Exam Review - Instructions and Key Concepts

Exam April 16th at 9.a.m. in TC Aviva (Tennis center)

Section M (inclass) is assigned to rows 43 to 52

Section N (online) is assigned to rows 53 to 59

Please be sure to sit in the correct section, as otherwise your exam may not be marked properly.

A reminder : you MUST have a pencil to fill in scantron and you MUST have either your YU card OR other
government issues photo ID to write the final exam.

NO electronics are permitted to be turned on the in exam room.

Exam is 2 hours all multiple choice.

As a note the final exam does cover ALL course material, but will focus more on the material not already
covered on the midterm. As with the midterm, the exam is focussed on the material covered in the
lectures/lessons. In the review I have provided links to relevant pages in text, however please remember if it
wasn’t discussed by me, it won’t appear on the exam.

Students are recommended to also use the smartworks exercises to review, as they will have reopened as review
material after the deadline for submission for marks was past.

Students missing the final exam MUST email within 48 hours of missing the test. Students must have
documentation validating the reason for missing. This documentation should be dropped off to the nats office
before the start of the December break. For tests missed due to medical reasons, the ONLY acceptable
documentation is the Attending physician statement available on MOODLE. (see section on Exams) It MUST
be signed by a licensed physician(medical doctor) or counsellor. Naturopaths, chiropractic etc, and NOT
acceptable.

PLEASE note. This review is NOT comprehensive, but outlines the key points students should know. Clicking
on ‘Text’ in the section or after a question will take students to the relevant pages in the textbooks. Please
note, you may need to read a bit before and after the linked page for the complete material. Not all review
points will have a textbook link.
Earth

What is the basic structure of Earth? Text

-Earth consists of crust, mantle, outer core, inner core.

What are plate tectonics and what surface features do we see? Text Text

-Plate tectonics has a rigid outer shell, consists of the crust and underlying uppermost mantle

-Lithosphere is divided into plates that move relative to one another

-Plates are 100 to 150 km thick and hundred to thousands of kilometers wide

-Some only have oceanic lithospheres, but some consists of both oceanic and continental lithosphere

-Plates sit under the asthenosphere, the portion of the mantle is warm enough to be plastic enough to flow

-As the plates move, the interactions at plate boundaries cause earthquakes and other geological phenomena, but
plate interiors remain intact

-The distribution of seismic belts determines the position of the plate boundaries

What is the composition and structure of Earth’s atmosphere? Text, Text

-78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 0.93% Argon and 0.07% of other

-The amount of water in air varies greatly from place to place at the same time and from time to time in the
same place

-Water in the atmosphere occurs in three different forms, water vapour, as liquid (water droplets) and as solid

-Clouds have a collections of countless water droplets or tiny ice crystals suspended in air

-Cloud normally appear floating above the Earth’s surface but if in contact with the ground called fog

-Composed of Troposphere, Tropopause (11km or 5 miles), Stratosphere, (In between is the ozone) Stratopause
(47 km or 30 miles), Mesosphere, Mesopause (90 km or 57 miles), Thermosphere, Thermopause (Ionosphere is
inbetween the Mesosphere and the Thermopause) (91 km or 58 miles +)

-Homosphere is between the bottom to Mesopause

-Heterosphere is mesopause and higher

What is the nature of Earth’s magnetic field? Text

-It is the region affected by the invisible force emanating from a magnet

-Can be portrayed by drawing curving lines around the magnet from the north pole to the south pole

-Represents the directions along which magnetic materials would align when placed in the field

-Solar winds contain charged particles (protons and electrons), warps the Earth’s magnetic field into a hug
teardrop pointing away from the sun
-Magnetic field deflects most of the solar wind form the Earth

-Magnetic field acts as a shield against the charged particles of the solar wind

-The region inside this shield is called the magnetosphere

What is the nature of the hydrosphere? Text

-Total mass is 1.4x1018 tonnes which is about 0.023% of Earth’s total mass

Earth’s Moon Text

What is the basic structure? How does this compare to Earth? How do they compare to each other?

-The moon has a lower density than Earth (3.4 g/cm3 vs 5.5 g/cm3)

-Moon only has 1/80 of the Earth’s mass

-Moon does not have active volcanoes or plate tectonics, the mantle is too cool to permit convection

-No volcano = no atmosphere thus means no oceans, rivers, glaciers, or life

-Because there is no atmosphere, there are light scatters and we can see the lunar surface clearly

-Lower region of the Moon is called the mare or maria which has smooth, dark surfaces

What kind of surface structures do we see?

How did the moon form?

