Download Lesson Assessment: Understanding Astronomical Distances and Time

Name: __________________
Class:
Date: _____________
Lesson Assessment: Understanding Astronomical Distances and Time
1. Between which two planets listed is the distance smallest?
a) Earth and Venus
b) Uranus and Neptune
c) Mars and Jupiter
d) Mercury and Mars
2. Which distance is greatest?
a) 100 light years
b) the distance between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies
c) the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy
d) the distance between the Sun and the nearest other star
3. At its closest approach to Earth, the planet Mars is approximately 0.5 AU away. If you left Earth in a
spaceship traveling 10 000 kilometers per hour, approximately how long would it take you to reach Mars,
assuming it was 0.5 AU away?
a) 8 minutes
b) 5000 hours
c) 312 days
d) 2 years
4. Why do astronomers who want to know about conditions in the early universe study galaxies that are
extremely far from Earth?
a) Because Earth formed relatively recently, objects that formed earlier than Earth are very far away.
b) Nearby objects are too bright to be studied using modern telescopes.
c) All galaxies formed immediately after the beginning of the universe, and ones that are farther away
formed first.
d) Because light from very distant objects takes a long time to reach Earth, it represents conditions in the
distant past.
PAGE 1
Name: __________________
Class:
Date: _____________
Lesson Assessment: Understanding Astronomical Distances and Time
5. Which list correctly orders units of measurement from smallest to largest?
a) kilometer, light year, Astronomical Unit, light minute
b) kilometer, Astronomical Unit, light minute, light year
c) kilometer, light minute, Astronomical Unit, light year
d) light minute, kilometer, Astronomical Unit, light year
6. Imagine that in 2005, an astronomer sends a radio signal to a planet that contains intelligent life and is
capable of responding to the radio signal. This planet orbits a star that is approximately 25 light years
away. In what year might the astronomer expect a reply?
a) 2105
b) 2055
c) 2030
d) 2006
7. The planet Pluto is approximately 40 AU from the Sun. If light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach Earth,
how long does it take to reach Pluto?
a) 5 hours and 20 minutes
b) 3 hours and 20 minutes
c) 4 hours
d) 40 minutes
8. As Earth orbits the Sun, the position of nearer stars relative to stars that are farther away seems to change
due to the change in an Earth based observer's position. The amount of this change can be used to
measure the distance from Earth to a star. What is the name for this apparent shift in position?
a) Astronomical Units
b) heliopause
c) redshift
d) parallax
PAGE 2
Name: __________________
Class:
Date: _____________
Lesson Assessment: Understanding Astronomical Distances and Time
9. What is a light year?
a) the amount of time required for the Sun to complete one orbit of the galactic center
b) the distance between the Sun and Earth
c) the distance light travels in space in one year
d) the distance between any two stars in the same galaxy
10. Venus is approximately 0.3 AU closer to the Sun than Earth is. When Venus is directly on the opposite
side of the Sun from Earth, how much distance exists between Earth and Venus?
a) 1.3 AU
b) 0.7 AU
c) 2.7 AU
d) 1.7 AU
PAGE 3
ANSWER KEY
1.. a
2.. b
3.. c
4.. d
5.. c
6.. b
ANSWER KEY Page 1
7.. a
8.. d
9.. c
10.. d