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Astronomy 3rd Quarter Test Study Guide
NAME_____________________________________________DATE__________________PER_______
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• • • PLACE ALL ANSWERS ON AN ACCOMPANYING SHEET OF NOTEBOOK PAPER PLEASE. • • •
NO ANSWERS WRITTEN ON THIS QUESTION SHEET WILL BE COUNTED.
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1. Which planet is 3.9x the diameter of earth? Which is 4.0x?
2. What is the current explanation for the low albedo of many Uranian & Neptunian moons?
3. Why did astronomers suspect that an 8th planet existed before it was actually discovered?
4. Which moon will probably fall within its primary’s Roche limit in 100my and be destroyed?
5. Who discovered Neptune? Who discovered Uranus?
6. Why do Uranus’s poles go for 4 decades with straight sunlight, then 4 decades without?
7. What is the 3rd largest planet in the solar system? Which is the 3rd most massive planet?
8. How many light-hours are Saturn, Uranus & Neptune from the Sun?
9. Why is Uranus green and Neptune blue?
10. What probe is responsible for almost all the hi-resolution images we have of Uranus & Neptune?
11. What is the only major moons of the solar system that has a retrograde orbit?
12. Saturn’s moons AND its rings are mostly made of __.
13. Which person first saw Saturn’s rings in 1610 but didn’t know they were rings? Who first recognized them as rings?
14. How are Saturn’s moons Tethys, Telesto and Calypso related?
15. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly made of __.
16. __ satellites are close orbiting moons whose gravity helps a ring keep its shape.
17. Which of Saturn’s moons is larger than both Mercury and Pluto and has a complex atmosphere?
18. How thick are Saturn’s rings in most places?
19. What is a planet’s Roche limit?
20. When earth passes through Saturn’s equatorial plane, showing Saturn’s rings edge-on (every 14 years)
21. Which “probelet” (dispatched by the larger Cassini probe) landed on Titan on January 14, 2005?
22. Which moon has no real day, or axis, or poles because of chaotic rotation?
23. How dense is Saturn?
24. What is the “surface” layer of the Sun called?
25. The sun is about __ more massive than earth.
26. The temperature of the sun’s core is about __ while its “surface” is about __.
27. It takes the sun roughly __ to rotate once. Why do we the word “roughly” when describing the sun’s rotational period?
28. What is the sun’s (or any star’s) luminosity a measure of? [Yeah: I just ended an interrogative with a preposition. Say something.]
29. Approximately how long is one sunspot cycle? How does that relate to a Butterfly diagram?
30. Briefly describe – don’t just name—the process whereby the sun generates the energy that it releases.
31. What kinds of electromagnetic radiation are emitted by the sun?
32. What are the three violent SOLAR eruptive phenomena?
33. What does SOHO stand for? Where is the SOHO probe located?
34. Compare/Contrast the Kuiper Belt, the asteroid Belt, and the Oort Cloud?
35. How often do we expect to extinction-level asteroid impacts on earth?
36. Where are the Trojan asteroids located?
37. What is a: TNO? KBO?
38. What gives C, M and S type asteroids their individual designations (i.e. why those 3 letters?)
39. As of 2006, what are the three criteria for a solar system body being classified as a planet?
40. What are the four parts of a comet? Which ALWAYS points away from the sun? Which part is not temporary?
41. What happens to a comet approaching the sun, when it reaches about 3-4 AU? (~ at the asteroid belt)
42. __ are “thinned out” areas of the asteroid belt caused by interactions with Jupiter’s gravity.
43. List the five dwarf planets.
44. How can we determine the composition of comets and their tails?
45. Which American astronomer used some bad data but got VERY lucky and discovered Pluto with it?
46. What causes meteor shower to occur on the very same days every year?
47. In astronomy, what can the name Cassini refer to?
48. Which region of the sun is where fusion takes place?
• • • PLACE ALL ANSWERS ON AN ACCOMPANYING SHEET OF NOTEBOOK PAPER PLEASE. • • •
• • • NO ANSWERS WRITTEN ON THIS QUESTION SHEET WILL BE COUNTED. • • •