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Comins DEU 3e Ch 05 Quiz 5 completed
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The most important questions to study for the exam are highlighted.
1. One interesting feature of the motions of the giant planets, which
distinguishes them from the terrestrial planets, is the fact that
• they rotate rapidly.
• their orbital planes are strongly inclined to the Earth's orbital or ecliptic plane.
• they orbit the Sun in a retrograde direction, compared to the terrestrial planets.
2. The planet whose equator is tilted almost at a right angle to its
orbital plane is
• Mars.
• Saturn.
• Uranus.
3. Because its spin axis lies almost in its orbital plane, Uranus
experiences
• extreme seasonal changes.
• similar seasons to all other planets because the seasons are governed by orbital motion and relative distance
from the Sun, not by the tilt of the spin axis.
• no seasons at all.
4. The predominantly blue color of Uranus is caused by
• the strong absorption of red solar light by methane, a major component of its atmosphere.
• scattered sunlight from nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the Uranus atmosphere, similar to the situation in the
Earth's atmosphere.
• preferential emission of blue light from nitrogen as auroral emissions, induced by impact upon the atmosphere
of solar wind particles.
5. One object in our solar system that scientists believe was torn apart
by an impact and then reassembled by its own gravity is
• Io, a Galilean satellite of Jupiter.
• Miranda, one of the satellites of Uranus.
• Triton, the largest satellite of Neptune.
6. The planet Neptune was discovered
• by Galileo, with the world's first astronomical telescope.
• by mathematical prediction, following the discovery of the deviation of Uranus from a uniform orbital path.
• by the ancient Greeks as they observed the stars and the "wandering stars," which they called the planets
7. The one observation of Triton, the giant moon of Neptune, that seems
to indicate that it was captured by the gravity of the planet rather
than being formed as part of the Neptune system, is that
• it is irregular in shape and dark-colored.
• it orbits in a retrograde direction, opposite to the planet's rotation.
• it moves in a long elliptical orbit in the same direction as its orbital motion.
8. The moons of the outer planets are
• all spherical in shape, having been shaped this way by their own gravity.
• a mixture of several spherical moons and many more irregularly shaped moons.
• all irregular in shape, indicating that all of these moons were captured from outer space by the large
gravitational forces generated by these planets.
9. Pluto's orbital path is
• very elliptical and tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane.
• circular and tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane.
• very elliptical and in the ecliptic plane because it is a part of our planetary system.
10. Pluto, discovered in a search for an object that apparently was
disturbing the orbit of Neptune,
• was found to be far too small to produce the orbital perturbations of Neptune.
• was actually found to be the cause of this orbital disturbance.
• was found to be sufficiently massive to produce both the orbital disturbance of Neptune AND an equivalent,
and unexplained, disturbance of Uranus's orbit.
11. Which of the following statements is a CORRECT description of the
planet Pluto?
• It is composed mostly of ice, with probably a small fraction of rock.
• It has a satellite about half the size (diameter) of itself.
• It follows a circular orbit well beyond the orbit of Neptune.