Deck 14: Jupiter and Saturn

Question 1

Jupiter is completely composed of gas.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Which space mission orbited Saturn and dropped a probe into Saturn's atmosphere?

A) Pioneer
B) Voyager
C) Galileo
D) Cassini-Huygens
E) New Horizons

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The Cassini spacecraft detected large clouds of water vapor escaping from vents through the icy crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The rings of Saturn are created from and controlled by the planet's moons.

Question 5

Saturn has fewer but stronger winds than Jupiter.

Question 6

Saturn's moon Titan is a mixture of rock and ice.

Question 7

The outermost planets in our Solar System are Jovian planets.

Question 8

Saturn is the largest and most massive of the Jovian planets.

Question 9

Jupiter has large circular storms seen throughout its clouds.

Question 10

Only Jupiter and Saturn have rings.

Question 11

Saturn's moon Titan is likely a captured Kuiper belt object.

Question 12

Which space mission orbited Jupiter and dropped a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere?

A) Pioneer
B) Voyager
C) Galileo
D) Cassini
E) New Horizons

Question 13

Saturn radiates 1.8 times as much energy as it receives from the Sun.

Question 14

The interior of Jupiter is mostly liquid helium.

Question 15

No probe has ever landed on any moon in the solar system except for Earth's Moon.

Question 16

Jupiter has only four moons.

Question 17

While Jupiter and Saturn may be mostly composed of liquid and gas, they each do have a thin crustal layer that acts like plastic.

Question 18

Io is the most geologically active object in our Solar System.

Question 19

Which is a characteristic of Jovian planets when compared to Terrestrial planets?

A) Jovian planets are much larger than Terrestrial planets
B) Jovian planets have rocky surfaces
C) Jovian planets have no differentiation like Terrestrial planets
D) Jovian planets have moons, unlike the Terrestrial planets
E) Jovian planets have warmer atmospheres than Terrestrial planets.

Question 20

Even Jupiter and Saturn experience auroras like those on Earth.

Question 21

What does a high albedo indicate with regard to a planetary object?

A) The surface is cratered and old.
B) The planetary object is still developing.
C) The planet is highly active.
D) The surface is highly reflective and therefore young.
E) The planetary object has a strong magnetic field.

Question 22

Due to the temperature and atmospheric conditions of Titan, scientists hypothesize that Titan may have rivers, lakes and possibly an ocean of ____.

A) liquid water
B) metallic hydrogen
C) frozen carbon dioxide
D) liquid methane
E) liquid nitrogen

Question 23

Which of the Jovian planets has a giant circulating storm that called the Great Red Spot that has lasted for centuries?

A) Pluto
B) Uranus
C) Neptune
D) Saturn
E) Jupiter

Question 24

What is the composition of Jupiter?

A) mostly carbon dioxide and methane
B) mostly methane
C) mostly helium and carbon dioxide
D) mostly nitrogen
E) mostly hydrogen and helium

Question 25

How is Titan different from all the other Jovian satellites?

A) Titan has frozen water on its surface.
B) Titan has a heavily cratered surface.
C) Titan has a thick atmosphere.
D) Titan is the largest moon in the Solar System.
E) Titan has a young, very reflective surface.

Question 26

What element makes up Io's thin atmosphere?

A) sulfur
B) hydrogen
C) helium
D) carbon dioxide
E) methane

Question 27

What evidence is there to prove Jupiter has a liquid interior?

A) Jupiter is oblate
B) Jupiter rotates rapidly
C) Jupiter is tilted on its axis
D) Jupiter has a thin, hot atmosphere
E) Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field

Question 28

What makes Iapetus different than most other Jovian satellites?

A) Its surface is so eroded that it has no distinguishing surface features.
B) It is not impacted by Saturn's tidal heating.
C) It is perfectly spherical and highly reflective.
D) It has an old and heavily cratered surface.
E) It is asymmetrical and always faces backward to Saturn.

Question 29

What is the effect when the pressure and temperature are higher than the critical point of an element?

A) There is a rapid boiling of the element that dissipates quickly into a gas.
B) There is no difference between the gaseous and liquid state of that element.
C) There is no difference between the solid and gaseous state of that element.
D) There is an instant freezing of that element into a solid.
E) There is a conversion of that element into a metal.

Question 30

Which statement best describes the surface of Europa?

A) dark and dirty ice, heavily pocked with craters
B) old and dark on some portion, but cratered with a young bright grooved terrain
C) icy crust free of craters with a liquid water ocean beneath
D) covered in active sulfur-based volcanoes
E) mostly water ice mixed with methane

Question 31

Which of the Galilean moons is essentially a dirty, icy rock?

A) Titan
B) Io
C) Ganymede
D) Phoebe
E) Callisto

Question 32

Which statement describes a unique characteristic of Saturn?

A) The density is so low it could float on water.
B) The core temperature is hotter than the interior of the Sun.
C) The rings are made up of ice from broken up comets
D) The largest planet within the Solar System.
E) The atmosphere is mostly made up of helium and methane.

Question 33

Which is a distinguishing characteristic of the Jovian planets?

A) Jovian planets are rocky.
B) Jovian planets are geologically inactive.
C) Jovian planets have rings.
D) Jovian planets have only one or two moons.
E) Jovian planets have high albedos.

Question 34

Which statement best describes the surface of Io?

