Exam 10: Vagabonds of the Solar System

The longest period for a comet that can be considered a Jupiter family comet is 20 years. If the perihelion of such a comet's orbit is very close to the Sun, where is aphelion? (The semimajor axes of the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are about 5, 9.5, 19, and 30 au, respectively.)

What is the relationship between the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt and the Cassini division in the rings of Saturn?

On New Year's Day, 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the asteroid Ceres. His search was inspired by an event that had occurred only about 20 years before. What event?

What is unusual about the asteroid Karin?

What did planetary scientists learn from the Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1 in 2005?

Which of these objects was farthest from the Sun in 1990?

What is the orbital sidereal period of a Trojan asteroid?

How far will Comet Halley be from the Sun when it reaches its farthest point from the Sun, or aphelion, if its sidereal period is 76 years? (Note: This calculation needs Kepler's law and a little care. Assume that the comet's perihelion distance from the Sun is negligible.)

Which of these is NOT true of asteroids in the solar system?

If an asteroid was moving in a circular orbit around the Sun with an orbital period of 1/5 that of Jupiter, what would be the radius of its orbit? The semimajor axis of Jupiter's orbit is 5.2 au.

Which of these objects was discovered during the twentieth century?

Which solar system object was found on January 1, 1801, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter?

The existence of distinct and separate types of meteorites, stony, stony iron, and iron, is probably a result of

Which of these is LARGER than Pluto?

Which of these was NOT observed in the jets escaping from the nucleus of Comet Hartley 2?

How does the dust tail of a comet compare with its gas tail?

The Kuiper belt is

What is the typical distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt?

The major difference between the orbital paths of comets that is seen in the inner solar system and those of the asteroids in the asteroid belt is that

Which of these have scientists NOT discovered in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites?