What will the upcoming mars rover do?
It will collect dust samples and safely store them to find remnants of microbial life
What method will the new mars rover use?
Raman Spectroscopy
How does Raman spectroscopy work?
It uses shifts in scattered light to identify materials
What is the brute-force method of seeing what’s in the center of the earth?
Drilling
What are the two different kinds of waves and their differences?
P waves (side to side) and S waves (up and down)
What is sound?
A p wave
How does seismic waves allow us to determine what the earth’s center looks like?
The way some are diverted suggests a solid core with a liquid outer core and a solid crust
What are the three pieces of inside the Earth, in order of density?
Core, Mantle, Crust
How did the inside of the core become layered?
Via differentiation, where gravity pulls the heavier materials down and allows the lighter ones to rise up
What does it take for an object to become spherical?
About 500 km and 1 Gyr
What experiment demonstrated that rock was not totally immutable?
The pitch-drop experiment
What is the lithosphere?
The planet’s outer layer of cool, rigid rock
What is the primary drive behind geological activity?
Interior heat
Why do planets have interior heat?
Accretion (energy upon impact), Differentiation (change in angular momentum), Radioactive decay
What is the only ongoing source of heat?
Radioactive decay
What three things allow planetary interiors to cool off?
Convection, Conduction, and radiation
How does planet size control geology?
Larger planets stay hotter longer
How does a magnetic field generate geology?
It is created by interior heat, and keeps the atmosphere intact
How are magnetic fields generated?
By the motion of charged particles
What are the three names that cause a magnetic field?
Ampere’s Law, Faraday’s Law, Lorenz’s force
What are the four processes that shape planetary surfaces?
Impact cratering, erosion, volcanism, tectonics
How large are craters formed?
About 10x the size of the object
What shape are craters?
Mostly circular
what kinds of craters can you find on earth?
All three kinds
Where is the largest crater?
Rheasilvia on Vesta
What are the three kinds of volcanoes?
Plains (runniest), Shield (runny), Strato (not very runny)
Is the entire mantle of the Earth lava?
No, just a few choice spots
What is outgassing?
Responsible for much of our atmosphere, when a volcano releases a bunch of gas from underground
How do we get valleys and mountains?
BY stretching and compressing of tectonic plates
How do craters reveal a geological age?
Most craters happened way in the past, so fewer craters mean a surface is new, and many craters means a surface is ol
Why do larger (warmer) planets have newer surfaces?
Tectonics, erosion, outgassing, and volcanism are all more likely
What affects how much geology there is?
Heat, distance from sun, presence of water, faster rotation