A) dark and dirty ice, heavily pocked with craters
B) old and dark on some portion, but cratered with a young bright grooved terrain
C) icy crust free of craters with a liquid water ocean beneath
D) covered in active sulfur-based volcanoes
E) mostly water ice mixed with methane

Question 35

Which best describes the surface of Callisto?

A) dark and dirty ice, heavily pocked with craters
B) old and dark on some portion, but cratered with a young bright grooved terrain
C) icy crust free of craters with a liquid water ocean beneath
D) covered in active sulfur-based volcanoes
E) mostly water ice mixed with methane

Question 36

Which is a characteristic of irregular satellites?

A) prograde rotation
B) orbit closely to parent planet
C) spherical shape
D) highly inclined orbit
E) relatively large in size

Question 37

What action is responsible for the heating of Saturn's interior?

A) rapid rotation on its axis
B) zero inclination to its axis of rotation
C) convection currents of liquid hydrogen
D) falling droplets of helium releasing energy
E) rising magma from hot spots found on its surface

Question 38

Scientists believe Saturn's moon Phoebe originated from a ____.

A) large impact on Titan broke off a piece
B) captured Kuiper belt object
C) captured asteroid from the asteroid belt
D) planetesimal that did not differentiate
E) Galilean moon with an orbit that crossed into Saturn's orbit

Question 39

Which is Saturn's largest satellite?

A) Ganymede
B) Enceladus
C) Phoebe
D) Titan
E) Callisto

Question 40

Which statement best describes the surface of Ganymede?

A) dark and dirty ice, heavily pocked with craters
B) old and dark on some portion, but cratered with a young bright grooved terrain
C) icy crust free of craters with a liquid water ocean beneath
D) covered in active sulfur-based volcanoes
E) mostly water ice mixed with methane

Question 42

The composition of Jupiter is much like the _______________.

Question 43

Most small moons tend to be old and geologically inactive. Explain why Enceladus appears to break that general rule.

Question 44

Provide a comparative analysis of Jupiter and Saturn. What are their similarities?  What are their differences?

Question 45

Describe the ring system of Saturn.

Question 46

Why is Titan of interest to astrobiologists?

Question 47

Which of the following is not a moon of Jupiter?

A) Amalthea
B) Galileo
C) Io
D) Europa
E) Ganymede

Question 48

The Galilean moons are _______________ satellites because they are large and orbit close to their parent planet.

Question 49

The four Galilean moons of Jupiter are found within Jupiter's _______________.

Question 50

Scientists have confirmed that the particles of Saturn's rings are not ____.

A) held by Saturn's moons
B) within the Roche limit
C) chunks of ice
D) ancient
E) primordial

Question 51

List the four Galilean moons and describe their unique characteristics.

Question 52

The _______________ of Jupiter's rings indicated that the rings are made mostly of microscopic particles.

Question 53

Io takes a bit less than ___ days to orbit Jupiter.

Question 54

The evidence of forward scattering from Jupiter's rings indicates the rings are mostly made up of what?

A) tiny dust particles
B) tiny ice particles
C) large rocks
D) large chunks of ice
E) liquid droplets

Question 55

The large circular or oval spots seen in Jupiter's clouds are circulating _______________ that have remained stable for centuries.

Question 56

Jupiter's _______________ shows that the planet cannot be as rigid as a Terrestrial planet.

Question 57

Which statement is true when comparing Saturn to Jupiter?

A) Saturn has rings and Jupiter does not.
B) Saturn has stronger winds than Jupiter.
C) Saturn is closer to the Sun than Jupiter.
D) Saturn is composed of more hydrogen and helium than Jupiter.
E) Saturn has a more distinct belt-zones than Jupiter.

Question 58

Some of the gaps in Saturn's rings, such as the Cassini Division, are caused by ____ with moons.

A) tides
B) ripples
C) rotations
D) resonances
E) forward scattering

Question 59

Radar observations made by Cassini have revealed the surface of Titan to have lakes of _______________ in its polar regions.

Question 60

What actually "controls" Saturn's rings?

A) Saturn's magnetic field
B) Saturn's tidal heating
C) Saturn's moons
D) Saturn's rapid rotation
E) Saturn's metallic core

Question 61

How can Jupiter have such a strong magnetic field?

Question 62

What is the Roche limit and how does it apply to the ring systems of Jupiter and Saturn?

Question 63

_______________ is the most reflective object in the Solar System.

Question 64

Saturn's rings may have been formed when a small moon or icy planetesimal came within Saturn's _______________ and tides pulled it apart.

Question 65

Unlike most magnetic fields, Saturn's is not inclined to its _______________.

Question 66

The gravitational effects of _______________ can confine some rings in narrow strands or keep the edges of rings sharp.

Question 67

Jupiter's moon Callisto has never fully differentiated, thus the moon has no _______________.

Question 68

Enceladus orbits Saturn in a resonance with the larger moon Dione. Each time Dione orbits Saturn once, Enceladus orbits _______________.

Question 69

The rapid rotation and large size of Jupiter causes _______________ in its atmosphere.

Question 70

What two unusual processes does Ganymede experience and why?

Question 71

Why is there no surface on Jupiter or Saturn?

Question 72

Saturn's largest satellite is _______________.

Question 73

Explain the patterns seen in Jupiter's atmosphere.