Question 1

Name three properties of the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris that are similar.

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Question 2

NEOs are a concern for every person on Earth because

Accepted Answer

NEOs (Near-Earth Objects) are a concern because they have the potential to collide with Earth, which could cause significant damage depending on their size and impact location.

Question 3

Why is it difficult to determine the sizes of dwarf planets, and what can be done to get accurate measurements?

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Question 4

All of the zodiacal dust in the Solar System combined is roughly equal in mass to

Accepted Answer

The total mass of zodiacal dust in the Solar System is estimated to be roughly equivalent to the mass of a comet, which is significantly less than the mass of larger celestial bodies like the Moon or a terrestrial planet.

Question 5

List the names of the known dwarf planets and their approximate location in the Solar System.

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Question 6

Although most meteorites have ages around 4.5 billion years, a small subset has ages around 1.3 billion years.What caused the substantial difference in age between these two populations of meteorites?

Accepted Answer

The younger meteorites are likely Martian meteorites, which were ejected from Mars due to impacts and later collided with Earth. This accounts for their younger age compared to most meteorites that formed around the same time as the Solar System.

Question 7

Why are asteroids considered to be excellent sources for studying conditions in the early Solar System, whereas planets themselves are not?

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Question 8

What implication does the composition of cometary nuclei have for the creation of life?

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Cometary nuclei contain organic compounds, suggesting that the building blocks for life were present in the early solar system, potentially contributing to the creation of life on Earth.

Question 9

Identify the object shown in the figure below.

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Question 10

Consider a meteoroid with a diameter of 10 cm and a mass of 2 kg that hits Earth head-on while traveling at a speed of 25,000 m/s.How many times larger or smaller is the meteoroid's kinetic energy compared to that of a typical train whose mass is 2 * 10⁶ kg and speed is 25 m/s?

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Question 11

List two main differences between the orbital properties of the dwarf planet Pluto and those of planets in our Solar System.

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Question 12

Which group of meteorites represents the conditions in the earliest stages of the formation of the Solar System?

Accepted Answer

Carbonaceous chondrites are considered the most primitive meteorites, containing organic compounds and water, and are thought to represent the conditions of the early Solar System.

Question 13

Which of the following likely helps replenish the zodiacal dust in the vicinity of Earth the most?

Accepted Answer

Comets are known to release dust and debris as they travel through the solar system, contributing significantly to the zodiacal dust cloud.

Question 14

In the early Solar System, when the Solar System had yet to be cleared of the debris out of which it formed, which type of object would have been most likely to deposit water onto Earth's surface?

Accepted Answer

Both comets and asteroids are believed to have contributed to Earth's water, as they contain significant amounts of water ice and hydrated minerals.

Question 15

Suppose a collision between two large asteroids creates a handful of smaller asteroid fragments, some of which orbit at 2.7 AU from the Sun and some which orbit at 2.5 AU from the Sun.Based on the asteroid distribution plot shown in the figure below, which of the two smaller asteroid groups will have a stable orbit around the Sun, and why?

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Question 16

Comets have highly eccentric orbits, with eccentricities of 0.95 to 0.99 being common.Suppose a certain comet has an eccentricity of 0.99.If the semimajor axis of its orbit is 2,500 AU, what will be its distance at perihelion and at aphelion? Is this most likely a Kuiper Belt object or an Oort Cloud comet? (Note: For an ellipse, a(1+ e) is the distance from one focus to the farther edge of the long axis and a(1 -e) is the distance from the same focus to the closer edge of the long axis.)

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Question 17

What does the existence of M-type asteroids tell us about their origin?

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Question 18

Explain the difference between C-type asteroids and S-type asteroids.

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Question 19

Cratering evidence throughout the Solar System indicates that the frequency of asteroid impact is inversely proportional to the cube of the diameter of the asteroid (that is, 1/D³).The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor was around 20 meters in diameter and impacts of this size are expected once every 60 years, on average.If the Tunguska impact was a meteor around 100 meters in diameter, what is the expected average time between impacts of that size?

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Question 20

The dwarf planet Eris is covered in methane ice, whereas the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus is covered in water ice.Why does methane exist in ice form on Eris but not Enceladus?

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Quiz 12: Dwarf Planets and Small Solar System Bodies