Exam 2 Flashcards by Bre'Ona Butler

The 4 terrestrial planets have similar …

Interior structure (crust, mantle, and core)

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4 Terrestrial Planets

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

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Mercury has the relatively large fraction of core; while Mars …

Has relatively small fraction of core (possibly related to its relatively low average density)

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Marguerite and earth has the global scale magnetic fields, but Mercury’s magnetic field…

Is 1% as strong as Earth’s

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Currently, Venus and Mars do not have internal global magnetic fields. The very weak magnetic field around Venus it probably induced by….

The interaction between ionosphere and the solar winds. Evidences suggests that Mars has strong internal dipole magnetic field like Earth’s in the ancient time (cooling and solidification of outer core with time)

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Some interesting surface features on the terrestrial planets are:

General topography
Crater
Volcano

Features related to liquid water (Mars)

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The surface of Mercury know is also called:

Caloris Basin

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Surface of mercury (Caloris Basin) was discovered in…

1974 by Mariner 10

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Surface of Mercury (Caloris Basin) is the largest structure on Mercury with diameter of …

1500 km (Messager)

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The center location of the surface of Mercury is marked …

Latitude: 30°N
Longitude: 190°W

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The surface of Mercury (Caloris Basin) is surrounded by …

A ring of mountains - 2 km tall

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Caloris Basin is that to be a large impact crater because …

Caloris impact was a major event for Mercury (3.8 - 3.9 billion years ago

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Regarding the Caloris Basin impact, The shock waves generated

Six concentric rings 630 to 3700 km across

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Empirical formula of calculating diameter of a crater …

D = C x E^1/5 (E^.22 is better)

D - diameter of crater, E - kinetic energy of the impacting object, C - a parameter affected by characteristics of the impacting object and the planet/satellite

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MKS means…

Meter, kilogram, and second

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Mercury appears to be geologically did and is heavily cratered. There are also …

Many smooth and flat plains

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Scientists have debated whether these ancient planes on Mercury were formed by…

Erupting volcanoes driven by internal heat, or simple melting associated with impact processes

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The latest close-up images by NASAs MESSENGER (spacecraft) support …

The volcano theory

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MESSENGER false color image of Caloris Basin (light orange is the basin interior). Several extinct volcanoes were …

Imaged in bright orange regions just inside the southern crater rim

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In pictures of Mercury …

Red - permanently shadowed polar craters

Yellow - water ice

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Observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft have provided compelling …

Support for hypothesis that Mercury hosts abundant water ice in its permanently shadowed polar craters

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3 independent lines of evidence support this conclusion:

1) The first measurements of excess hydrogen at Mercury’s north pole
2) The first measurement of the reflectance of Mercury’s polar deposits at near infrared wavelengths
3) The first detailed models of the surface and near surface temperatures of Mercury’s north polar regions that utilize the actual topography from MESSENGER

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Venus’ dense atmosphere blocks its surface in …

The visible and close wavelengths

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Venus’ surface was observed by Earth-based …

Radars and radars on spacecrafts, landers/probes, and other scientific instruments

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On the surface of Venus, the two most noticeable large-scale surface features are ...

Lowlands (plains) and highlands (mountains)

The highest mountain (Maxwell Montes) in the Terra highlands on Venus is ...

50% higher than the highest mountain on Earth (Mt. Everest)

On the surface of Venus, there are 1000 relative larger craters with size varying from ...

A few tens kilometers to a couple of hundred kilometers (much fewer than the numerous craters on Mercury and the moon)

The largest known crater on Venus is named ...

"Margaret Mead" has a diameter of 280 km and several concentric rings

Why are there so few craters on Venus? And why are there no small-size craters on Venus?

1) thick atmosphere of Venus preventing some objects (especially small ones) from hitting the surface 2) some processes resurfaced Venus and remove these craters

There are 1600 major volcanoes on the surface of Venus, and most of them ...

Died a long time ago

Regarding the surface of Venus, recent studies suggest ...

There are some active volcanoes on Venus

One of the famous volcanoes named Sapas Mons is ...

300 km wide and 8 km high

Corona (plural: coronae) are ...

Circular bulges formed by volcanic activity

Coronae occur around areas where…

Lavas tried and failed to break the surface

Coronae often appear in ...

Groups on Venus

Corona is a unique geological feature ...

On Venus on the four terrestrial planets in our solar system

On the surface of Mars, the Southern Hemisphere is ...

Highlands and heavily cratered

On the surface of Mars, the Northern Hemisphere is ...

Lowlands and relatively few craters (probably experienced the process of resurfacing)

The surface of Mars was possibly once filled with ...

Water in the lowlands in the Southern Hemisphere (ancient oceans)

There are more hundreds of thousands of craters on Mars with size larger than ...

1 km (due to the thin atmosphere, the crater on Mars can be very small)

On the surface of Mars, there are relatively fewer craters in the lowlands in the ...