-The moon was formed from debris that was ejected into orbit around the Earth following a collision of the newborn Earth
with a protoplanet

How are tides generated? Text

-The gravitational attraction of the Moon and the Sun

-Centrifugal force caused by the revolution of the Earth-Moon system

-Creates two tidal bulges in the global ocean which forms an envelope of water that is more oval shaped than
the nearly spherical solid Earth

Mercury, Venus and Mars - See chapter 22 Text

What is the basic structure? How does this compare to Earth? How do they compare to each other?

Mercury

-Mercury orbits close to the sun thus the surface consists of dark rocks that absorb radiation

-Surface temperature on the planet can rise far above the boiling points of volatile materials

-Mercury’s mass is 5% of Earth

-Mercury is like the Earth’s moon

-Similar in size (Mercury size is 1.4 times of Moon)

-Both have heavily cratered surfaces, both lack active volcanoes and moving plates

-Both have a surface layer of regolith and neither has an atmosphere or ocean

Venus

-Resembles Earth in size but rotates slower on its axis (243 Earth days to spin once)

-Receives a lot of solar radiation

-Takes 224 days to orbit the sun, thus rotation rate exceeds its orbital period, so a day on Venus is more than a
year on Earth

-Venus and Earth has about the same average density, which tells us that it has an iron core

-Venus hosts an atmosphere consisting about entirely of carbon dioxide (96.5% by volume)

-Remainder is nitrogen molecules (3.5%) and trace amounts of water vapor, sulfur dioxide, and carbon
monoxide

-Atmosphere has a much greater density than Earth

-Venus’s air pressure exceeds Earth’s because Venus’s atmosphere contains more gas and extends farther into
space

-Also, the weight of CO2 molecules exceeds that of N2 or O2 molecules

-Abundance of CO2 causes the surface temperature to be about 450°C

-Runaway greenhouse gas effect has made the planet’s atmosphere hot

Mars

-Mostly transparent atmosphere

-Has a thin atmosphere

-Air on Mars is much less dense than Earth’s air

-Air pressure on Mar’s surface reaches only about 0.6% of Earth’s

-Atmosphere resembles Venus

-Contains 95.3% carbon dioxide, 2.5% nitrogen, 1.6% argon and traces of oxygen, carbon monoxide, and water
vapor

-Average temperature on Mars is -55°C

-Air may have been denser earlier when volcanoes were active
-Winds on mars are around 30 to 100 km per hour

-A day on Mars has 24.6 Earth hours

-Because it has a 25° tilt, it has all the seasons

-Radius of Mars is only half of Earth

-Mars has an iron core and the radius of the core is ½ of the entire planet

-Only 1/10th of Earth’s mass

-Has 2 moons, Phobos and Deimos

-Moons were probably asteroids that were captured by Mar’s gravity

What kind of surface structures do we see?

Mercury

--Mercury’s metallic core accounts for a large portion of its interior

-because the accretionary disk at the orbit of Mercury contained a higher proportion of refractory material than
existed farther from the sun

-Rest of the planet is probably made up of a solid rocky layer topped with a thin crust about 100 km thick

-Surface of Mercury is covered with a variety of craters formed from the impact of meteorites

Venus

-Most of Venus is covered with smooth volcanic plains with 2 large “continents”

-Ishtar Terra lies to the north covering an area about the size of Australia

-Aphrodite Terra lies just south of the equator, Africa sized

-Thick atmosphere of Venus shields it from bombardment

-Only largest meteors make it through the clouds without completely burning up

Mars

-The northern province, Vastitas Borealis, is a gigantic lava-covered plain which covers 40% of the planet’s
surface

-Fewer craters than the rest of the planet, suggests that basaltic lava covered it after the late heavy bombardment

-Rest consisted of cratered highlands, with exceptions of 2 huge impact basins (Hellas Panitia) which is the
lowest point on Mars

-Near the equator is called the Tharsis Bulge, which is a plateau as big as North America and rises above the
other highlands
-Few craters exist on the plateau’s surface which means it is younger than the rest of the highlands

-Olympus Mons, is the largest volcano in the Solar System

What kind of evidence of past or present volcanic evidence do we see?

Mercury

-Has 3 volcanoes located in Tharsis region

-Largest in the solar system is the Olympus Mons which measures 27 km in height and 500 km in diameter

Venus

-Probes from the Soviet shows rapid succumbing to the extreme conditions on the planet

-It showed images of flat, broken rocks

-Using radars that penetrate the veil of gas, it shows lava domes, shield volcanoes, and volcanic craters, but few
impact craters

-Lack of craters on Venus tells us that the planet was resurfaced by lava flows since the late heavy
bombardment

Mars

-Currently has

What are the atmospheres of the planets like?

