Download The Universe Constellations

“The Universe-Constellations”
Name _____________________________Period _______
1. Positions on the earth’s surface are given by latitude and longitude. In the Celestial Coordinate system,
used to give positions in the sky, these same quantities are called ______________ and __________
_______________.
2. What is the one flaw of the celestial coordinate system?
3. Parallax can tell you how far away objects are. If you observe two stars with different parallax angles,
the star with the greater parallax will be ________________to earth than the star with the smaller angle.
4. Cepheid variable stars pulse in a regular pattern. In what way are these stars useful to astronomers?
5. What type of star is Betelgeuse and is it young or old?
6. The North Star Polaris is _________ times as bright as the sun.
7. Is there ever a time of year that circumpolar stars are not visible at night?
8. True or False: It takes an equal amount of time for the sun to pass through each zodiacal constellation.
Explain.
9. Name the only star that is not part of a constellation. _____________________
10. What is the most prominent feature in the night time sky for an observer in the Southern Hemisphere?
___________________________
11. The brightest star in the constellation of Cygnus is called Deneb. It is a _______ supergiant that is
250,000 times as bright as the sun.
12. Also in Cygnus, the object Cygnus X-1 was the first confirmed ______________.
13. What percent of stars belong to a multiple star system?
14. The constellation of Centaurus in the Southern Hemisphere contains Omega Centauri, the largest
globular star cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy. Describe how globular clusters may have formed.