final exam quizzes

Question 1

To date, about how many asteroids have been discovered between Mars and Jupiter?

Answer 1

1,000,000 (1m)

Question 2

Why did Percival Lowell believe that there’s intelligent life on Mars?

Answer 2

He believed that he saw canals on Mars, built by Martians to direct water around the dying planet

Question 3

What are the names of the currently known Dwarf Planets?

Answer 3

Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake

Question 4

Pluto is…

Answer 4

is no longer considered a planet because it fails the IAU’s requirement that a planet must have cleared the debris along its orbit

Question 5

How do scientists believe Earth’s Moon formed?

Answer 5

A large impact early on in the solar system

Question 6

Which of the following statements about Bode’s Law is FALSE?

a.
It predicted that a planet should exist between Mars and Jupiter, which led to a search for an object in this region

b.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law

c.
The connection between Bode’s Law and the orbits of the planets is a coincidence

d.
It is a number sequence discovered in the 18th century to match the distances between the known planets and the Sun

Answer 6

b.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law

Question 7

What is the explanation for the existence of the asteroid belt?

a.
Asteroids are the fragments from collisions in the Kuiper Belt that have gotten thrown out of the Kuiper Belt and caught in the strong gravity field between Jupiter and Saturn

b.
Asteroids are the leftover rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter that weren’t able to coalesce into a planet owing to the gravitational pull from nearby Jupiter

c.
Asteroids are the leftover fragments of a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object

d.
Asteroids are the rocky debris from the tails of comets that are left behind whenever comets complete the perihelion segment of their orbit

Answer 7

b.
Asteroids are the leftover rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter that weren’t able to coalesce into a planet owing to the gravitational pull from nearby Jupiter

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT true about asteroids?

a.
Most of them are round or spherical

b.
Most asteroids are found between Mars and Jupiter

c.
They are lumpy or potato-like in shape

d.
We have visited a number of Asteroids with spacecraft

Answer 8

a.
Most of them are round or spherical

Question 9

What defines an object as a dwarf planet, according to the IAU? Choose all that apply.

a.
The object is really small

b.
The object orbits a star/the Sun

c.
The object orbits a planet

d.
The object is spherical

e.
The object has cleared its orbit from other objects of similar size

Answer 9

b.
The object orbits a star/the Sun

d.
The object is spherical

Question 10

Which of the following statements about the regions of our solar system is TRUE?

a.
The asteroid belt is a ring of rocky debris between Earth and Mars

b.
The Oort cloud is a flat ring of icy debris that surrounds our entire solar system and is the home of Pluto and Eris

c.
The Kuiper belt is a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune and contains Ceres, the largest known dwarf planet

d.
None of these answers are true

Answer 10

d.
None of these answers are true

Question 11

What is today’s theory for why all the planets in our solar system orbit the Sun in the same direction and in roughly the same plane?

Answer 11

The planets were all formed from the same spinning circumstellar disk around the Sun

Question 12

Which of the following statements about dwarf planets is TRUE?

a.
Pluto is not considered a planet because it is not a perfect sphere

b.
Ceres is not considered a planet because it is not a perfect sphere

c.
Dwarf planets are suspected to be rare in our solar system; there are currently 5 known dwarf planets and astronomer suspect that there aren’t any more to discover

d.
Europa is not considered a planet because it is not in solar orbit

Answer 12

d.
Europa is not considered a planet because it is not in solar orbit

Question 13

What two things about William Herschel’s telescopes allowed them to be particularly suited for searching for planets?

a.
They were hand-built

b.
They had highly polished lenses

c.
The had large primary lenses

d.
He had the most money

e.
They had large tube lengths

Answer 13

c.
The had large primary lenses

e.
They had large tube lengths

Question 14

What was the significance of the object now known as Eris?

a.
It revealed that there are objects at least as massive as Pluto beyond Pluto’s orbit

b.
It was the first Kuiper Belt Object discovered to have planetary rings

c.
It solved the mystery of Uranus’s orbital deviations after Pluto was declassified as a planet

d.
It was the first asteroid-moon system ever discovered

Answer 14

a.
It revealed that there are objects at least as massive as Pluto beyond Pluto’s orbit

Question 15

Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres in 1801, why did he name the object ‘Ceres’

Answer 15

To honour his home country

Question 16

Originally, Asteroids were known as ___________ ?

