Orbital mech
A planet moves fastest at
Perihelion
A moon is tugged around by Jupiter's gravitational force causing geological activity
Tidal heating
Rust-like coloration on organic objects are
Tholins
Hotter stars peak at shorter wavelengths
Wien's Law
The minimum speed required to escape a planet’s gravity
Escape velocity
If a satellite’s orbital period doubles, its SMA increases by this factor
2 ^ (2/3)
Key factor causing atmospheric decay
Comet sublimation produces
The coma
Motion away from the observer produces what and why?
Redshift, Doppler effect
Why are Saturns rings thin and structured
Shepherd moons
The total specific orbital energy of a bound orbit must be
Negative
Magnetic fields are often generated by
Liquid outer cores
The Kuiper Belt gives rise to
Short period comets
The distance where bodies will be torn up by graitational forces
Roche limit
When a moon crosses directly in front of its planet, the cloud tops get dark temporarily
Transit shadow
Spacecraft like New Horizons steal momentum from bodies
Gravitational assist/slingshot
Retrograde-orbiting moons indicate
Captured from KBO or Asteroid Belt, perhaps very rarely from another planet
The region of icy planetismals extending from 2000 AU to 20,000 AU is
The Hills cloud
Radial velocity works best for what and why
Massive close by planets because they have the largest effect on the periodic oscillations of the star
This process causes Mercury’s day to last two Mercurian years as it's a stable coupling
spin–orbit resonance
Elliptical orbits, eccentricity (e)
Surface features indicating global contraction with cooling
Lobate scarps/thrust faults
Small asteroids drift in orbit with uneven thermal radiation
Yarkovsky effect
How can chemical composition be analyzed with detection methods?
Transit method, starlight passing through a planet's atmosphere
Slow change in the orientation of a planet’s rotation, altering poles, equinoxes, etc
Axial precession