Thursday, June 20, 2013

Alternate lab #2 - Planet quest


Planet "lab"

A Tour of the Planets

Please determine many interesting tidbits of trivia about our solar neighbors. You may like the following website:

http://nineplanets.org/

Please answer the following questions, based on your reading and web discovery. Some questions might have several answers, while the answer to others might be "none of them."  

Which planet(s):

1. Rotates backwards?
2. Revolves backwards?
3. Rotates nearly on its side?
4. Have more than 10 moons?
5. Have only one moon?
6. Has an orbit with the greatest inclination to the ecliptic?
7. Is the furthest planet known to the ancients?
8. Has a largely methane atmosphere?
9. Has a nondescript, pale greenish color?
10. Has a blemish known as the great dark spot?
11. Has a fine iron oxide regolith?
12. Is most similar to Earth in its surface gravity?
13. Has the greatest mass?
14. Has the smallest diameter?
15. Have been visited by humans?
16. Has the strongest magnetic field?
17. Has rings?
18. Has sulfuric acid clouds?
19. Has the tallest mountain in the Solar System (and what is it)?
20. Has a day longer than its year?
21. Has been landed on most recently by spacecraft?
22. Experiences global dust storms?
23. Has a moon that rotates retrograde (and what is it)?
24. May be an escaped Kuiper object?
25. Was once thought to be a failed star?
26. Is heavily cratered?
27. Has moons which are likely candidates for life?
28. Was hit by a large comet in the last several years?
29. Is most oblate?
30. Has a central pressure 100 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure?

Now for the minor bodies.

1. Which body is an asteroid with its own orbiting asteroid?
2. Which moon has erupting volcanoes?
3. Which body is the largest asteroid?
4. Approximately how many known asteroids are there?
5. Approximately how many known Kuiper objects are there? What is the Kuiper belt?
6. How large is the Oort Cloud? What is the Oort Cloud?
7. Which moon was the first discovered after the Galilean satellites?
8.  How many "extrasolar" planets are there?  Which was the first discovered?
9.  What is the status of Pluto and why was is "demoted" from planet status?

Additional - list anything you found interesting in your hunt.  Or multiple things.

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