Download Physics 111 Exam 2 Fall 2016 Multiple Choice. Choose the one

Physics 111
Exam 2
Fall 2016
Multiple Choice. Choose the one alternative that BEST completes the statement or answers the question, and mark your
scan sheet. Each question is worth five points. Only the scan sheet will be graded.
1) How does the Sun's mass compare with that of the planets?
A) It is a thousand times more massive than all the planets combined.
B) It is about as massive as all the planets combined.
C) It is a thousand times more massive than Earth.
D) It is a hundred times more massive than all the planets combined.
E) It is a hundred times more massive than Earth.
Answer: A
2) Which planet, other than Earth, has visible water ice on it?
A) Mars
B) the Moon
C) Venus
D) Jupiter
E) Mercury
Answer: A
3) Which planet could an astronaut visit without the need for a spacesuit (and survive)?
A) Mars
B) Venus
C) the Moon
D) Mercury
E) None; an astronaut would need a spacesuit to survive a visit to any other planet in the solar system.
Answer: E
4) Which of the following is not a characteristic of the inner planets?
A) They all have substantial atmospheres.
B) Their orbits are relatively closely spaced.
C) They have very few, if any, satellites.
D) They are relatively smaller than the outer planets.
E) They all have solid, rocky surfaces.
Answer: A
5) Which of the following is not a characteristic of the outer planets?
A) They all have rings.
B) They all have large quantities of gas.
C) They are primarily made of hydrogen and helium.
D) They have very few, if any, satellites.
E) Their orbits are separated by relatively large distances.
Answer: D
6) Where are most of the known asteroids found?
A) between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
B) between the orbits of the terrestrial planets
C) in the Oort cloud
D) between the orbits of the jovian planets
E) in the Kuiper belt
Answer: A
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7) Which of the following is furthest from the Sun?
A) Neptune
B) a comet in the Oort cloud
C) Pluto
D) a comet in the Kuiper belt
E) an asteroid in the asteroid belt
Answer: B
8) What percentage of the solar nebula's mass consisted of hydrogen and helium gases?
A) 100 percent
B) 50 percent
C) 98 percent
D) 0.5 percent
E) 5 percent
Answer: C
9) The nebular theory of the formation of the solar system successfully predicts all but one of the following. Which
one does the theory not predict?
A) Planets orbit around the Sun in nearly circular orbits in a flattened disk.
B) the presence of asteroids and comets
C) the compositional differences between the terrestrial and jovian planets
D) the craters on the Moon
E) the equal number of terrestrial and jovian planets
Answer: E
10) What do meteorites reveal about the solar system?
A) They reveal that the age of the solar system is approximately 4.6 billion years.
B) Nothing, because they come from other star systems.
C) They reveal that the solar system once contained 10 planets.
D) They reveal that meteorites are much older than the comets and planets.
E) They reveal that the early solar system consisted mostly of hydrogen and helium gas.
Answer: A
11) Compared to the distance between Earth and Mars, the distance between Jupiter and Saturn is ________.
A) about the same
B) just slightly less
C) much smaller
D) much larger
Answer: D
12) Under what circumstances can differentiation occur in a planet?
A) The planet must be made of both metal and rock.
B) The planet must be geologically active, that is, have volcanoes, planetquakes, and erosion from weather.
C) The planet must have a rocky surface.
D) The planet must have an atmosphere.
E) The planet must have a molten interior.
Answer: E
13) When we see a region of a planet that is not as heavily cratered as other regions, we conclude that
A) the surface in the region is older than the surface in more heavily cratered regions.
B) the surface in the region is younger than the surface in more heavily cratered regions.
C) there is little volcanic activity to create craters.
D) the planet formed after the age of bombardment and missed out on getting hit by leftover planetesimals.
E) the planet is rotating very slowly and only one side was hit by impactors.
Answer: B
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14) How have we been able to construct detailed maps of surface features on Venus?
A) by using radar from spacecraft that were sent to orbit Venus
B) by landing spacecraft on the surface for close-up study
C) by studying Venus from Earth with powerful telescopes
D) by studying Venus with powerful telescopes on spacecraft that were sent to orbit Venus
E) by making computer models of geological processes on Venus
Answer: A
15) Which of the following show evidence of ancient river beds?
A) the Moon
B) Mars
C) Venus
D) Mercury
E) all of the above
Answer: B
16) Suppose Earth's atmosphere had no greenhouse gases. Then Earth's average surface temperature would be
A) 0°C, or about the freezing point for water.
B) -16°C, which is well below freezing.
C) 15°C, or about the same as it is now.
D) 20°C, or about 5°C warmer than it is now.
E) 10°C or about 5°C cooler than it is now.
Answer: B
17) What are greenhouse gases?
A) gases that absorb infrared light
B) gases that absorb visible light
C) gases that transmit infrared light
D) gases that absorb ultraviolet light
E) gases that transmit visible light
Answer: A
18) From where did the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere originate?
