Unit 6

Question 1

What is the name of the plutoid that is bigger than Pluto?

Answer 1

Eris

Question 2

Comets:

a. What are they made of?
b. Describe their orbit
c. Where is the orbit anchored?

Answer 2

a. aggregates of ice, frozen gases and miscellaneous rock dust/fragments
b. elongated elliptical
c. anchored to either kuiper belt or the oort cloud

Question 3

What are the names of the 4 dwarf planets classified as plutoids?

Answer 3

Pluto, Eris, Makemake, Haumea

Question 4

Why was Pluto demoted from planet status?

Answer 4

The reason for the reclassification was simply that more and more objects almost identical to Pluto were being discovered, and we could eventually be talking about 50 planets – that was deemed unworkable

Question 5

Where are the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud?

Answer 5

Kuiper was beyond pluto and Oort was even further than Kuiper

Question 6

What is the name of the spacecraft that recently passed Pluto?

Answer 6

New Horizon

Question 7

Describe the technique of blink-comparison that was used to originally find Pluto

Answer 7

A machine that allowed him to look through a microscope at a small spot on one plate and then at the flip of a lever see the same spot on the other plate

Question 8

What is Planet X?

Answer 8

The planet that lowell is trying to discover??

Question 9

Is Pluto always farther from the Sun than Neptune? Why or why not?

Answer 9

No, every 248 years Pluto swings inside the orbit of Neptune, it stays there for 20 years, so for 20 years its closer to the sun than Neptune

Question 10

What 4 kinds of ice on found on Pluto’s surface?

Answer 10

frozen nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide

Question 11

Why is Pluto’s surface not heavily cratered?

Answer 11

??

Question 12

Does Pluto have an atmosphere? How is it created?

Answer 12

Yes, but idk how

Question 13

What is the structure of Pluto’s interior (as far as we can tell right now)?

Answer 13

1 = frozen nitrogen, 2 = water ice, and 3 = mix of silicate rock and water ice

Question 14

Is Charon a satellite of Pluto? Explain your answer

Answer 14

No, but it is tidally locked to Pluto. Its a binary planet.

Question 15

Why is there almost no methane on Charon, while Pluto has lots?

Answer 15

Because Pluto has a stronger gravity and it catches the methane that leaks off Charon

Question 16

What is the main kind of ice on Charon?

Answer 16

H2O ice.

Question 17

Does Pluto have satellites?

Answer 17

Yes, 4 - Nix, Hydra, kerberos, and Styx

Question 18

What do we know about the composition of Eris?

Answer 18

There is methane ice

Question 19

Where do comets come from?

Answer 19

Are believed to be the oldest, most primitive bodies in the Solar System, possibly comprised of some of the basic building blocks of life

Question 20

What are comets made of?

Answer 20

Contain the remains of materials used in the formation of stars and planets, carbon-based rich elements that are likely to provide clues about the nature of our Solar System

Question 21

What do comets represent?

Answer 21

They may provide evidence that comets brought water to Earth, making life possible

Question 22

As well as possibly being the main source of water to the inner planets, they may also have been the source of many of life’s basic building blocks (amino acids particularly).
a. Why would life not be able to survive on a comet?

Answer 22

The low temperatures, together with high vacuum, radiation from cosmic rays, exposure to ultra-violet light and solar wind particles, would prevent life from surviving on a comet

Question 23

What are the 4 parts of a comet, what are they composed of, and how do they form?

Answer 23

Nucleus(icy material), Coma(water vapour, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other minor components), Ion Tail(glowing gas) and Dust Tail(small smoke-sized dust particles that sputter off the nucleus)

Question 24

How are comets related to meteor showers?

Answer 24

When Earth passes through this stream of dust, we see a meteor shower

Question 25

Which direction does each of the tails point?

Answer 25

Always away from the sun!!

Question 26

Where in our solar system are comets formed? Are they old or young?

Answer 26

Formed with the rest of the Solar System and have been stored since formation in a cold place where the nuclear ices would be stable. old??

Question 27

What is the Kuiper belt? How did it form?

Answer 27

??

Question 28

For what two reasons is the Kuiper belt significant for the study of the solar system?

Answer 28

Likely that the Kuiper Belt objects are extremely primitive remnants from the early accretional phases of the Solar System AND Widely believed that the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt that overlaps with the scattered disc is the source of at least some of the short-period comets

Question 29

How do icy Trans-Neptunian Objects become comets? (2 ways) – How do we tell which process created individual comets?

Answer 29

1. Once in a while the planets are arranged such that their cumulative gravitational effect ‘kicks’ a scattered disc icy body out of its stable orbit and into an eccentric elliptical path that brings it into the inner Solar System 2. Perhaps due to the same gravitational stress, two or more icy bodies collide, and fragments of the parent(s) come sailing through the inner Solar System as comets. By looking at the nucleus, if it’s nice and round, it probably hasn’t suffered a devastating collision, but if it’s angular, it should be a collisional fragment

Question 30

What is the Oort cloud? How did it form?

Answer 30

A spherical cloud of icy bodies believed to extend from 10,000 to 100,000 AU from the Sun. Could never have formed at their present location

Question 31

Based on their orbits, how do we know that long-period comets come from the Oort cloud?

Answer 31

the orbits of those long period comets entering the inner Solar System were large and consistently groups about the same size, they entered isotopically, 50% of them has a retrograde orbit and the other has a direct/prograde orbit

Question 32

What is Comet Halley coated with? What is at the surface of Comet Borrelly?

Answer 32

Halley - covered in a layer of organic material. Borrelly - a dark charcoal like substance, similar to the material of carbonaceous chondrites

Question 33

Have we ever collected material from a comet? What material did they find?

Answer 33

Stardust mission was to collect material from the coma and tail. They found ancient building blocks of the solar system

Question 34

Can comets carry viruses?

Answer 34

NO

Question 35

Why has Halley’s comet one of the most well known comets by humans?

Answer 35

This was the first predicted return of any comet

Question 36

Can you see comets with the naked eye?

Answer 36

Yes

Question 37

Why are the lives of short-period (active) comets limited?

Answer 37

Nuclei are losing mass at rates that can’t be sustained for very long AND Active comets are under the gravitational control of the planets