Things that spin
Good Atmosphere
Impacts and impactors
Belts
Inner Worlds
Moar Moonz
Outer Worlds
We Have Layers
Earf n Earfs
Extremely Extrasolar
i feel alive
100
This is why the Solar System planets move in the same direction
What is the conservation of angular momentum?
100
This unfortunate Solar System planet does not have one
What is Mercury?
100
These are the reasons why there are so few craters on Earth
Weathering
Tectonics
Screening by atmosphere
100
Where Pluto lives
What is the Kuiper Belt?
100
Planets with these two properties tend to have a lower moment of inertia
What is a denser/larger metal core?
What is a hydrogen/helium composition?
100
The mechanism by which Jupiter and Saturn amassed hundreds of tiny moons
What is orbital capture?
100
This planet, tilted on its side, has a large obliquity.
What is Uranus?
100
The mesosphere and troposphere share this property in common
What is a decreasing temperature with height?
100
This is the main reason Earth's ancient continents don't vanish to subduction
What is continental crust has a lower density than oceanic crust?
100
This NASA mission discovered thousands of transiting exoplanets using photometry
What is the Kepler mission?
100
The famous WOW! Signal is a possible example of this
What is a technosignature?
200
The fast rotation of Jupiter and Saturn causes this noticeable effect
What is the equatorial bulge? (Or oblateness)
200
The atmospheres of these worlds become metallic at depth
What are Jupiter and Saturn?
200
Complex craters on rocky surfaces have this size and this property
What are ~300 km and a central peak?
200
This region of the Solar System contains most of the rocky remnants of planet formation
What is the Asteroid Belt?
200
This churning process drives tectonics on Earth and the magnetic fields in giant planets
What is convection?
200
This large icy moon with a thin atmosphere and a "cantaloupe" surface orbits its planet retrograde
What is Triton?
200
The Oort cloud, the outermost cloud of comets in the Solar System, is the remnant of this process
What is planet formation?
200
This solid but convecting layer of Earth's interior makes up half of Earth's radius
What is the mantle?
200
Subduction, continental drift, and earthquakes are the result of this general type of activity
What is tectonics?
200
These are the three main observing techniques in astronomy
What are photometry, spectroscopy, and astrometry?
200
The Drake equation is a handy way of estimating this property of our Galaxy.
What is the number of extraterrestrial civilizations?
300
This planet spins backwards
What is Venus?
300
These two gases give Uranus and Neptune their distinctive blue color
What are hydrogen and methane?
300
Bright surface rays emanating from craters are caused by this
What is fresh/unweathered impact material?
300
The Kirkwood Gaps in the Asteroid Belt are formed by this process
What are orbital resonances with Jupiter?
300
This formative process brings heavier materials to the core of a planet
What is differentiation?
300
Dunes, cryovolcanos, lakes, and clouds cover this world, onto which the Huygens spacecraft landed
What is Titan?
300
Outer asteroids tend to be reddish due to this material
What is organic-rich ice?
300
Earth's rigid and rocky lithosphere, 100 km thick, sits atop this 600 km thick layer of more deformable rock
What is the Asthenosphere?
300
This is the main reason for Earth's 1.5o C atmospheric temperature increase in the last 100 years.
What is human activity?
300
The first discovered transiting exoplanet was a member of this surprising class of planet
What is a hot Jupiter?
300
These four locations in the Solar System are the most interesting places to look for life.
What are Mars, Titan, Enceladus, and Europa?
400
Asteroid spin rates can be measured using this astronomical technique
What is photometry?
400
This moon of Saturn has a methane hydrological cycle in its hazy nitrogen atmosphere
What is Titan?
400
The surface of this planet has very few small craters
What is Venus?
400
This large inhabitant of the Asteroid Belt may have salty subsurface oceans
What is Ceres?
400
This process generates magnetic fields inside of planets
What is a dynamo?
400
The speed of light was determined using this technique
What is the eclipse timing of Jupiter's moons?
400
A typical KBO (Kuiper Belt Object) orbits this many times further from the Sun than Jupiter
What is 8?
400
Earth's crust, which is 10's of km thick and makes up the top of the Lithosphere, comes in these two varieties
What are continental and oceanic?
400
The habitability of an Earth-like planet mostly depends on this pair of conditions.