A) outgassing from volcanoes
B) photosynthesis from plant life and single-celled organisms
C) atmospheric bombardment
D) oxidation of surface rocks
E) chemical reactions between gas in the upper atmosphere and the solar wind
Answer: B
19) What drives the motion of the continental plates on Earth?
A) rotation of the liquid core
B) tidal forces
C) convection cells in the mantle
D) Earth's magnetic field
E) lava flows in trenches along the sea floor
Answer: C
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20) Earth's atmosphere contains only small amounts of carbon dioxide because
A) chemical reactions with other gases destroyed the carbon dioxide and replaced it with the nitrogen that is
in the atmosphere now.
B) carbon dioxide dissolves in water, and most of it is now contained in the oceans and carbonate rocks.
C) Earth doesn't have as strong a greenhouse effect as is present on Venus.
D) the Earth's volcanoes did not outgas as much carbon dioxide as those on Venus and Mars.
E) most of the carbon dioxide was lost during the age of bombardment.
Answer: B
21) Why are there no impact craters on the surface of Io?
A) Any craters that existed have been eroded through the strong winds on Io's surface.
B) Io did have impact craters, but they have all been buried in lava flows.
C) It is too small to have been bombarded by planetesimals in the early solar system.
D) Jupiter's strong gravity attracted the planetesimals more strongly than Io, and thus none landed on its
surface.
E) Io's thick atmosphere obscures the view of the craters.
Answer: B
22) What mechanism is most responsible for generating the internal heat of Io that drives its volcanic activity?
A) accretion
B) radioactive decay
C) bombardment
D) tidal heating
E) differentiation
Answer: D
23) Which moon did the Huygens spacecraft land on?
A) Titan
B) Ganymede
C) Europa
D) Triton
E) Callisto
Answer: A
24) What is the Cassini division of Saturn's rings?
A) a dark ring, visible from Earth, composed of dark, dusty particles
B) the most opaque ring of Saturn, made of highly reflective ice particles
C) the widest ring of Saturn, located between two large ring gaps
D) the imaginary circle marking the halfway point of Saturn's rings
E) a large gap, visible from Earth, produced by an orbital resonance with the moon Mimas
Answer: E
25) Overall, Jupiter's composition is most like that of ________.
A) an asteroid
B) the Sun
C) a comet
D) Earth
Answer: B
26) What is the Great Red Spot?
A) a place where reddish particles from Io impact Jupiter's surface
B) a long-lived, high-pressure storm on Jupiter
C) a region on Jupiter where the temperature is so high that the gas glows with red visible light
D) a hurricane that comes and goes on Jupiter
Answer: B
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27) Which moon is considered likely to have a deep, subsurface ocean of liquid water?
A) Europa
B) Triton
C) Io
D) Miranda
Answer: A
28) Suppose you could float in space just a few meters above Saturn's rings. What would you see as you looked
down on the rings?
A) dozens of large "moonlets" made of metal and rock, each a few kilometers across
B) a solid, shiny surface, looking much like a piece of a DVD but a lot bigger
C) countless icy particles, ranging in size from dust grains to large boulders
D) Nothing-up close; the rings would be so completely invisible that you'd have no way to know they are
there. They can be seen only from a distance.
Answer: C
29) How do asteroids differ from comets?
A) Asteroids and comets are both made of rocky and icy material, but asteroids are larger in size than comets.
B) Asteroids are made of icy material. Comets are made of rocky material.
C) Asteroids and comets are both made of rocky and icy material, but asteroids are smaller in size than
comets.
D) Asteroids are made of rocky material. Comets are made of icy material.
Answer: D
30) Why do asteroids and comets differ in composition?
A) Comets formed from the jovian nebula, while asteroids did not.
B) Asteroids formed inside the frost line, while comets formed outside.
C) Asteroids are much larger than comets.
D) Asteroids and comets formed at different times.
E) Comets are much larger than asteroids.
Answer: B
31) What part of a comet always points most directly away from the Sun?
A) the jets of gas
B) the dust tail
C) the coma
D) the nucleus
E) the plasma tail
Answer: E
32) What is the typical size of a comet's nucleus?
A) 1000 km
B) 10 km
C) 100 km
D) 1 meter
E) Sizes are unknown because the nucleus is obscured by the coma.
Answer: B
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33) According to the nebular theory, how did the Oort cloud form?
A) It consists of objects that fragmented from the protosun during a catastrophic collision early in the
formation of the solar system.
B) It is material left over from the interstellar cloud that never contracted with the rest of the gases to form
the solar nebula.
C) It is made of planetesimals between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter that never formed into a planet.
D) It is made of planetesimals formed in the outer solar system that were flung into distant orbits by
encounters with the jovian planets.
E) It is made of planetesimals that formed beyond Neptune's orbit and never accreted to form a planet.
Answer: D
34) What is Tunguska?
