Solar Systems Test #3

What percentage of the mass of the solar nebula consisted of elements other than hydrogen and helium?

• 0.1 percent

• 2 percent

• 80 percent

• 20 percent

• 0 percent

Where did the elements heavier than hydrogen and helium come from?

• They evolved from hydrogen and helium shortly after the Big Bang.

• They were produced inside dense interstellar gas.

• They were produced in the Big Bang.

• They were produced inside stars.

• all of the above.

Tags

NGSS.HS-ESS1-3

Nebular theory predicts that other solar systems that formed in the same way should also have 8 planets.

• True

• False

In essence, the nebular theory holds that _________.

• the planets each formed from the collapse of its own separate nebula

• The nebular theory is a discarded idea that imagined planets forming as a result of a near-collision between our Sun and another star.

• our solar system formed from the collapse of an interstellar cloud of gas and dust

• nebulae are clouds of gas and dust in space

According to our theory of solar system formation, what three major changes occurred in the solar nebula as it shrank in size?

• Its mass, temperature, and density all increased.

• Its mass did NOT increase.

• Its gas clumped up to form the terrestrial planets, nuclear fusion produced heavy elements to make the jovian planets, and central temperatures rose to more than a trillion Kelvin.

• It got hotter, its rate of rotation increased, and it flattened into a disk.

How many of the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction that Earth does?

• a few

• most

• all

Tags

NGSS.HS-ESS1-4

What fraction of the large moons of the planets orbit in the same direction as their planets rotate?

• some

• most

• all

Tags

NGSS.HS-ESS1-4

Why did the solar nebula heat up as it collapsed?

• The shock wave from a nearby supernova heated the gas.

• As the cloud shrank, its gravitational potential energy was converted to kinetic energy and then into thermal energy.

• Nuclear fusion occurring in the core of the protosun produced energy that heated the nebula.

• Radiation from other nearby stars that had formed earlier heated the nebula.

• Collisions among planetesimals generated friction and heat.

What happened during the accretion phase of the early solar system?

• The solar nebula differentiated into metals inside of the frost line and ices beyond.

• Earth gained its oceans from icy planetesimal capture.

• Particles grew by colliding and sticking together.

• Atoms and molecules in the gas bonded together and solidified.

• Large planetesimals captured atmospheres from the solar nebula.

Tags

NGSS.HS-ESS1-6

According to our theory of solar system formation, why do all the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction and in nearly the same plane?

• Luck explains it, as we would expect that most other solar systems would not have all their planets orbiting in such a pattern.

• Any planets that once orbited in the opposite direction or a different plane were ejected from the solar system.

• The laws of conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum ensure that any rotating, collapsing cloud will end up as a spinning disk.

• The original solar nebula happened to be disk-shaped by chance.

• The Sun formed first, and as it grew in size it spread into a disk, rather like the way a ball of dough can be flattened into a pizza by spinning it.