1. List the inner planets.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

2. List the outer planets.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune & Pluto

3. a. Which planets are terrestrial?

Inner planets

b. What does terrestrial mean?

Made of rock or land.

4. What planets are Jovian? Why?

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

All are made of gas.

5. Which planet is neither terrestrial or Jovian?

Pluto

6. How does Mercury’s period of rotation compare to its period of revolution?

It takes less time for Mercury to pass through a year than it does to go through 2 days.

1 year = 88 Earth days; 1 day = 59 Earth days

7. Why is it difficult to observe Mercury’s surface from Earth?

Because it is too close to the sun (sun too bright).

8. Which body in the solar system is Mercury’s surface and atmosphere similar to?

Earth’s moon

9. Why do scientists believe that Venus has tectonic activity?

Because of radar images of Venus’s surface.

10. Describe what happens to Venus as a result of its thick carbon dioxide layer.

The Greenhouse Effect

11. When is Mercury visible?

As the morning star at sunrise or the evening star at sunset.

12. When Venus is visible as the morning star, where is it located in relationship to the sun?

West of the Sun

13. How are Earth and Mars alike?

They both have a similarly tilted axis, seasons and polar ice caps.

14. Why do scientists think Mars once had water?

The Valles Marineris (canyon) looks like it was created by water erosion.

15. What type of structure are Jovian planets thought to have?

Three-layered (rock core, liquid mantle, and outer layer of hydrogen & helium gas)

16. What do all Jovian planets have in common?

Made of H and He

Larger than terrestrial

Gas Planets

17. What characteristic do the Jovian ring systems have?

Particles orbit independently.

They are closer to the planets than any major moons.

They are centered over the planets equator.

18. How much heat does Jupiter radiate?

More than it absorbs from the sun.

19. What causes Jupiter’s auroras?

The interaction between its magnetic field and the solar wind.

20. How are Saturn’s colored bands oriented?

They are parallel to Saturn’s equator.

21. Compare Jupiter and Saturn by the following traits:

Traits Jupiter Saturn

Magnetic Field Stronger Weaker

Winds Speeds Weaker Stronger

Light received More Less

Colored Bands More Less

22. How do the daytime and nighttime temperatures compare on Uranus?

They are about the same.

23. How is Uranus’s axis oriented?

The axis is horizontal so south pole points toward Sun.

24. Why can scientists accurately measure the rotation rate of Uranus?

Its magnetic field & rotational axis points in different directions.

25. Describe Pluto’s orbit.

The distance from the sun varies more than any other planet.

26. What are satellites?

Any object (natural or artificial) that orbits another body.

27. List and describe the moons of Mars.

Phobos and Deimos are irregularly

shaped and marked with impact craters.

28. Which planets lack satellites?

Mercury and Venus.

29. What do geologists believe caused the grooves

on the lighter areas of Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede?

Movement of crystal plates of ice.

30. Describe Jupiter’s moon, Io.

The surface varies in color from yellow to orange-red;

The atmosphere contains sulfur dioxide (SO2)

Io has erupting volcanoes.

31. What is the most abundant gas in Titan’s atmosphere?

90 to 100% nitrogen

32. How is Saturn’s moon, Titan, different from all other moons in our solar system?

Titan has an atmosphere.

33. Which of Uranus’s moons has huge, faulted valleys?

Titania

34. Which of Uranus’s moons has an unusual dark surface?

Umbriel

35. Uranus’s moon with the partly flooded craters.

Oberon

36. Which of Uranus’s moons has a cratered surface with crisscrossed with valleys and faults?

Ariel

37. The moon of Uranus with the V-shaped grooves and parallel ridges over the surface.

Miranda

38. What is the name of Pluto’s moon?

Charon

39. How did Fred Whipple describe the nucleus of a comet after observing Comet Halley in 1986?

A dirty snowdrift (prior to this described them as dirty snowballs).

40. Why was a comet named after

Edmund Halley?

He correctly predicted its return.

41. When does a comet develop

a tail?

When it comes close to the sun.

42. Where is a comet’s tail relative to the sun?

It always points away from the sun.

The solar wind blows it away from the sun.

42. Where is the densest part of a comet?

At the center.

43. What is Ceres? When was Ceres discovered?

The largest asteroid. This spherical asteroid was discovered in 1801.

45. In what way are asteroids like planets?

They are similar in their direction of revolution around the sun.

46. Why does Earth regularly experience meteor showers?

In the Earth’s path around the sun, it regularly enters meteor swarms.

47. Put the following terms in the correct order of development: Meteor, meteorite, meteoroid.

Meteoroid, meteor, meteorite.

48. List the meteorite types in order from most common to least common.

Stones, irons, stony-irons.

49. On which continent have most meteorites

been found since 1969?

Antarctica

50. How was the Barringer Meteorite crater believed to have formed?

The Earth was struck by an iron meteorite.

51. Why are impact craters common surface features on Mercury and many moons in the solar system?

Mercury and most moons have little or no atmosphere and are geologically inactive (no volcanoes, etc.)

The Barringer Meteorite Crater (also known as "Meteor Crater") is a gigantic hole in the middle of the arid sandstone of the Arizona desert. A rim of smashed and jumbled boulders, some of them the size of small houses, rises 150 feet above the level of the surrounding plain. The crater itself is nearly a mile wide, and 570 feet deep. http://www.barringercrater.com/science/