Exam 9: Atmospheres of the Terrestrial Planets

Approximately how long after the Solar System formed did it take for oxygen to get to within 80 percent of its present abundance in the Earth's atmosphere?

Venus has an unusual rotation rate because:

The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has been increasing over the last 50 years because of:

Would a nitrogen atom in Venus's atmosphere,whose temperature is 740 K,eventually escape into outer space? Note that a nitrogen atom has a mass that is 14 times that of a hydrogen atom.Recall that atoms eventually will escape if their average velocity is greater than 1/6 times the escape velocity of the planet.The escape velocity of Venus is 10 km/s.For comparison,a hydrogen atom has an average velocity of 2.5 km/s at a temperature of 300 K.

Given the thickness and chemical composition of Venus's atmosphere,by how much would you expect its average surface temperature to change between day and night?

In the absence of a greenhouse effect,water on the surface of Earth would be frozen.

Humans cannot survive on the surface of Mars for long periods of time because:

Earth has roughly _________ times more atmospheric pressure than Mars and _________ times less than Venus.

The shape of the Earth's magnetosphere is modified by:

Which of the following processes did NOT contribute gas to Earth's secondary atmosphere?

Venus and Earth probably formed with similar amounts of carbon dioxide in their secondary atmospheres.Which of the following is TRUE?

For the first 1 billion years of the Earth's evolution,the fraction of oxygen in its atmosphere was approximately:

If sunlight cannot penetrate Venus's cloud layer efficiently,why does the temperature of the planet remain so high?

The greenhouse effect raises Earth's surface temperature by roughly:

The presence of gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor in a planet's atmosphere is direct evidence of _________ in a planet's history.

The atmosphere of Mars is mostly composed of carbon dioxide;therefore the greenhouse effect makes the average temperature 35 degrees warmer than it would be without its atmosphere.

The global winds on Earth are the result of a combination of what three things?

Why does the temperature decrease as you go higher up in altitude in the troposphere on Earth?

If an average hydrogen atom in Earth's atmosphere has a velocity of 2.5 km/s,what would be the average velocity of an oxygen molecule in the Earth's atmosphere? Note that the atomic mass of an oxygen atom is 16 times that of a hydrogen atom.

The fraction of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has always remained at about the same as it is today.