Mercury

-Thin exosphere made up of atoms blasted off the surface by the solar wind and striking meteoroids

-The exosphere is composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium

Venus

-Layer of gases surround Venus

-Composed mainly of carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than Earth

-Supports opaque clouds made of sulfuric acid, making it impossible to observe from Earth

Mars

-Layer of gas surrounding Mars

-100 times thinner than Earth

Is there water present on or near the surface?

Mercury

-Water may exist in the bottom of craters at Mercury’s pole

-Ice may also exist at the bottom of some polar craters because the crater floors are permanently shadowed by
the crater rims

Venus

-No water on the surface

Mars

-Water exists as ice, but in low quantities as vapor because it has low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian
soil

-Only place where water is visible is at the surface of the north polar ice cap

Do these planets have magnetic fields?

Mercury

-Does have a magnetic field

-A Magnetic Dipole (only has 2 magnetic pole)

-Dynamo effect in the metal core should generates similar field strength to Earth

-Mercury’s magnetic field is 150 times weaker than Earth’s

Venus

-Does not have a magnetic field

Mars

-Does not have a magnetic field

Outer planets and Moons –Chaptert 22 TEXT

What is the basic structure of these objects?

Jupiter

-Completes a day in 10 hours

-Centrifugal force is associated with the fast rotation making the planet’s equator bulge

-Equatorial radius is 11 times Earth’s

-Exceeds Earth’s polar radius by 7%

-Jupiter produces its own internal heat, radiates twice the amount of energy as it receives from the sun

-Heat does not come from nuclear fusion inside Jupiter

-It is left over from the compression of gas during Jupiter’s formation
Saturn

-Has low average density because consists mostly of hydrogen

-Lowest average density of all planets

-Lacks a solid surface

-base of its atmosphere as the elevation where pressure is about 10 atm

-Saturn rotates relatively fast, a day on Saturn lasts 10.75 Earth hours

-Equatorial radius exceeds its polar radius bv 11%

Uranus

-Axis of rotation has a tilt of 98° so it lies almost parallel to the planet’s orbital plane

-Uranus has the most extreme seasons of all the planets because it lies on its side

-it takes 84 Earth years to orbit

-the polar regions remain in complete darkness for 42 years and then in constant sunlight for 42 years

-A day lasts 17.2 hours

-Surrounded by a thick layer of slush composed of water, ammonia, and methane ice

-Layer of liquid molecular hydrogen, helium, and methane surround the slush

-Temperature is at -215°C

Neptune

-Neptune only tilts at a 28° angle, just slightly more than Earth’s axis

-A day lasts 16.1 hours

-Surrounded by a thick layer of slush composed of water, ammonia, and methane ice

-Layer of liquid molecular hydrogen, helium, and methane surround the slush

What is the composition of these objects?

Jupiter

-Composed of 86.1% hydrogen, 13.8% helium, and traces of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH4), ammonium
hydrosulfide (NH4SH), and water vapor (H2O)

-Gas becomes denser towards the center of the planet

-Visible atmospheric bands come from trace elements like sulfur and phosphorus in the cloud layer

-20,000 km in the planet contains metallic hydrogen which doesn’t exist on Earth and it flows like liquid

Saturn

-Composed mostly of hydrogen (92.4%) and helium (7.4%)

-Contains cloud layers that resemble Jupiter’s in composition

Uranus

-Consists of 84% Hydrogen and 14% Helium

-Uranus has 2% methane which produces a paler blue colour

Neptune

-Consists of 84% Hydrogen and 14% Helium

-Neptune has 3% methane as well to produce the deep blue colour

What is the nature of their magnetic fields? What is the nature of their atmospheres?

How to the giant planets differ from the inner planets?

-Outer planets are further away, larger and mostly made up of gas

-Inner planets are closer to the sun

-Outer planets have balls of gas so it would be impossible to stand

-Inner planets have a solid surface with thin to no atmosphere

-Inner planets are more dense than the outer planets

-Outer planets all have similar atmospheres while inner planets are varied

-Inner planets spin slowly while outer planets spin fast

-Inner planets orbit the sun quickly while outer planet orbit slowly

-Outer planets have lots of moons but inner planets have few moons

-Inner planets do not have rings while outer planets have rings orbiting them

-Inner planets have multiple space craft visits while all the outer planets are visited by the same space craft

What is the nature of the Moons of the outer planets?