Northern hemisphere than in the highlands in the Southern Hemisphere

Hellas Planitia (Hellas Impact Basin) is the largest impact crater known in the solar system with measurements ...

Diameter - 2300 km | Depth - 7 km

Small craters on top of larger craters suggest ...

Different impacting times

Mars has the largest volcano in the solar system on its surface, named ...

Olympus Mons

Olympus Mons' measurements are ...

Center location: 18°N, 226°E Diameter: 600 km at base Height: 25 km

Basically all volcanoes on Mars are ...

Shield volcanoes (large size, big eruption site)

Mars canyon measurements ...

Length: 4000 km Width: 200 km Depth: 7 km

Earths canyon measurements:

Length: 400 km Width: 10 km Depth: 2 km

Mars' size is 1/2 of Earth's size, but it's canyon is ...

Much bigger than the Grand Canyon on Earth

Mars' canyon is probably related to crust development and even plate tectonics, but the relatively small canyon on Earth is ...

The development of the Colorado River

The North and South Poles are the coldest places on Earth (-150°C). The global average temperature is ...

-60°C

There are ____ ____ in the two polar regions on Mars

Ice caps

The chemical component of ice caps is ...

Water ice and "dry ice" (CO2)

Currently, there are no liquid waters. Therefore, sublimation/deposition is the only way important to the atmosphere of Mars. Due to cold temperature and low pressure, ...

Ices never melt (instead, they sublimation into gas/vapor)

Carbon dioxide ice in the polar cap of Mars experiences ...

Sublimation (to atmosphere) as summer approaches and experiences deposition (to surface at the opposite pole)

Current surface conditions on Mars (cold temperature and low-pressure) do not support…

Liquid water on Mars (easy to freeze to ice in sublimate to water vapor)

Many evidences suggest that there was liquid water on the surface of Mars in the past. What happened for taking off liquid water on Mars?

Evolution on atmosphere

Like the Earth's Moon, Mercury has a ...

Very thin and volatile atmosphere | (Surface pressure of about 10^-15 of Earth's surface pressure

The negligible atmosphere (Mercury) is made up of ...

Atoms or ions blasted off its surface by the solar winds

The atmosphere (Mercury) is composed chiefly of ...

Oxygen, sodium, and helium | New observations suggest calcium also exists in the atmosphere

Small size and mass is one of the reasons of the negligible atmosphere. Also strong solar winds help to blow away the atmosphere. Finally, Mercury's Extreme surface temperature ...

Enhances the escape of these volatile atoms into space

The atmosphere of Venus experienced a ...

Runaway greenhouse effect

In the early history of venous, it may have had a liquid ocean. But the runway greenhouse effect…

Heated the surface and evaporated all liquid water on the surface of Venus

Early Venus has the same atmospheric components as these of earth, but Venus' temperature ...

Is relatively higher because it is closer to the Sun

With higher temperature, Venus' atmosphere has relatively more water vapor (the concentration of water vapor is a function of temperature. In general ...

Higher temperature corresponds to large concentration

The greenhouse effect of the water vapor raised the surface temperature and more liquid water evaporated into the atmosphere, and is further intensified…

The greenhouse effect and raised the temperature even higher (positive feedback)

The runway process continued until oceans disappeared. Then almost all of the water vapor was eventually…

Lost by the action of ultraviolet radiation on the upper atmosphere

Super rotation refers to…

The atmosphere of Venus moves in a wind speed of order of 100 m/s relative to its slowly-rotated solid body

It will take four days for atmosphere (100 m/s) to go around the whole globe of Venus. Venus' rotation period is ...

243 days

The winds of Venus change with ...

Altitude and latitude

The large scale winds of planetary atmospheres, including Venus' super rotation, are an important subject in meteorology and planetary science. The first reasonable concept of explaining the large-scale winds was developed by ...

George Hadley, an English lawyer

Basic idea (Venus): meridional circulation (atmospheric movement in the north-south direction) is the classic ...

Mechanism to drive the large-scale zonal winds (east/west direction) on Earth

Dr. Gierasch (1975) modified the concept from Hadley to explain ...

The strong winds in the longitude direction (super rotation) on Venus *difference between earth and Venus - One signal sale on Venus due to slow rotation

The most dominant features in Martian atmosphere are ...

Global dust storms

Global dust storms affect ...

Many aspects of Mars at a global scale

Regarding Mars, on June 26, 2001 dust storms began near ...

The northern polar cap and near Hellas Planitia

Regarding Mars, on September 4, 2001 a planet wide dust storm ...

Obscures the entire surface of the planet

Regarding the 2001 global dust storm, the global dust storm began ...

In the second Martian year (Ls - 180) of TES observation

There are background temperature variations (not related to the dust storms) in response to ...

The change in solar radiance between aphelion (Ls = 71) and perihelion (Ls = 251)

The influence of dust is different at different atmospheric layers, such as ...

Higher layer: absorbing-heating | Lower layer: blocking-cooling

Exam 2 Flashcards

(80 cards)