Answer 16

Minor Planets

Question 17

When William and Caroline Herschel discovered Uranus, they were actually looking for something else. What were they searching for?

Answer 17

Stellar Parallax

Question 18

Why were astronomers looking for another planet beyond Neptune?

Answer 18

Neptune’s (mistakenly calculated) mass couldn’t account for the deviations in Uranus’ orbit

Question 19

The term ‘asteroid’ means…

Answer 19

‘star-like’, because asteroids are so small that they appear as small points of light in the sky, even through the telescope

Question 20

Why did Herschel want to find satellites of Neptune really quickly?

Answer 20

Because England had been snubbed on Neptune’s discovery

Question 21

Which of the following statements about exploration of the outer solar system is FALSE?

a.
The New Horizons mission is obtaining information about objects in the Kuiper Belt

b.
Titan is the only moon in our solar system to possess lakes of liquid water on its surface

c.
Carbon and water have been observed in the plumes ejected from cryovolcanoes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

d.
Cracks in Europa’s icy surface suggest the existence of a liquid subsurface ocean

Answer 21

b.
Titan is the only moon in our solar system to possess lakes of liquid water on its surface

Question 22

Uranus was found to be 20 au from the Sun; how much further away is that compared to Saturn?

Answer 22

2x

Question 23

Which of the following statements about the discovery of the planet Uranus is FALSE?

a.
It was named after the Greek god of the sky and father of Saturn

b.
It was found to have a highly elongated elliptical orbit around the Sun

c.
It was seen to move relative to the stars

d.
It was discovered by William Herschel, who had constructed telescopes that were the largest of their time

Answer 23

b.
It was found to have a highly elongated elliptical orbit around the Sun

Question 24

Which of the following correctly describes the seasonal experience on Uranus owing to its ‘sideways’ spin?

a.
Uranus experiences 2 seasonal extremes lasting several decades each

b.
Uranus experiences all 4 seasons, each with equal length

c.
Uranus’ northern hemisphere experiences constant winter and Uranus’ southern hemisphere experiences constant summer

d.
There are no seasons on Uranus

Answer 24

a.
Uranus experiences 2 seasonal extremes lasting several decades each

Question 25

While an objet in the Oort cloud has never been observed, why do we think it exists?

Answer 25

The shapes and orientations of cometary orbits

Question 26

Which of the following statements about the moons in our solar system is TRUE?

a.
Earth’s moon is unusually small, given the large amount of matter in the inner orbits of the circumstellar disk from which the Earth and Moon were formed

b.
The composition of Mars’ moons is similar to the composition of Earth, which suggests that Mars’ moons were formed from an impact with Earth

c.
Triton is Neptune’s largest moon and is suspected to have been knocked into a retrograde orbit owing to an impact with another object

d.
Earth’s moon is believed to originally have been a Kuiper Belt object that travelled close enough to Earth to get trapped into its orbit

Answer 26

c.
Triton is Neptune’s largest moon and is suspected to have been knocked into a retrograde orbit owing to an impact with another object

Question 27

Percival Lowell became world famous for his observations of which planet?

Answer 27

Mars

Question 28

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the Outer Planets?

a.
They have relatively thick atmospheres

b.
Their orbits are separated by relatively large spaces

c.
They are primarily made of hydrogen, helium, and hydrogen compounds

d.
They have rings

e.
They have relatively high densities

Answer 28

e.
They have relatively high densities

Question 29

Which of the following statements about Bode’s Law is FALSE?

a.
The connection between Bode’s Law and the orbits of the planets is a coincidence

b.
It predicted that a planet should exist between Mars and Jupiter, which led to a search for an object in this region

c.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law

d.
It is a number sequence discovered in the 18th century to match the distances between the known planets and the Sun

Answer 29

c.
When Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, their distances were all found to follow Bode’s Law

Question 30

Which of the following statements about the properties of planets in our solar system is TRUE?

a.
None of these answers are true

b.
All the planets have planetary rings, but only the rings of the gas giants are bright enough for us to see them

c.
The terrestrial planets are primarily solid in composition while the gas giants are significantly higher in density

d.
The terrestrial planets are Mercury, Venus and Earth, the gas giants are Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giants are Neptune and Uranus

e.
The gas & ice giants all have multiple moons while the terrestrial planets have few, if any, moons

Answer 30

e.
The gas & ice giants all have multiple moons while the terrestrial planets have few, if any, moons