Which of the following is most similar to the Sun it terms of its bulk composition?
A. Mercury
B. Earth
C. Mars
D. Jupiter
Most of the planets discovered around other stars to date are...
A. Jovian-sized objects about 10 times the distance Jupiter is from our Sun
B. Earth sized objects at about the same distance Earth is from our Sun
C. Jovian-sized objects orbiting closer to their stars than the Earth's distance from the Sun
D. Jovian-siz
Given the following choices for planetary characteristics, which planet below will likely have the least chance of retaining an atmosphere?
A. strong gravity, low temperature
B. weak gravity, high temperature
C. strong gravity, high temperature
D. weak gravity, low temperature
What is a typical rate of motion for one of Earth's crustal plates?
A. a few centimeters per year
B. a few meters per year
C. a few centimeters per century
D. a few centimeters every thousand years
What is the approximate "age" difference between the lunar maria and lunar highlands?
A. 6.6 billion years
B. 4.2 billion years
C. 3.5 billion years
D. 2.0 billion years
E. 0.8 billion years
Consider radioactive uranium with a half-life of 700 million years. If you started with a rock consisting of 100% pure uranium, how much of the original uranium would be left after 2.1 billion years?
A. 1/4
B. 1/3
C. 1/8
D. 7/8
E. 1/16
Which of the following materials was least common in solid form in the region of the Solar System where the Earth formed?
A. Iron
B. Rock
C. Water/ice
What process is important in the formation of giant planets but not so significant for small rocky planets?
A. Condensation of small solid particles
B. Gravitational accumulation of gas
C. Sticking of particles to grow to larger sizes
D. Irradiation by the solar wind
E. Thermonuclear fusion
What is the smallest object on the list below that can cause continental scale devastation (not mass extinction) if it impacts the Earth?
A. 10 meters
B. 300 meters
C. 10 kilometers
D. 50 kilometers
E. 500 kilometers
An object composed of half ice and half rock will have a density of about...
A. 0.5 grams/cubic centimeter
B. 1 g/cc
C. 2 g/cc
D. 3 g/cc
E. 5 g/cc
The oldest Earth rocks ever found and dated using radioactive dating are...
A. coal
B. basalt
C. quartz crystals
D. zircon crystals
E. micro-diamonds
What object/material provides the best information about the age of the Solar System?
A. the solar wind
B. continental Earth rocks
C. Earth rocks from the ocean basins
D. meteorites
E. rocks from the lunar highlands
What gas in this list below was likely the most common in the Earth's first atmosphere, immediately after its formation?
A. Carbon dioxide
B. Ammonia
C. Helium
D. Oxygen
E. Nitrogen
Which of the following provides the best evidence for a forming planetary system around a star?
A. The star is adjacent to a interstellar cloud of gas and dust
B. The star has a significant excess of infrared radiation
C. The star is a strong gamma-ray source
D. The star is part of a multiple star system
E. Sodium absorption lines appear in the spec
You can almost certainly expect to see the Earth when you look up in the sky if you are standing...
A. in a lunar maria
B. in the lunar highlands
C. on the lunar farside
Which of the following describes the rotation of Mercury?
A. Mercury rotates in less than one Earth day
B. Mercury takes longer to rotate than Venus
C. Mercury rotates once for each orbit around the Sun
D. Mercury rotates three times for each two orbits around the Sun
E. Mercury rotates about once each Earth day
How long ago did the last Earth impact occur that delivered megatons of energy to the Earth's atmosphere and surface, leveling a region the size of a major city?
A. 100 years ago
B. 50,000 years ago
C. 5 million years ago
D. 50 million years ago
What is the predicted temperature of a rapidly spinning planet or asteroid if it has no atmosphere and it is sixteen times more distant from the Sun than the Earth?
A. 560K
B. 200K
C. 140K
D. 70K
E. 35K
Which selection below ranks things in order from containing the least total mass to the most?
A. jovian planets, terrestrial planets, Sun
B. terrestrial planets, jovian planets, Sun
C. Sun, jovian planets, terrestrial planets
D. Sun, terrestrial planets, jovian planets
What molecule, if detected in a distant planet's atmosphere via spectroscopy, would be considered suggestive evidence that life may be present on that world?
A. Hydrogen
B. Carbon dioxide
C. Nitrogen
D. Oxygen
The rate at which asteroid impacts create craters on planetary surfaces in the Solar System...
A. has been about the same throughout the history of the Solar System
B. has been gradually increasing since the formation of the Solar System
C. has been gradually decreasing since the formation of the Solar System
D. rapidly decreased after being except
Like isotopes of oxygen, isotopes of what other element can provide a reliable signature of the location of the origin of a world and is useful for determining how closely related the Earth is to the Moon?
A. Carbon
B. Magnesium
C. Copper
D. Tungsten
E. Titanium
Approximately how long ago did the amount of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere to reach its current level?
A. 10 million years ago
B. 300 million years ago
C. 1 billion years
D. 3 billion years ago
The clouds of Venus are composed of small droplets of
A. methane
B. ammonia
C. sulfuric acid
D. water
E. hydrogen
Which object below has an overall interior structure completely different from the other three?
A. Mercury
B. the Earth's Moon
C. Venus
D. Earth
Which regions of the Earth's surface are the youngest?
the ocean basins
Which terrestrial planet has the largest iron core (as a fraction of its total size)?
Mercury
Which terrestrial planet rotates slowly "backwards?
Venus
Which of the two methods of planetary detection depends strongly on how the planetary system orbits are tilted from our perspective, requiring almost exact alignment?
transits
What is the name of the geological boundary associated with the disappearance of the dinosaurs?
K-T boundary
How long ago did the Solar System form?
4.6 billion years ago
Satellites of the Jovian planets are primarily made of what material?
ice
What is planetary migration? What problem does it solve?
During solar system formation the orbital distance of a planet from its star can change (typically decrease) due to coupling between the planet's gravity and that of the particles in the disk.
Migration is used to explain why we find Jovian-sized worlds c
What evidence is there for ice on the planet Mercury? Where is it located?
The MESSENGER spacecraft has returned images of deep craters at the poles of Mercury that are cold at the bottom because the crater floor is always in shadow. You also needed to mention that radar observation from Earth show high reflectivity regions (con
List the steps involved in the evolution of the composition of the Earth's atmosphere from its initial formation to the present day.
-Production of an initial CO2 dominated atmosphere through outgassing and impacts with Nitrogen as the 2nd most abundant gas
-Formation of liquid water oceans which removed the CO2 and deposited it as rock leaving Nitrogen as the main constituent of the a
How does the greenhouse effect work?
-Visible sunlight reaches the surface through a transparent CO2 atmosphere and warms the surface
-The warmed surface glows with infrared light. CO2 is OPAQUE to infrared light. The energy is effectively trapped.