Exam 7: The Birth and Evolution of Planetary Systems

Consider a small parcel of gas in the cloud out of which the Sun formed that was initially located in the accretion disk at a distance of 10 AU from the Sun and rotating around it with a speed of 10 km/s.If this parcel of gas eventually found its way to a distance of 1 AU from the Sun without changing its orbital angular momentum,then what would be its new rotation speed?

What is the best method to detect Earth-sized exoplanets with the telescopes and instrumentation that exist today?

Current technology is sensitive enough to detect some extrasolar planets by a dip in brightness of the parent star as the planets pass between us and it.

Most planets currently found around other stars are:

Whether or not a planet is composed mostly of rock or gas is set by:

Planets like Earth are found closer to the Sun than planets like Jupiter.

Explain the two primary reasons why the inner solar nebula was hotter than the outer solar nebula.

Approximately how massive are most of the extra-solar planets that have been discovered using the Doppler effect,and which planet in our solar system is similar in mass? Why is the Doppler effect method more likely to find massive (rather than low-mass)planets and planets that are close to their stars?

Which of the following is NOT considered evidence of cataclysmic impacts in the history of our Solar System?

The temperature gradient in the accretion disk surrounding a protostar is due in part to the fact that material closer to the protostar has converted less of its kinetic energy into thermal energy compared to materials farther away.

How much material in an accretion disk goes into forming the planets,moons,and smaller objects?

All planets orbit the Sun in the same direction.

When you push your palms together and rub them back and forth,you are demonstrating one way of converting _________ energy into _________ energy.

The solid form of a volatile material is generally referred to as a(n):

What is the ratio of the orbital angular momentum of Jupiter to its spin angular momentum? Jupiter's orbit has a semimajor axis of 5 AU and period of 12 years,and Jupiter has a rotation period of 0.4 day and a radius of 70,000 km.

Briefly explain the four different observational methods we use to detect extrasolar planets.Which has detected the largest number of extrasolar planets to date?

Why do the terrestrial planets have a much higher fraction of their mass in heavy chemical elements (as opposed to lighter chemical elements)than the giant planets?