Deck 24: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and the Kuiper Belt

Question 1

Belt-zone circulation on Uranus is dominated by the rotation of the planet and not by the direction of sunlight.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Uranus appears blue to us because blue photons are absorbed into the atmosphere.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Who discovered Uranus?

A) Galileo Galilei
B) William Herschel
C) John Couch Adams
D) Urbain Le Verrier
E) Clyde Tombaugh

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Pluto was discovered by Percival Lowell in 1930.

Question 5

From observations made of Uranus, scientists have discovered that belt-zone circulation is dominated by what planetary characteristic?

A) rotation
B) orbital period
C) direction of sunlight
D) atmospheric elements
E) interior heating

Question 6

What characteristic of Uranus makes it stand out from all the other Jovian planets?

A) the farthest planet from the Sun
B) r otates on its side
C) has the longest orbital period
D) Its moon is the same size as the planet
E) atmosphere contains methane

Question 7

The winds of Neptune have a tendency to blow backward, against the rotation of the planet.

Question 8

Neptune's magnetic field is likely generated by a conducting fluid mantle rather than its core.

Question 9

Many of the Kuiper belt objects, including Pluto, are caught in a 3:2 resonance with Neptune.

Question 10

Titan is Neptune's largest satellite.

Question 11

The discovery of Neptune was fundamentally different from the discovery of Uranus.

Question 12

Uranus rotates on an axis that is inclined 98.0° from the perpendicular to its orbit.

Question 13

Uranus has 10 large regular moons.

Question 14

Dwarf planets grew large in the solar nebula but never became large enough to capture or eject other objects orbiting nearby.

Question 15

Which spacecraft was the first to photograph Uranus in 1986?

A) Hubble Space Telescope
B) Cassini-Huygens
C) Cassini-Huygens
D) Voyager 2
E) New Horizons

Question 16

Who discovered Pluto?

A) Galileo Galilei
B) William Herschel
C) John Couch Adams
D) Percival Lowell
E) Clyde Tombaugh

Question 17

Uranus is less dense than Saturn.

Question 18

The interior of Uranus is hot such as the interiors of Jupiter and Saturn.

Question 19

What are the clouds of Uranus composed of?

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

Question 20

Neptune has a methane-rich atmosphere.

Question 21

What is a unique geologic feature of Miranda?

A) faults
B) ovoids
C) lava flows
D) sinuous rilles
E) sulfur-based volcanoes

Question 22

What is unusual about the magnetosphere of Uranus?

A) It is extremely small for the size of the planet.
B) It can only trap a limited number of radiation particles.
C) It has a corkscrew shape.
D) Its poles are reversed.
E) It has a bullet shape.

Question 23

The moons of Uranus have been named after ____.

A) Roman gods
B) Greek goddesses
C) characters of Shakespearean plays
D) characters of Tennessee Williams' plays
E) the Romanoff family children's names

Question 24

Which is a unique characteristic of Neptune's atmosphere?

A) a large number of counterclockwise circulating storms
B) variety of colors within the belt-zone circulation
C) winds blowing against the rotation of the planet
D) differential rotation of the atmosphere is slower than the interior
E) winds blow perpendicular to the planet, from north to south

Question 25

What evidence is there for scientists to believe Uranus has some internal heat?

A) active volcanoes spewing methane gas and ash
B) convection in the fluid mantle driving the dynamo effect
C) a molten metallic core
D) craters on the surface that are small and filled by lava
E) a severe axis tilt leads to more absorption of heat from the Sun

Question 26

What kind of activity does the surface of Triton experience?

A) nitrogen geysers
B) sulfur-based volcanoes
C) carbon dioxide geysers
D) methane ice tectonics
E) liquid nitrogen lava flows

Question 27

The moons of Uranus orbit within the planet's ____.

A) belt-zone circulation
B) occultation
C) elliptic
D) ecliptic
E) radiation belts

Question 28

Which is a characteristic of dwarf planets?

A) They possess an asymmetrical or irregular shape.
B) Their orbit is highly elliptical and far from the Sun.
C) They must reside within the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud.
D) They have insufficient gravitational pull to clear their neighborhood.
E) They cross the orbit of other planets during its own revolution.

Question 29

How many moons have so far been discovered orbiting Neptune?

A) 2
B) 13
C) 21
D) 32
E) 40+

Question 30

Which Uranian satellite appears to have been the most geologically active?

A) Titania
B) Ariel
C) Miranda
D) Umbriel
E) Oberon

Question 31

What did Le Verrier and Adams do differently than Herschel when they discovered Neptune?

A) found the planet by scanning thousands of photographic plates
B) found the planet by accident by simply searching the sky
C) applied the basic laws of physics to discover Neptune's position
D) applied a newly modified telescope to find the position of Neptune
E) witnessed the parallax of Neptune and calculated its position

Question 32

Which statement best describes the smaller moons of Uranus?

