Annie Aquino Quiz

Chapter 8
astronomy
Annie Aquino

What are the Jovian planets made of?

-They are mostly composed of hydrogen, helium, and hydrogen compounds.
- The Jovian planets nearer to the Sun have more hydrogen and helium. This makes
them bigger and have smaller proportion of rock.

What are the Jovian planets like on the inside?

-Jupiter, for example, has no solid surface just clouds and dense and hot hydrogen/
helium which are eventually compressed into liquid and metal.
- Most of the other Jovian planets are organized much in the same way in that they
have layers and a very small core. Most of the planets layers are composed of gas,
liquid, clouds. (Although Uranus and Neptune have lower pressures which means they
have no metallic hydrogen which also means they have no magnetic field like Jupiter
and Saturn)

What is the weather like on Jovian planets?

-All have 'cloudy skies', but the clouds composition depends on the location of the
clouds within the planets atmosphere.

-Jovian planets have a rapid rotation which creates incredibly strong wind that often
result in storms and hurricanes (ex The Great Red Spot on Jupiter) , which also creates
the banded look of the planets.

What kind of moons orbit the Jovian planets?

-A few of the Jovian moons are similar in size to some of our smaller planets .
-Most famous are Jupiter's moons: Io, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede.

Why are Jupiter's Galilean moons geologically active?

- Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system.
-This might be due to a process called tidal heating.

-Another contributing factor is called orbital resonance, which makes the moons
orbits elliptical, which causes the tidal pull.
-Tidal heating may also be cause of a deep liquid ocean on Europa.
-heating is weaker in Callisto and Ganymede but it is still present enough to
create a subsurface ocean

What geological activity do we see on Titan and other moons?

-Titan has a thick atmosphere, methane rain and erosion.
-Enceladus is the smallest moon to have geologically activity
-Triton orbits Neptune backwards.

Why are Jovian moons more geologically active than small rocky
planets?

-Tidal heating and melting and deformation of the ices mean that even the small moons
can sustain activity.

What are Saturn's rings like?

-Saturn's rings are made of icy particles ranging in size from grain of sand to boulders

Why do the Jovian planets have rings?

- the ring particles we see today are recent and are released by impacts on small
moons within the rings