Directed Reading A

Name Class Date Skills Worksheet Directed Reading A

Section: The Outer Planets (pp. 486–491) Write the letter of the correct answer in the space provided.

______1. Which of the following describes a gas giant? a. planets that have hard surfaces b. planets that have snow and ice c. planets that have massive gas atmospheres d. planets that have no atmospheres

______2. Which outer body could NOT be called a gas giant? a. Neptune b. Pluto c. Saturn d. Uranus

JUPITER: A GIANT AMONG GIANTS

______3. Which is the largest planet in our solar system? a. Jupiter b. Earth c. Saturn d. Neptune

______4. What is Jupiter made of? a. mainly oxygen b. mainly methane c. mainly hydrogen d. mainly carbon dioxide

______5. What is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot? a. thick clouds b. colorful compounds c. metallic hydrogen d. a huge storm

______6. What is unusual about Jupiter’s energy supply? a. It gets energy from the Great Red Spot. b. It gives off more energy than it takes in. c. It gets energy from its moons. d. It gets energy from a neutron star.

The Exploration of Jupiter

______7. What information did the Galileo mission’s atmospheric probe send back about Jupiter? a. details about its weather b. facts about its gases c. images of its Great Red Spot d. facts about its moons

SATURN: THE RINGED WORLD

______8. Which of the following is the second-largest planet in the solar system? a. Pluto b. Neptune c. Jupiter d. Saturn

______9. Which of the following is true of Saturn’s density? a. Saturn’s density is higher than Jupiter’s. b. Saturn’s density is more than the density of water. c. Saturn is the least dense of all the planets. d. Saturn is the most dense of all the planets.

The Rings of Saturn

______1 0. What are Saturn’s rings made of? a. rocks and dust b. iron and metals c. water ice and dust d. organic compounds

The Exploration of Saturn

______1 1. Which spacecraft reached Saturn in 2004 to study its rings and northern polar region? a. Cassini b. Galileo c. Pioneer d. Voyager

URANUS: A SMALL GIANT

______1 2. What affect does the methane in its atmosphere have on Uranus? a. It causes Uranus to have rings. b. It gives Uranus a greenish tinge. c. It causes Uranus to have clouds. d. It makes Uranus look blue.

A Tilted Planet

______1 3. What is unusual about Uranus’s axis? a. The planet is tipped on its side. b. The axis is tipped at an angle of 45°. c. The axis is tipped at an angle of 65°. d. The planet is straight up and down.

______1 4. What do scientists think may have caused Uranus’s tilt? a. Uranus escaped Jupiter’s gravity. b. Uranus’s moons had a cosmic tug of war. c. Uranus was pulled by Saturn’s gravity. d. Uranus was hit by a large object.

NEPTUNE: THE BLUE WORLD

______1 5. What causes Neptune’s blue color? a. methane in the atmosphere b. rocks and ice c. helium in the atmosphere d. the Great Dark Spot

The Weather on Neptune

______1 6. What is the Great Dark Spot? a. gases in the atmosphere b. a storm the size of Earth c. a volcanic system d. a polar icecap

______17. How fast do Neptune’s winds travel? a. more than 100 m/s b. less than 1,000 km/hr c. approximately 300 km/s d. more than 1,000 km/h

PLUTO: A DWARF PLANET A Small World

______18. What is Pluto made of? a. hydrogen and helium b. mainly organic compounds and ice c. hydrogen and water d. rock and ice

______19. What is unusual about Pluto’s moon? a. Its orbit is not regular. b. It is more than half the size of Pluto. c. It is about the same size as Pluto. d. It is denser than Pluto.

Beyond Pluto

______20. Which of the following is a region that contains small bodies made mostly of ice? a. Jupiter’s interior b. Pluto’s atmosphere c. the Kuiper belt d. the Great Dark Spot

______21. What did scientists discover in the Kuiper belt in 2003? a. 2003UB313 b. Pluto c. Charon d. another sun