This study guide is made up of a series of Instructional Objectives, or teaching/learning goals that I have made for each chapter of your textbook. If you can do all the things listed here, you can ace Exam 2! If you see a lot of unfamiliar concepts in this study guide, you should a) think about your future class attendance record as a way to reinforce the material, b) look over your textbook in the appropriate sections, and/or c) ask me about any unclear material any class day before the test. if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or email me, or stop by my office. Dr. Chanover
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
Define the following:
List the layers in the Earth's interior from the surface to the center.
Explain how seismic waves can be used to determine the interior structure of a planet.
Discuss the effect that the Earth's magnetosphere has on charged particles coming from the Sun. How would things on Earth be different if we had no magnetosphere?
Explain the idea of plate tectonics, including:
Order the layers in the Earth's atmosphere, from the surface to the ozone layer. Explain how temperature changes with height in the different layers.
Distinguish between weather and climate.
Explain what causes the greenhouse effect. Is it necessarily a bad thing? What would the Earth be like if we had no greenhouse effect? How is the greenhouse effect linked to global warming?
By the end of these chapters, you should be able to:
Explain radioactive dating, and how it is used to determine an absolute age of a rock.
Discuss the differences between radioactive dating and crater counting as a means for age determination of rocks, and discuss the relative merits of each method.
Define a half-life.
Compare the surfaces of the Moon, Mercury, and the Earth. How are they different? Why are they different?
Compare the average densities of the Moon, Mercury, and the Earth. How are they different? Why are they different?
Distinguish between the lunar highlands and the maria, and explain why each area looks the way it does today. Also be able to assess which kind of area is older and which one is younger.
Explain to a high school student the current favored theory for the formation of the Moon. Also remind the student of several other hypotheses (at least 2) that are not as favored, and discuss the problems with them.
Explain the cause of the scarps, or cliffs, seen on the surface of Mercury.
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
Discuss how we know what we know about Venus and Mars. What is the future of spacecraft exploration of these two worlds?
Compare the general appearance of Mars and Venus as seen through a good ground-based telescope. Can you see surface features on both planets?
Describe a technique that has been used to learn about the surface of Venus.
Describe the surface geology of Venus. Does it have craters? Mountains? Volcanoes? Evidence of ongoing plate tectonics?
Discuss the differences between the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars. Things you might want to address include their:
Differentiate between the greenhouse effect and a runaway greenhouse effect, and list which planets are example of each of these phenomena.
Describe the surface geology of Mars. Does it have craters? Mountains? Volcanoes? Evidence of ongoing plate tectonics?
Explain how Mars' large canyon, Valles Marineris, formed.
Discuss the role of the polar caps on Mars in controlling the atmospheric conditions. Things you might want to address include:
Discuss the history of water on Mars. If it was there, where on Mars was it probably located? What could have happened to it?
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain why it is so much harder to send a lot of spacecraft missions to study the outer planets.
Compare the overall chemical composition of the jovian planets to the composition of the terrestrial planets.
Identify which of the giant planets will experience seasons, and explain why.
Order the layers of the interiors of Jupiter and Saturn, and compare how they are different from and similar to the interiors of Uranus and Neptune.
Compare the magnetosphere of Jupiter to that of the Earth (e.g. size, strength, influences on the planet, etc.).
Explain what causes a magnetosphere, or what properties of a planet are required in order to have a magnetosphere.
Describe how the clouds on Jupiter differ from the clouds in the Earth's atmosphere.
Provide examples of storms on the giant planets and explain how they differ from a hurricane on Earth.
You have learned a great deal of information about nearly all of the planets in our solar system. I am most interested in you being able to compare general properties among the three classes of planets that we have discussed: the heavily cratered worlds (Moon and Mercury), the terrestrial planets (Venus, Earth, and Mars), and the giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). Think about the broad concepts we have discussed, and how these classes of objects differ from one another. Specific properties you may want to consider are: