas

B.	flattened, spinning disks

C.	jovian planets

D.	terrestrial planets

E.	strong stellar winds

Q.11)	Which of the following are relatively unchanged fragments from the early period of planet building in the solar system?

asteroids

B.	Kuiper belt comets

C.	Oort cloud comets

D.	all of the above

Q.12)	According to our theory of solar system formation, why do we find some exceptions to the general rules and patterns of the planets?

A.	Our theory is not quite correct because it cannot explain these exceptions.

B.	Most of the exceptions are the result of giant impacts or close gravitational encounters.

C.	The exceptions probably represent objects that formed recently, rather than early in the history of the solar system.

D.	The exceptions probably represent objects that were captured by our solar system from interstellar space.

E.	The exceptions exist because, even though our theory is as correct as possible, nature never follows rules precisely.

Q.13)	Based on our current theory of Earth's formation, the water we drink comes from

A.	ice that condensed in the solar nebula in the region where Earth formed.

B.	chemical reactions that occurred in Earth's crust after Earth formed.

C.	chemical reactions that occurred in Earth's core after Earth formed.

D.	material left behind during the giant impact that formed the Moon.

E.	comets that impacted Earth.

Q.14)	The heavy bombardment phase of the solar system lasted

A.	several million years.

B.	several tens of millions of years.

C.	several hundreds of millions of years.

D.	about a billion years.

E.	to the present time.

Q.15)	The age of the solar system can be established by radioactive dating of

A.	the oldest rocks on Earth.

B.	the oldest rocks on the Moon.

C.	the oldest meteorites.

D.	the atmosphere of Mars.

E.	It hasn't been done yet, but the age of the solar system could be obtained from a sample of Io's surface.

Q.16)	The first planets around other Sun-like stars were discovered

A.	by Huygens, following his realization that other stars are Suns.

B.	by Galileo following the invention of the telescope.

C.	at the turn of last century.

D.	about a decade ago.

E.	at the turn of this century.

Q.17)	Approximately how many other planetary systems have been discovered to date?

ten

B.	a few hundred

C.	a few thousand

D.	tens of thousands

millions

Q.18)	What is astrometry?

A.	measuring distances to stars

B.	searching for planets around stars

C.	measuring the positions of stars on the sky

D.	measuring the velocities of stars via the Doppler effect

E.	using metric units for distance (e.g. meters rather than light years)

Q.19)	Which planet search technique is currently best suited to finding Earth-like planets?

Doppler

B.	astrometric

transit

D.	gravitational lensing

E.	combining all the above

Q.20)	Which planet search technique is currently best suited to finding Earth-like planets?

Doppler

B.	astrometric

transit

D.	gravitational lensing

E.	combining all the above

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Astronomy Chapter Six

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