Jupiter

-Has 67 confirmed moons, largest being Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto which are called Galilean moons because
Galileo observed them in 1610
-Largest moon is Ganymede, it has a diameter 8% larger than Mercury and 1.5 times larger than Earth’s moon

-Io is the closest Galilean moon to Jupiter

-Colour of Io comes from sulfur and other elements in ash and lava erupted by hundreds of volcanoes

-Io probably resembles the terrestrial planets in having a rocky mantle and an iron core

-Remaining three Galilean moons, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto have water-ice surface surrounding rocky
interiors

-Space probe suggests that both Ganymede and Europa have a solid, brittle outer crust of water ice on top of a
warmer, softer ice layer

-Europa may host a vast subsurface ocean of liquid water

-On both moons, the water layers overlie an interal shell of rock that surrounds an iron core

-Callisto is different, it has not differentiated into a core and mantle, it tells us that this moon accumulated from
debris orbiting Jupiter, when the accreting material was too cool to melt

Saturn

-Has 62 known moons

-Only 13 have a diameter larger than 50 km

-Most of the smaller moons do not spin on its axis but tumble through space as they follow their orbit

-Titan is the largest moon, diameter is bigger than Mercury and atmosphere is 10 times denser than Earth’s

-Titan’s atmosphere consists of 98% nitrogen and 2% methane and other traces of gases like hydrocarbon

Uranus

-27 moons orbiting

-The five largest moons of Uranus are all smaller than the Earth’s moon

-Composed of ice and rock and are heavily cratered

Neptune

-13 moons orbiting

-Has one large moon named Triton which has a diameter of about 2,700 km

-Triton is the only large moon in the solar system to orbit in a retrograde direction

-Surface of Triton consists of water ice with polar caps of nitrogen ice

-Temperature on Triton is -236°C

How common is water in the outer solar system?

-Not common

What evidence of volcanic activity do we see? What is the source of energy for volcanic activity we see in
the outer solar system?

Jupiter

-Jupiter’s immense gravity generates huge tides on Io

-While the tidal bulge moves around the planet, the up-and-down motion of material in its interior generates
frictional heat to cause melting

-Volcanoes erupt explosively and it constantly resurfaces the moon, so it retains no impact craters

Asteroid, comets and Meteors Chapter 22 Text

Where are asteroid found in the solar system?(this includes different groups like Atens, Trojan ..)

-Asteroid Belt

-Kuiper Belt

What would be the effects of an asteroid impact?

-Global Firestorm

-Acid Rain

-Change in temperature since dust in the air will block the sun

-Tsunami since Earth is 75% ocean so it will probably hit the ocean

-An explosion creating a hole in the atmosphere

What does the cratering (impact record) on the surface of a planet tell us?

-Age of the surface, using sample of rock and using radio-dating techniques

-The geology of the area, shape of the impact crater can influence the type of rock that the projectile hit

-Composition of rocks below the surface

What is the composition of a comet?

-Nucleus, relatively solid and stable centrally located part, mostly formed of ice and gas with a small amount of
dust and other solids like hydrocarbon

-Coma, a dense atmosphere surrounding the nucleus

-made of a cloud of water, carbon dioxide and other neutral gases and dust grains
-it is formed when the nucleus is heated by the sun, making the gas sublimate, and is later swept into the
elongated tails and a huge but very sparse hydrogen cloud

-Dust tail, most prominent part of the comet, it can be up to 10 million km long, composed of smoke-sized dust
particles driven off the nucleus by escaping gases

-Ion tail, it is composed of plasma and laced with rays streamers caused by interactions with the solar wind,
which can be as much as several hundred million km long

What are the common compositions of asteroids?

-Contain large quantities of carbon molecules, as well as usual rocks and metals

What the common types of meteors by composition?

Stony Meteors

-largest group of meteors

-Primarily composed of stone and some dust

-most common type of meteor as about 90% of all meteors are stone meteors

-Stone meteors were once the outer crust of a planet or an asteroid

-Stone meteors are very valued because they closely resemble terrestrial rocks and are so difficult to distinguish
or even find

Iron Meteors

-Only encompasses 6% of all meteors

-Most common meteors found because they look so different from terrestrial rock and can be easily found

-Composed of primarily iron, 90 – 95% of these meteors are iron while the remaining percentage can be nickel
or another element

Stony-Iron Meteors

-Half of the composition of these meteors is an iron-nickel combination and the other half is stone and dust

-Rarest meteor with less than 2% of all meteorites being this type

-Origin of these meteors is from the boundary layer of mantle and core of planets or asteroids

-Stony-Iron Meteors have two subgroups, which are separated by distinctive differences in the iron-nickel
matrixes and the composition of the ‘stone’ portion of the meteors

What is the difference between a ‘find’ and a ‘fall’?

