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AST-A 100
Exam 2
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Accretion | The process in which seeds clump to form a planet, kinetic energy of incoming impactor is converted into heat |
| Asteroid collision rates | Describe how often asteroids collide with each other—or with planets like Earth—within our solar system |
| Asteroids | Planetesimals left over from the birth of our solar system 4.5 bya |
| Atmospheres of the Jovians | Strong winds, enormous storms and colorful skies |
| Bulk density (mass/volume) | How much mass is contained in a given volume of a material — including both the solid parts and any empty spaces (pores or gaps) between particles |
| Ceres | Both the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt and classified as a dwarf planet |
| Clouds of Jupiter and Saturn | Upper clouds: Ammonia ice (NH₃), Middle clouds: Ammonium hydrosulfide (NH₄SH) Lower clouds: Water ice and vapor (H₂O). Saturn: |
| Comet structure | Nucleus, plasma tail, dust tail |
| Comets | Formed far away from Sun, beyond frost line, hence they have a lot of ices and little to no rocks/metals |
| Compositions of Jovians | Ammonia, methane, water, hydrogen and helium |
| Conditions for liquid water | Atmospheric pressure, conditions of Earth, energy source |
| Core | Highest density, most metals- iron and nickel, core is at the center |
| Coriolis effect | Any physical process that depends on wind |
| Crust | Lowest density, mostly rock, crust is outer layer |
| Densities of common materials (water, rock, metal/iron) | Water: 1000 kg/m3, Rock: 2500-3000 kg/m3, Metal: 7000-8000 kg/m3 |
| Differential rotation (Jovian) | Where different parts of the planet rotate at different speeds due to the presence of convection currents within the atmosphere which causes the mass to distribute, leading to a bulge around the equator |
| Differentiation | Downward flow of dense material past the upward flow of low-density material - friction between these 2 produces heat |
| Dwarf planets | Small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System |
| Earth's atmosphere | 77% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 2% others (1 bar, 60 F) |
| Elements of the universe (initial and produced later) | Big Bang: Hydrogen, helium and lithium; Produced later: uranium and thorium |
| Eris | The most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, similar to Pluto |
| Exosphere | Highest layer, has very low density; therefore, no shielding effects |
| Flattening | Measure of the compression of a circle or sphere, along a diameter to form an ellipse, or an ellipsoid of revolution, (spheroid) respectively |
| Frost line | The distance from a star where temperatures are low enough for volatile compounds like water and ammonia to condense into solid ice, playing a crucial role in planetary formation |
| Galilean moons of Jupiter | IO, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa |
| Gravitational contraction (as an energy source) | The potential energy an object with mass has due to the gravitational potential of its position in a gravitational field |
| Great Red Spot | A giant storm that has been going on for at least 300 years; twice as wide as Earth |
| Greenhouse effect | Visible light passes through the atmosphere and is absorbed by the surface; the surface then re-radiates this EM radiation but in IR band |
| Greenhouse gases | CO2, water vapor, and methane; trap and hold the IR radiation, thus heating up the surface |
| Heating | Collisional energy and radioactive decay |
| Hydrogen compounds | Acetylene, ethane, propane |
| Immanuel Kant | Put forth the nebular theory in 1755 |
| Iridium | Essential element in meteorites |
| Jovian formation | Formed by accretion in the outer solar system that form seeds of water, methane, and ammonia, which causes large ice rich planetesimals to form |
| Kepler's 3rd Law | The square of a planet’s orbital period is directly proportional to the cube of the orbit’s semi-major axis |
| KT boundary layer | A geological signature, usually a thin band of rock containing much more iridium than other bands |
| Kuiper belt objects | A region of icy bodies beyond Neptune, home to many objects known as Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), including dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris |
| Lithosphere | Part of mantle and all of crust, cool and rigid, floats on warmer and softer rock below it |
| Loss mechanisms of atmospheric gases | Thermal escape, condensation, solar wind, chemical reactions, impact cratering |
| Luis Alvarez | Experimental physicist, inventor, and professor of Spanish descent who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his discovery of resonance states in particle physics using the hydrogen bubble chamber |
| Mantle | Moderate density, mix of rock and metals, mantle surrounds core |
| Mars' seasons | Long, dry summer; longer, cold winter |
| Mars' atmosphere | 95% CO2, 2.7% Nitrogen, 2.3% others (0.007 bars, -60F) |
| Mars' surface features | Has southern highlands and lower highlands, significant impact cratering in southern highlands, volcanism is evident in the past |
| Mechanisms for geological re-surfacing | Tectonic resurfacing, volcanic resurfacing, erosional resurfacing, etc. |
| Mechanisms for internal heating | Radioactive decay, nuclear fusion, tidal heating, core solidification, electrical resistance heating |
| Mechanisms for planetary cooling | Convection, conduction, and radiation |
| Mercury's atmosphere | Virtually no atmosphere, during the day the sky is black |
| Mercury's surface features | Heavily cratered surface, has a giant impact crater called caloris basin, has giant cliffs |
| Meteorites | When an asteroid strikes on Earth |
| Moon's surface features | Craters, maria, highlands, rilles |
| Oort Cloud | A cloud of billions of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU |
| Ozone (UV protection) | A region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation |
| Phases of hydrogen (Jupiter) | Liquid metallic and molecular hydrogen |
| Physics of light scattering | Fundamental phenomenon where light is redirected in various directions when it encounters particles or irregularities in a medium, leading to effects like the blue sky and the visibility of light beams in fog |
| Planetary geology | The study of the geology of celestial bodies, including planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, focusing on their composition, structure, processes, and history |
| Pluto | Dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune; classified as a dwarf planet because it couldn't clear its orbital path |
| Rings of Saturn | Are made of mostly ice particles, range in size from sand grain up to house , gaps in the rings due to "gap moons" which clean up their orbit path |
| Roche limit | Saturn's gravity tears apart a moon that came too close to it |
| Seismic waves | Mechanical waves generated by the release of energy during events like earthquakes, traveling through the Earth and providing crucial insights into its internal structure |
| Shoemaker -Levy 9 | A comet that smashed into Jupiter |
| Solar nebular | Gravitational collapse of an interstellar cloud |
| Sources of atmospheric gases | Fossil fuel combustion, agriculture and livestock, deforestation, natural processes, and industrial activities |
| Spinning | Rotation of celestial bodies around their axes |
| Stratosphere | Sheilds us from most of the UV rays due to ozone molecule |
| Terrestrial formation | Formed by the accretion of planetesimals |
| Thermosphere | Below exosphere, shields us from X-rays |
| Titan | Has a fairly thick atmosphere, 90% Nitrogen and 10% others |
| Triton | Coldest moon in our solar system, orbits Neptune backwards, used to be a planet before it got too close to Neptune |
| Troposphere | Lowest layer; where GHG's are |
| Tunguska Siberia | Earth's largest impact date |
| Venus' atmosphere | 96% CO2, 3.5% Nitrogen, 0.5% others (90 bars, 880 F) |
| Venus' surface features | Has very thick clouds that block visible light, so you can't see the surface |
Created by:
kbreedi