What is liquid water existing under an atmosphere?
400
This is the main technique used to measure the mass of an exoplanet
What is the radial velocity method? (Spectroscopy)
400
These three properties of Europa help the case for its habitability.
What are water-rock interactions, radiation shielding, and interior heating?
500
This effect causes Earth's rotation to slow
What are tides/tidal interactions with the Moon?
500
These are the two main techniques used to measure the atmospheres of exoplanets
What are transmission spectroscopy and direct imaging?
500
Members of this class of object, e.g. 2024 YR4, threaten life on Earth
What is a Near Earth Object?
500
This is the closest distance to a planet that an object can reach before being shredded into ring material
What is the Roche Radius?
500
This is the cause of compressional features on Mercury's surface
What is contraction of the iron core?
500
Tiger stripes on this moon of Saturn tell us about its subsurface ocean
What is Enceladus?
500
These distant worlds have irregular magnetic fields, dark storms, and ionic "ice"-rich oceans deep below their hydrogen atmospheres
What are Uranus and Neptune?
500
Earth's inner core differs from the outer core in this key way.
What is it's solid?
500
These dark heat sources may have been responsible for life on Earth, and perhaps life on this ocean world.
What are hydrothermal vents and Europa?
500
The TRAPPIST-1 system of 7 Earth-sized planets are the best suited for atmosphere characterization, but may be bare rocks for this reason
What is the star's extreme X-ray flare activity?
500
This hypothetical solution to the Fermi Paradox persuades many to "be quiet" in the quest for contacting extraterrestrial intelligences.
What is the Dark Forest Hypothesis?
600
Two hypothetical planets of the same mass and radius have different rotation rates. The difference can be explained by these three concepts
What is the Moment of Inertia?
What is a giant impact?
What are tides?
600
The reason Saturn's winds are faster than Jupiter's
What is less turbulence/storminess due to reduced Sunlight?
600
This mission measured impact-induced quakes on Mars and determined the radius of its core
What is the InSight Lander?
600
These orange regions of downwelling gas on Jupiter are colored by this molecule
What are belts; what is H2S or hydrosulfide?
600
These tall inner structures are responsible for creating the Hawaiian Island chain hotspot
What are mantle plumes?
600
These small lumpy objects shape the rings of Saturn with their gravitational influence
What are Shepherd Moons?
600
This world was predicted before it was discovered
What is Neptune?
600
This is any atmosphere's outermost layer
What is the exosphere?
600
These are three reasons why Earth's atmosphere is so different than Venus' and Mars'.
What are:
- Magnetic field shields gases from escaping
- Stratosphere "cold trap" shields water from leaving troposphere
- The silicate weathering cycle draws down carbon
600
These two extremely common types of exoplanet cannot be found in our Solar System.
What are mini-Neptunes and super-Earths?
600
The Milky Way Galaxy contains 100 billion Sun-like stars, and most of them host rocky exoplanets, yet we don't yet know of any itelligent civilizations. The name of this paradox.
What is the Fermi Paradox?
1000
This type of rotation is why we see only the near side of the Moon
What is Synchronous rotation?
1000
This layer of any atmosphere blocks out X-rays from the star
What is the thermosphere?
1000
This high-impact JHU-led mission impacted this asteroid for this purpose.
What is DART? What is Dimorphos? What is to study asteroid deflection/redirection?
1000
Saturn's E ring is created by this process on this moon, driven by this mechanism
What are jets from Enceladus caused by tidal heating?
1000
The seismological feature that revealed Earth's outer core to be liquid
What is the seismic shadow zone?
1000
This moon of Saturn, known by some as the Death Star moon, has a huge complex crater on it
What is Mimas?
1000
Uranus has the same temperature as Neptune, despite being much closer to the Sun, due to this
What is mysterious extra heat from Neptune's interior?
1000
This is the correct ordering of all the layers of Earth, from the interior to the surface to outer space
What is:
Inner core, outer core, mantle, asthenosphere, lithosphere, crust, biosphere, troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere
1000
This type of terrestrial planet has no examples in our Solar System
What are super-Earths?
1000
This mission famously measured the distances to billions of stars in our Galaxy, using this technique.
What is the Gaia Mission; what is astrometry?
1000
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