-Finds are meteorites which were found on the ground unrelated to any sighting, due to the finder recognizing
them to be clearly identifiable as being of nonterrestrial origin
-Falls are meteorites which were seen to fall from the sky and which were tracked down successfully

What is the cause of a meteor shower?

Meteor showers are caused while Earth is orbiting around the Sun, and it enters debris left over from
disintegrated comets

Where do long and short period comets originate from?

-Long-period comets originate from the Oort Cloud

-Short-period comets originate from the Kuiper Belt

What do we think is the origin of the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt?

Oort Cloud

-Is a theorised shell of icy objects that lie beyond the Kuiper belt

-It is an extended shell of icy objects that exist in the outermost reaches of the solar system

-It is theorized to be the remains of the disc of materials that formed the sun and planets

-The theory is that material in the Oort Cloud probably formed closer to the young Sun in the earliest epochs of
solar system formation

-As the planets grew and Jupiter coalesced and migrated to the present position, the gravitational influence is
thought to have scattered many icy objects out to their present position in the Oort cloud
Formation of the Solar System Chapter 1

What are the basic steps through which we currently think the solar system formed? Text ( particular at
this link see “Earth Science at a Glance” for this section)

What role does temperature play in the composition and structure of the planets?

What ends planetary formation?

How long do we think planet formation takes?

Do we see evidence of this around any other stars?

SUN Chapter 23

What is the structure and composition of the sun? Text

-Outest layer is the Convective zone

-When energy reaches the top of the radiative zone, it heats the base of the overlying layer of plasma to about 2
million °C

-The heat decreases the density of plasma

-Thickness is about 200,000 km

-Sun’s surface has a grainy appearance known as solar granulation

-Inner layer is the Radiative zone

-Referred to as radiative zone because energy passes through the zone in the form of electromagnetic radiation

-Radiative zone extends from the core out to about 490,000 km from the center of the Sun and about 330,000
km thick

-Accounts for 43% of Sun’s radius and 48% of the sun’s mass

-Photons of energy emitted by fusion reactions in the core travel only a short distance before they get absorbed
by particles of matter

-Takes about 170,000 years to reach the zone’s outer surface

Very inner layer is the core

What is the energy source of the sun, and where is this taking place? Text

-Using the E=mc2 equation, Einstein found out that tiny amount of mass produces an enormous amount of
energy

-In 1920s, physicists found out that under special conditions, two atomic nuclei can bind together to form a
single atom, process is called nuclear fusion

-A tiny amount of matter converts into a large amount of energy

-In 1939, researchers worked out the series of fusion reactions that take place inside the sun which explains the
energy production

What is the visible surface of the sun? TEXT

-When observing the sun during a total eclipse, you will see a thin bright band around the sun called the
chromosphere

-It displays a flashing tint of brilliant red

-Chromosphere is 3,000 to 5,000 km thick and has a temperature of about 4,500°C much less than the
photosphere

-At temperature of the chromosphere, some matter exists as gas instead of plasma

-Density of the chromosphere is only about 0.00000001 that of the Earth’s atmosphere at sea level

-At the outer layer of the solar atmosphere, corona, the temperature rise to 1 million °C at a distance 10,000 km
above the photosphere

-Inner part appears as a wispy glowing cloud

-When viewed with ultraviolet light, the outer part of the corona appears as bright streaks radiating far out from
the Sun’s surface

What are sunspots? Text

-It is a patch on the surface of the photosphere that become cooler relative to brighter regions of the photosphere

-Because of the lower temperature, it makes them look darker than the surrounding regions

-Sunspots always occur in pairs, one located at the point where the magnetic field lines arc upward and the other
at the point where they arc downward

-Number of sunspots varies over time because of the reversal in the Sun’s magnetic field

-When the polarity reverses, the number of sunspots decreases to nearly zero

-The 11-year cycle is known as the sunspot cycle or solar cycle, the 22-year cycle is known as the magnetic
cycle
How do we think sunspots are created? Text

-Sunspots are formed continuously as the Sun’s magnetic field actively moves through the sun

-Sunspots have lifetimes of days or perhaps one week or a few weeks

What is the Babcock model of the solar dynamo? Text

-Describes the mechanism which can explain magnetic and sunspot patterns observed on the Sun

-Linked magnetic fields with sunspots

-Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years and covers 2 polar reversals of the solar magnetic
dipole field