Download Chapter 5 Essay Questions

Chapter 5 Essay Questions
(last updated 08/16/2012)
Short essay questions (answer with
one or two sentences):
1 We cannot put the sun on a scale and
weigh it, so how is the mass of the
sun determined?
2 What does the shape of a solar
prominence reveal?
3 What is the definition of density?
Approximately, what is the average
density of the sun?
4 The corona is much hotter than the
photosphere, yet we have to wait for a
total solar eclipse to see the corona.
Why is that?
5 Suppose you have a cool gas cloud of
atoms, and you send visible light of all
wavelengths through the gas. What
will happen to the photons of the light,
and what type of spectrum is created?
6 Suppose there was a distant star
which was at rest relative to the sun.
During the year what specifically
would happen to the spectral lines
from this star observed on earth as
earth orbited the sun?
7 The umbra of a sunspot is darker than
the penumbra, which is darker than
the photosphere. What does that tell
us about the umbra and the
penumbra?
8 What two particles can be found
inside the nucleus of an atom?
9 In the twentieth century, scientists
discovered something surprising
about the orbits of electrons in atoms,
leading to the development of
quantum mechanics. What was the
surprising discovery?
10 By observing sunspots on the sun we
see that the sun undergoes rotation in
a different way than does the earth.
What type of rotation does the sun
undergo, and how is it different than
the earth's rotation?
11 What is an ion?
Long essay questions (answer with a
paragraph):
1 What is convection? What is the
evidence that granulation in the
photosphere is caused by convection?
2 We say that the sun has an eleven
year sunspot maximum cycle. Explain
in detail what is different about the
sunspots from one sunspot maximum
compared to the next sunspot
maximum.
3 Suppose we excite a low density gas
and cause the gas to give off an
emission spectrum, similar to the one
we viewed in class. Describe in detail
what is happening in the atoms of the
gas to create the emission spectrum,
and why the gas "emits" only specific
emission lines, and not all of the colors
of the rainbow.
4 Explain in detail how a filtergram taken
in H-alpha light allows us to reveal
details in the upper layers of the
chromosphere, while "hiding" the
much brighter photosphere.
5 Describe the details of the Babcock
model and how it explains the creation
of sunspots.