ASTR 1010 Fall 2007: Study Guide for Quiz #4

READING: Sections 5.3 - 5.8; All of Chapter 6 and Chapter 15; Chapter 7, pages 174-175.

Topics you should know and understand for Quiz #4 (not necessarily a complete list)

1) DEFINITIONS: Diffraction; Diffraction grating; Resolution; Seeing; light gathering power; Interferometer; Terrestrial Planets; Jovian Planets (Gas Giants); Kuiper Belt Objects; Oort Cloud; planet; dwarf planet; Eris; extrasolar planet; brown dwarf; angular momentum; planetesimals; differentiation.

2) Laws and Equations: angular momentum is proportion to mass X velocity X radius, where the velocity is the spin or orbital velocity of the object, and the radius is the radius of the object (for spin motion) or the distance from the object to the center of orbit (for orbital motion); conservation of angular momentum.

3) OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: Which wavelengths of light get through the Earth's atmosphere; Special requirements for infrared, X-ray, and Gamma-ray telescopes; the advantages of using interferometers; the standard model for how the solar system formed, and the evidence for this scenario; the relative sizes of the larger moons and the planets; which planets and moons have unusual spins or orbits; the relative spin rates of the planets and why they are different; how a planet and a dwarf planet differ, according to the IAU definitions; how extrasolar planets are found; the approximate number of spacecraft that visited each planet; why the terrestrial planets have different densities than the Jovian planets; the order of the Galilean moons from Jupiter and why their densities are different; the primary constituents of the atmospheres of the planets and moons; what processes produce planetary and moon atmospheres; why the sky is blue.