A) a postulated binary companion to the Sun thought to be responsible for mass extinctions
B) a long period comet that struck Jupiter in 1994
C) the Gulf of Mexico basin that is the crater of the asteroid impact that caused the mass extinction of the
dinosaurs 65 million years ago
D) a newly discovered moon of Pluto
E) the site of an asteroid impact that occurred in Siberia in 1908
Answer: E
35) According to the nebular theory, how did the asteroid belt form?
A) It is material left over from the interstellar cloud that never contracted with the rest of the gases to form
the solar nebula.
B) It is made of planetesimals that formed beyond Neptune's orbit and never accreted to form a planet.
C) It is made of planetesimals between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter that never formed into a planet.
D) It is made of planetesimals formed in the outer solar system that were flung into distant orbits by
encounters with the jovian planets.
E) It consists of objects that fragmented from the protosun during a catastrophic collision early in the
formation of the solar system.
Answer: C
36) Which of the following are evidence for an asteroid impact being the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs 65
million years ago (as well as 75% of all species alive at the time)?
A) a buried crater more than 100 km across in the Gulf of Mexico
B) no dinosaur fossils being present in rocks younger than 65 million years old
C) a worldwide layer of the element iridium in 65 million year old rocks
D) all of the above
Answer: D
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37)
How frequently do objects that threaten widespread devastation hit the Earth?
A) about once every million years
B) about once every hundred million years
C) about once every year
D) about once every thousand years
Answer: A
38) The first planets around other Sun-like stars were discovered
A) about two decades ago.
B) at the turn of last century.
C) at the turn of this century.
D) by Huygens, following his realization that other stars are Suns.
E) by Galileo following the invention of the telescope.
Answer: A
39) The Doppler technique can be used to estimate the semimajor axis of a planet's orbit by
A) measuring the amount by which the starlight is reduced when the planet transits.
B) measuring the time it takes for the star's line-of-sight velocity to cycle from peak to peak, and using
Newton's version of Kepler's Third law.
C) measuring the asymmetries in the velocity curve.
D) measuring the speed at which the star orbits the mutual center-of-mass of the star and planet, and using
Newton's theory of gravity.
Answer: B
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40) Which two quantities need to be measured in order to determine the density of a planet?
A) mass
B) atmospheric composition
C) radius
D) A and B
E) A and C
Answer: E
41) Most of the planets discovered around other stars using the Doppler technique
A) are more massive than Earth and orbit very far from the star.
B) are less massive than Earth and orbit very far from the star.
C) are less massive than Earth and orbit very close to the star.
D) are found around neutron stars.
E) are more massive than Earth and orbit very close to the star.
Answer: E
42) Why are many of the newly detected extrasolar planets called "hot Jupiters"?
A) Their masses are similar to Jupiter but their composition is similar to Mercury.
B) The planets tend to be detected around more massive, hotter stars than our Sun.
C) Their masses are similar to Jupiter but they are very close to the central star and therefore hot.
D) Their masses and composition are similar to what we would expect if Jupiter were hotter.
E) because the discovery of other planets is very exciting
Answer: C
43) The Kepler mission uses the following technique to detect extrasolar planets
A) the transit method
B) the Doppler shift method
C) direct telescope observation
D) the astrometric method
Answer: A
44) The Apollo missions that landed astronauts on the Moon occurred from
A) 1965 to 1980
B) 1970 to 1975
C) 1969 to the present
D) 1969 to 1972
E) 1961 to 1968
Answer: D
45) The manned spacecraft program that tested all of the techniques (except the actual landing) that were needed
for a landing on the moon was
A) the Mercury program
B) the Voyager program
C) the Gemini program
D) the Apollo program
E) the Space Shuttle program
Answer: C
46) The meteor that exploded over Russia in the spring of 2013 had approximately this much energy (20 kiloton of
TNT is the approximate energy yield of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II).
A) 500 kiloton TNT
B) 1000 kiloton TNT
C) 20 kiloton TNT
D) 10 kiloton TNT
Answer: A
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47) In the Apollo missions to the Moon, three astronauts made the journey. How many of these actually went to the
lunar surface?
A) none
B) 2
C) 1
D) 3
Answer: B
48) Why does the surface of the Earth have so few impact craters as compared to the Moon and Mars?
A) the Earth is in an orbit that minimizes the number of impacts.
B) the dense atmosphere of the Earth blocks objects from hitting the surface.
C) the Earth's strong magnetic field diverts most impacting bodies.
D) plate tectonics destroys the craters in a few hundred million years.
Answer: D
49) When we say that a moon has "synchronous rotation," we mean
A) that the moon's rotation period is the same as its orbital period
B) that the moon's rotation period is same as other moons in that system.
C) that the moon's rotation is synchronized with the rising and setting of the Sun.
D) that the moon's rotation period is the same as the rotation period of the planet it orbits.
Answer: A
50) The Voyager 2 spacecraft visited the planet
A) Neptune
B) Jupiter
C) Uranus
D) Saturn
E) all of the above
Answer: E
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