Exam 9: Life and the Search for Habitable Worlds

How does the greenhouse effect change the habitability zone of a star?

Experiments have shown that a mixture of methane,hydrogen,water,and free energy is likely to produce:

In which part of the cell do mutations occur?

Life is a process in the sense that:

Which of the following stellar properties affect the habitability of a planet surrounding the star?

A colleague explains to you that the origin of life seems implausible given that producing the 192-nucleotide self-replicating RNA in our bodies would require longer than the age of the universe if created from scratch in random chemical reactions.How could you answer this objection?

The Milky Way has 400 billion stars,and astronomers now believe that each one has about 3 planets around it.Which of the following additional pieces of information is necessary to estimate the number of technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way?

Using techniques similar to those employed by the Drake equation,estimate the number of "A" grades given out at your institution this semester.

Which of the following molecules is composed of amino acids?

Which Solar System world has challenged our understanding of habitable zones?