Questions and Answers
What is the required condition for volcanism to occur in a planet?
What is the term for the release of gases from Earth's interior into the atmosphere?
What type of lava is characterized by its smooth texture?
What is the force behind the deformation of rocks in the Earth's crust?
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Who is credited with inventing a rocket-like device called an aeolipile?
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What was the primary component of the simple form of gunpowder used in ancient China?
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What is the term for the process of breaking down or transporting rock through weather-driven processes?
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What type of volcano is characterized by its steep shape?
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What is the year in which the first true rockets were used in the Battle of Kai-Keng?
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Which of the following techniques is NOT used to determine the composition and structure of a planet's atmosphere?
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What is the main reason why the Moon's mare have fewer craters compared to other regions?
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Which of the following techniques is used to determine the grain size of a planet's surface?
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What is the relationship between the size of an impact crater and the size of the object that created it?
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What does the presence of many craters on a planet's surface indicate?
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What is the primary way to study the interior of a planet?
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What is the process called when an object collides with a planet and leaves a bowl-shaped depression?
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What is the primary way to determine the composition of a planet's atmosphere?
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Which of these is NOT a method used to determine surface structure?
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Who was the leading figure in the Soviet space program?
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What was the name of the first artificial satellite launched into space?
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What was the name of the rocket used to launch Sputnik 1?
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What was the name of the dog that was launched into space on Sputnik 2?
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What was the name of the training center for Soviet cosmonauts?
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What was the maximum height requirement for Soviet cosmonaut candidates?
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What was the name of the spacecraft that Yuri Gagarin flew on?
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What was the maximum weight requirement for Soviet cosmonaut candidates?
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What was the name of the international event that Sputnik 1's launch was linked to?
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Who is considered the 'Father of Modern Rocketry'?
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What year did the Soviet Union launch Sputnik 1?
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What was the name of the German organization that contributed to the development of the V-2 rocket?
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What is the fundamental principle that propels a rocket?
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What is the primary difference between a balloon and a rocket in terms of propulsion?
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What is the name of the book published by Sir Isaac Newton that outlined fundamental principles governing the motion of objects?
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What type of propellants can be used in rockets?
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Who was the key figure in the production of the V-2 rocket during World War II?
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Which of the following is NOT a fundamental principle of motion as stated by Sir Isaac Newton in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica?
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What characterizes faculae on the sun's surface?
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Which of the following is a prominent feature of Mercury?
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What is the primary component of Venus's thick atmosphere?
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What is the surface temperature of Venus during the day and night due to the greenhouse effect?
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Which planet is known as Earth's twin due to its similar size?
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Which of the following describes solar flares?
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What is the average distance of Mercury from the Sun in astronomical units (AU)?
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Which artificial satellite was the first to fly by Mercury?
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What feature distinguishes a prominence on the sun?
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What can be determined by combining the size and mass of a celestial body?
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Which method is used to determine the diameter of a solar system body by observing a star as it is occulted by the body?
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What type of motion is caused by the moon's close proximity to the ring particles?
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What is the term for the lowest velocity required for an object to escape the gravitational attraction of a planet or other object?
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Which method is used to determine the radii and shapes of relatively nearby objects?
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What is the term for the release of gases and dust that occurs asymmetrically for comets?
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What is used to estimate the masses of some of Saturn's small inner moons?
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Which of these techniques is NOT used to determine the composition and structure of a planet's interior?
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Which of the following techniques is used to determine the grain size of a planet's surface?
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What does the presence of many craters on a planet's surface indicate?
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What is the primary way to study the interior of a planet?
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What is the primary way to determine the composition of a planet's atmosphere?
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Which of the following is a condition necessary for volcanism to occur on a planet?
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Which of the following is NOT a method used to determine surface structure?
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What is the result of self-gravity in large celestial bodies?
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What is the purpose of the Doppler Shift method in planetary study?
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What is the effect of centrifugal pseudo-force on a rotating planet?
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What is the limitation of the Marking method in determining a planet's rotation?
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What is the relationship between a planet's obliquity and its rotation?
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What is the purpose of the Radio Signals method in planetary study?
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What is the effect of material strength on a celestial body's shape?
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What is the purpose of the Light Curve method in planetary study?
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What is the relationship between a planet's size and its shape?
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Which of these techniques can be used to determine a planet's shape using light that is refracted by its atmosphere?
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Which method is particularly well-suited for studying solid planets, asteroids, and cometary nuclei due to its ability to determine their radii and shapes?
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Which of the following techniques is used to study the interior of a planet?
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Which of the following techniques is best suited for studying the surface structure of a planet?
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Which of the following is NOT a method used to determine the composition and structure of a planet's atmosphere?
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Which of the following is the best indicator of a planet's surface or cloud top temperature?
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Which of the following is a method that can be used to calculate a planet's temperature?
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What method can provide detailed information on a planet's internal structure?
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Which technique can determine the composition of a planet's atmosphere?
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What does a surface with many craters indicate about its geological history?
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What is the typical relationship between the size of an impact crater and the object that created it?
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Which method is commonly used to find small-scale structures on a planet's surface?
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What process occurs when an object crashes into a planet and creates a bowl-shaped depression?
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What can be inferred from radar imaging techniques used in surface structure analysis?
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What defines a planet according to the IAU Resolution 2006?
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What is the primary reason for the lack of fusion in a planet's interior?
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What does the Termination Shock indicate in the context of the solar system boundaries?
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Which statement correctly describes the Heliosheath?
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What is a Brown Dwarf classified as?
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What is the main characteristic that distinguishes a star from a brown dwarf?
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Where is the heliopause located in relation to the solar system boundaries?
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Study Notes
Sun and Solar System
- Faculae are bright, granular, and hotter than the surrounding photosphere
- Granulation is the grainy appearance of granule convective cells
- Prominence is the bright magnetic loops of cool, dense gas
- Solar Flares are sudden explosions of energy by twisted magnetic lines
- Filament is magnetic loops that appear as dark lines
Terrestrial Planets
- The four small, dense, rocky planets that orbit closest to the sun have a faster period of revolution and slower rotation
- Mercury is 0.39 AU from the Sun, has a heavily cratered, moonlike surface, and a massive iron core
- Mercury has a very thin exosphere, with temperatures ranging from 425°C (day) to -170°C (night)
- Venus is 0.73 AU from the Sun, has a thick atmosphere made of mostly carbon dioxide, and has the highest surface temperature due to the Greenhouse effect (470°C)
Planetary Geology
- Processes that shape surfaces include:
- Impact Cratering: when an object crashes into the planet, leaving bowl-shaped depressions
- Volcanism: when molten rock finds a path through the lithosphere to the surface, resulting in volcanoes and lava flows
- Tectonics: the deformation of rocks that make up the Earth's crust and the forces that produce such deformation
- Erosion: weather-driven processes that break down or transport rock, including weathering, breakage, and deposition of debris
History of Spaceflight
Part 1: Rocketry
- Wooden bird: one of the first devices to successfully employ the principles essential to rocket flight
- Archytas (400 BC): flew a pigeon made of wood
- Hero of Alexandria: invented a similar rocket-like device called an aeolipile
- First true rockets were accidents (1st century A.D.) in China, using gunpowder
- Hermann Oberth (Germany): published about rocket travel into outer space in 1923
- Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel): led to the development of the V-2 rocket during WW2
- Wernher von Braun: key figure in the production of the V-2 rocket
- October 4, 1957: Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite
- 1958: US launched Explorer 1, their own satellite
Part 2: Basic Rocket Principles
- A rocket is a chamber enclosing a gas under pressure, which provides a thrust that propels the rocket in the opposite direction
- Science of Rocketry: based on Sir Isaac Newton's three important scientific principles in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
- Sergei Korolev: leading player in the early Soviet space program, often referred to as the Soviet Chief Designer
- Russians had a series of successes, including the launch of Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Sputnik 3
- Yuri Gagarin: first human to fly into space on Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961
Surface Structure
- Surface structure varies greatly from one planet or moon to another
- Ways to determine surface structure:
- Imaging: detects large structures, either passively or actively using radar imaging techniques
- Radar echo brightness and variation of reflectivity: used to find small-scale structures (grain size), related to radar echoes and albedo
Atmosphere
- Composition and structure of an atmosphere can be determined from:
- Spectral reflectance data
- Thermal spectra and photometry
- Stellar occultation profiles
- Attenuation of radio signals
Interior
- Not directly accessible to observation
- Can be derived from mass and size or gravitational field and rotation rate
- Detailed information on internal structure may be obtained if seismometers can be placed on the planet's surface
- Photometry: light curve, Attenuation: reduction in strength, Spectroscopy: to obtain composition and detect biosignatures
Planetary Geology
- Processes that shape surfaces:
- Impact cratering: happens when objects crash into the planet, leaving bowl-shaped depressions (craters)
- Most cratering occurred in the first billion years after the solar system formed
- A surface with many craters has not changed much in 3 billion years
- Craters are about 10 times wider than the object that made them
- There are more small craters than large ones
- Moons:
- Charon, Nix, Styx, Kerberos, Hydra
- Prominent features:
- Tombaugh Regio (heart-shaped region)
- Tartarus Dorsa (mountain showing snake-skin like appearance)
- Artificial satellites:
- New Horizons (the only flyby, 2015)
- Impact cratering: happens when objects crash into the planet, leaving bowl-shaped depressions (craters)
Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris
- Ceres:
- The first known asteroid discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801
- The largest object in the Asteroid Belt but the smallest of the five confirmed dwarf planets
- Artificial satellite: Dawn (orbiter, 2015-2018)
- Haumea:
- An oval-shaped Trans-Neptunian Object discovered in 2004
- Possibly has planetary rings due to a collision
- Moons: Hi'iaka and Namaka
- Makemake:
- The second largest "cubewano" (classical Kuiper-Belt Objects)
- Discovered in 2005 by a team headed by Mike Brown
- Moon: MK2
- Eris:
- The most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System
- Discovered in 2005 by a team headed by Mike Brown
- Moon: Dysnomia
Types of Spacecraft Exploration
- Flybys:
- Flies by a planet just once
- Advantage: cheaper
- Disadvantage: less time to gather data
- Orbiters:
- Go into orbit around another world
- More time to gather data but cannot obtain detailed information about the world's surface
- Probes/Landers:
- Lands on the surface of another world
- Explores the surface in detail
- Spiral Wave Density:
- If the moon is close to the ring, it affects the ring particles, causing ripples or wave-like motions
- Used to estimate the masses of some of Saturn's small inner moons
Size
- Ways to determine size:
- Angular size
- To solve for the diameter of a body
- Has large uncertainties in angular size because of limited resolution from Earth
- Occultation:
- Geometry of an asteroid occultation
- Diameter of a solar system body can be deduced by observing a star as it is occulted by the body
- Calculate the amount of time it takes for an object to pass a certain point
- Radar echoes:
- Can be used to determine radii and shapes for relatively nearby objects that may be studied with radar (similar to echolocation)
- Especially useful for studying solid planets, asteroids, and cometary nuclei
- Triangulation:
- Triangulation using landers and orbiters to more accurately measure the radius of an object
- Photometric observations:
- Use of photometric observations at visible and infrared wavelengths
- Can estimate the size and albedo of a body
- Angular size
Sample Return Mission
- Lands on the surface of another world
- Gathers samples
- Spacecraft designed to blast off another world and return to Earth
- Examples: Apollo missions to the Moon, Hayabusa to an asteroid
Solar System Boundaries
- Heliosphere: the region of space containing magnetic fields and plasma of solar origin
- Heliopause: the boundary of the heliosphere
- Terminal shock: region just interior to the heliopause where the solar wind is slowed down
- Heliosheath: Region between the termination shock and the heliopause
- Bow shock: forms in front of the heliosphere as the sun moves through the interstellar medium
IAU Resolution 2006: Defining a Planet
- A planet is a celestial body that:
- Is in orbit around the Sun
- Has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium shape
- Has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit
Star, Stellar Remnant, Brown Dwarf, and Planet
- Star:
- Self-sustaining fusion is sufficient for thermal pressure to balance gravity
- Minimum mass for an object to be a star is often referred to as the hydrogen burning limit
- Stellar remnant:
- Dead star
- No more fusion (or so little that the object is no longer supported primarily by thermal pressure)
- Three types
- Brown dwarf:
- Substellar object with substantial deuterium fusion
- More than half of the object's original inventory of deuterium is ultimately destroyed by fusion
- Planet:
- Negligible fusion, plus it orbits one or more stars and/or stellar remnants
Properties of Planets
- Polar flattening is greatest for planets that have a low density and rapid rotation
- Saturn is the most oblate planet in our solar system
- Faster spinning - more oblate shape
- Slower spinning - more spherical shape
- Ways to determine shape:
- Direct imaging
- Length of chords: observed by stellar occultation experiments at various sites
- Analysis of radar echoes
- Analysis of light curves
- Central flash: sudden brightening at the minimum of a light curve
Temperature
- Can be calculated from the energy balance between solar insolation and reradiation outward
- In situ measurements with a thermometer
- Thermal infrared spectrum: good indicator of the temperature of the surface or cloud tops
Rotation
- A vector quantity related to spin angular momentum
- Obliquity (axial tilt):
- Angle between its spin angular momentum and its orbital angular momentum
- < 90 degrees obliquity = prograde rotation
- > 90 degrees obliquity = retrograde rotation
- Ways to determine rotation:
- Marking
- Radio signals
- Light curve
- Doppler shift
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Description
Test your knowledge of sun features like faculae, granulation, and prominences, as well as the characteristics of terrestrial planets. From solar flares to filaments, get ready to explore the solar system!