A) bright, spherical bodies
B) bright, highly grooved surfaces
C) dark, icy worlds
D) dark, rocky worlds
E) dark, highly active worlds

Question 33

What evidence is there that Titania underwent an active geological phase?

A) It has no large craters on its surface and a network of faults.
B) It currently has active volcanoes on its surface.
C) It is covered in methane ice.
D) It has a very smooth and highly reflective surface.
E) It has a large rocky core surrounded by an icy mantle.

Question 34

Who discovered Neptune in the late 19th century?

A) Galileo
B) Herschel
C) Galle
D) Le Verrier and Adams
E) Tombaugh and Lowell

Question 35

How many moons have so far been discovered orbiting Uranus?

A) 1
B) 5
C) 10
D) 15
E) 30+

Question 36

What makes Neptune's moon Triton stand out from all the other large satellites in the Solar System?

A) originated as a comet
B) the most geologically active
C) the most reflective satellite
D) largest satellite in the Solar System
E) the only large satellite with a backward orbit

Question 37

Which best describes the surface of Triton?

A) old, dark and cratered with a younger surface marked by ovoids
B) dark, dirty ice heavily pocked with craters
C) an icy crust free of craters with a liquid water ocean beneath it
D) an icy surface dominated by frozen nitrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide
E) an icy surface dominated by frozen methane with a liquid ocean beneath it

Question 38

Which feature of Neptune's atmosphere has disappeared since the Voyager 2 fly-by?

A) white methane clouds
B) Great Dark Spot
C) belt-zone circulation
D) Great Red Spot
E) its bluish hue

Question 39

What element dominates the ice on the surface of Pluto?

A) methane
B) nitrogen
C) hydrogen
D) carbon monoxide
E) carbon dioxide

Question 40

What is the latest hypothesis for the creation of the ovoids on the surface of Miranda?

A) A secondary bombardment episode occurred near the Kuiper belt
B) Nitrogen ices warmed by the Sun melt and refreeze
C) Gravitation pulled together fragments of an earlier shattered moon
D) Tectonic plate movement at various subduction zones in its oceans
E) internal heat driving large and slow convection currents in the icy mantle

Question 42

Which is a unique feature of Pluto's satellite, Charon, standing out from most other satellites?

A) has an atmosphere
B) tidally locked to Pluto
C) mostly composed of rock
D) its surface is composed of methane ice
E) orbits in the plane of Pluto's equator

Question 43

Which of these celestial bodies is rocky with a thin atmosphere?

A) Ceres
B) Eris
C) Neptune
D) Uranus
E) Pluto

Question 44

The _______________ on Uranus passes very near the planet's celestial poles.

Question 45

What is unique about Pluto's orbit?

A) high eccentricity
B) its length shifts over time
C) the longest orbital period
D) eccentricity is zero
E) overlaps the orbit of Uranus

Question 46

How were the rings of Uranus discovered?

Question 47

Spectra show that the moons of Uranus contain frozen water, although their surfaces are _______________.

Question 48

Pluto and Neptune orbit in _______________ with each other so they never come close together.

Question 49

Are the ring particles of Uranus primordial?  Why or why not?

Question 50

Which moon orbits Pluto?

A) Ceres
B) Eris
C) Charon
D) Oberon
E) Triton

Question 51

Neptune's blue-green color is caused by _______________ in its hydrogen-rich atmosphere absorbing red light.

Question 52

The rapid rotation of Uranus and its high inclination give the magnetosphere and its long extension a(n) _______________ shape.

Question 53

Any celestial body caught in a 3:2 resonance with Neptune is classified as a(n) ____.

A) neptunite
B) plutino
C) Plutonian satellite
D) asteroid
E) Kuiper belt objects

Question 54

_______________ is the largest of the five moons of Uranus.

Question 55

Explain why Uranus experiences extreme seasons.

Question 56

Uranus rotates _______________ degrees from the _______________ to its orbit.

Question 57

How are dwarf planets different from planets?

Question 58

What spacecraft will visit Pluto in 2015?

A) Cassini
B) Galileo
C) Voyager
D) Voyager 2
E) New Horizons

Question 59

What was Neptune's Great Dark Spot?

Question 60

One of Neptune's moons produces _______________ in the outermost ring.

Question 61

The cycle of nitrogen at Triton's north pole resembles in some ways the cycle of carbon dioxide on _______________.

Question 62

What are the two largest moons of Neptune and what makes them peculiar objects in our Solar System?

Question 63

What does it mean for a Kuiper Belt Object to be considered a plutino?

Question 64

Uranus's moon Miranda is marked by oval patterns of grooves known as _______________.

Question 65

How are Neptune's rings different from the rings of Uranus?

Question 66

The rings of Uranus were discovered during a(n) _______________ when Uranus crossed in front of a star.

Question 67

What are the two largest moons of Neptune and what makes them peculiar objects in our Solar System?

Question 68

A(n) _______________ is an object that orbits the Sun and is spherical, but not large enough to have the gravitational influence to clear away remaining objects orbiting nearby.