THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM

207-780-4249   www.usm.maine.edu/planet

70 Falmouth Street   Portland, Maine 04103

43.6667° N                   70.2667° W 

Altitude:  10 feet below sea level

Founded January 1970

Julian date: 2458774.16

2019-2020:  XXXIV

                    "I own the world's worst thesaurus.  Not only is it terrible, it's terrible!"

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Friday, October 18, 2019

Quiz VII:  The Asteroid Belt

Our quest quiz through outer space continues today!   Last week we explored the planet Mars.   Now, we continue our trek through the Main Asteroid Belt: one of the lesser known locales in our solar system.     Tumbling, turning and troublesome, the asteroids serve as frozen repositories of the infant solar system: when the Sun, and the myriad objects surrounding it slowly coalesced out of interstellar gases.    Although asteroids lurk in every cranny and crevice of the solar system, most of them loiter within the Main Asteroid Belt, a region between the orbits of ___________ and __________.             

Throughout the school year, these quest quizzes will take us as far afield as we can possibly venture:   today, we hop along the asteroids.  

1.  The main asteroid belt is contained between the orbits of which two planets?

a.  Earth and Mars

b.  Mars and Jupiter

c.  Jupiter and Saturn

d.  Uranus and Neptune

2. ____________, the first object detected in the Main Asteroid Belt, was discovered in ___________

a.   Vesta;  1807

b.  Ceres, 1801

c.  Pallas,  1802

d. Juno, 1804

3. The Main Asteroid Belt is estimated to contain approximately _________________ asteroids larger than 1 km in diameter

a.  300,000

b.  430,000 - 550,000

c.  700,00 - 830,000

d.  1.1 - 1.9 million

4. The entire mass of the asteroid belt is estimated to be about _______ that of our moon.

a.  4%

b. 9%

c. 15%

d. 21%

5. Which Main Belt asteroid is the brightest one in Earth's sky?

a. Ceres

b. Vesta

c. Pallas

d. Herclulina 

6. The term "asteroid" actually means what?
a.  'turning rock'

b. 'star-like'

c. 'sparkle'

d. none of the above 

7.  When is International Asteroid Day?

a. there is no such thing!

b.  June 30

c.  July 20

d. August 10

8.  In what year did Atari release its wildly popular "Asteroids!" video game?

a.  1977

b. 1978

c. 1979

d. 1981

9. About how "thick" is the asteroid belt?

a. 100 miles

b. 1,000,000 miles

c. 10,000,000 miles

d. 100,000.000 miles

10.  "Ceres" was named for the Roman goddess of ____________

a. mountains

b. the harvest

c. child birth

d. dawn

ANSWERS

1.  a.  Earth and Mars

One will encounter asteroids at various locations within the solar system.    Many asteroids are even "Earth crossers," meaning that they intersect Earth's orbit.      Most of the asteroids, however, revolve around the Sun within a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter dubbed "The Main Asteroid Belt."     The asteroids within this belt are distributed over an area from 2.1 AU (2.1 times farther from the Sun than Earth) and 3.3 AU'

2.  b.  Ceres, 1801

Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres on January 1, 1801, the very first day of the 19th century.    The largest and most massive body in the asteroid belt, Ceres has now been classified as a dwarf planet.

3. d.  1.1 - 1.9 million

Conducting a comprehensive census of the Main Asteroid Belt would prove a daunting task.     Planetary scientists estimate that this belt contains more than a million asteroids larger than 1 km.  Moreover, millions of even smaller asteroids are likely to be hidden within the belt.

4. a.  4%

When astronomers first determined the Main Asteroid Belt's existence, some suggested that the asteroids were fragments of a planet that somehow shattered into pieces.   This theory was discounted when astronomers realized how little material the belt actually contains.

5. b. Vesta

On occasion, Vesta becomes bright enough to be observable without a telescope.  However, even at these periods of maximum brightness, such as its June 2018 opposition, Vesta is just above the naked eye visibility threshold.  Seeing Vesta at maximum requires both a perfectly dark sky and precise knowledge of its location.  While Vesta is not the biggest asteroid, its surface is highly reflexive, hence its unusual brightness.  

6. b. 'star-like'

We generally extend credit to astronomer William Herschel for coining the name "asteroid."  In fact, historians now extend credit to Charles Burney, Jr, son of, well, Charles Burney, Sr, a poet with whom Herschel had been collaborating over a poem about the Universe.   Herschel had asked Burney Sr to help him craft a word for the strange objects between Mars and Jupiter.    Rather flummoxed, Burney Sr wrote to his son, an expert on the Greek language, for advice.    The son wrote back with the word "asteroid."

7. b.  June 30

On June 30, 1908, an explosion over Tunguska, Siberia, leveled more than 1000 square miles of forest.   Researchers have ascribed this explosion to either an asteroid or comet explosion.   In commemoration of this event, Stephen Hawking, Martin Rees, Richard Dawkins, and other prominent scientists, artists and musicians designated June 30th as Asteroid Day: a day devoted to asteroid education.  

8. c. 1979

For those people younger than 40 who might be utterly perplexed right now, Atari was the preeminent video game company in the 1970s and part of the 1980's.   The "Video Game Crash" in 1983 caused it to split and then lose its coveted status in the video game universe.     

9. d. 100,000.000 miles

The asteroid belt's "thickness" is about equal to Earth's mean distance from the Sun, Even though billions of asteroids likely comprise the asteroid belt, an immense amount of space separates all of them. 

10. b. the harvest

Ceres was the Roman counterpart to Demeter, goddess of the harvest.  The name was suggested by Giuseppe Piazzi, Ceres' discoverer.    At the time of its discovery, Ceres was designated as a planet. Ceres was, like Mars, a child of Jupiter's. For this reason, it was logical to have placed Ceres between Mars and Jupiter:  daughter and son before Dad. 

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