Download Astro 101 Final F15 - Nicholls State University

Name: ________________________
Astro 101 Final F15
____
1. Which of the following is a TRUE statement about the Universe?
a. When astronomers study the universe, they just consider ordinary matter.
b. Most of the energy in the universe is in the form of gravity.
c. The universe is made up of matter and energy.
d. The universe contains only the sun, moon, and planets.
____
2. A scientific theory can be proven wrong if:
a. it is based only on conjecture
b. scientists gather new data that disprove its predictions
c. it cannot explain all phenomena
d. cultural beliefs evolve to contradict it
____
3. All stars denoted on the celestial sphere are:
a. the same distance from Earth.
b. not in the Milky Way galaxy.
c. actually planetary bodies of the solar system.
d. at varying distances from Earth.
____
4. After the Sun leaves the constellation Sagittarius, how long until it returns to this
constellation?
a. one year
c. six months
b. one day
d. one month
____
5. The diagram below shows Earth and the Sun as well as five different possible positions for
the Moon. Which position (A-E) of the Moon best corresponds with the Moon phase shown
in the upper right corner?
a.
b.
c.
A
B
C
d.
e.
1
D
E
Name: ________________________
ID: A
____
6. If the moon’s orbit were in the same plane as the earth’s orbit (not tilted), which of the following would be
TRUE?
a. There would be no lunar eclipses.
b. We would have a solar and lunar eclipse every month.
c. There would be no solar eclipses.
d. We would have a lunar eclipse every month, but solar eclipses only twice a year.
____
7. The amount of the Earth’s surface receiving sunlight during the day is
a. less in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere during December.
b. the same in the northern and southern hemispheres during June.
c. more in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere during December.
d. less in the southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere during December.
____
8. Neptune is 30 AU from the Sun. Mercury is 0.7 AU from the Sun. Which of the following is FALSE about
their orbits?
a. Mercury takes more time to travel around the Sun than Neptune.
b. Mercury has a shorter orbital period than Neptune.
c. Neptune travels more slowly around the Sun than Mercury.
d. Neptune has a longer orbital period than Mercury.
____
9. In which of the following situations would the object be experiencing an unbalanced force?
a. A car slowing down
b. A skateboard moving at a constant speed backwards
c. A rocket moving at a constant speed straight up away from the Earth
d. A truck at rest
____ 10. How does the strength of the gravitational force that the Sun exerts on the Earth compare to the gravitational
force that the Earth exerts on the Sun?
a. The force of the Sun on the Earth is greater.
b. The Earth does not exert a force on the Sun.
c. The forces are the same strength.
d. The force of the Earth on the Sun is greater.
____ 11. Which of the following statements is TRUE:
a. Astronauts in orbit around the earth are outside of earth’s gravitational pull.
b. Astronauts feel weightless because the gravitational pull of the moon cancels the
gravitational pull of earth.
c. Astronauts in orbit are falling around earth.
d. Astronauts in orbit experience no centripetal force.
____ 12. Which of the following is FALSE?
a. Light is a particle.
b. Light is a transverse wave.
c. Light is a compression wave.
d. Light is an electromagnetic wave.
____ 13. I have a laser that only emits very high energy photons of a single color. My laser is most likely what color?
a. Red
c. Yellow
b. Blue
d. White
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Name: ________________________
ID: A
____ 14. You purchase an 8-inch reflector. What does the 8-inch size refer too?
a. diameter of the primary lens
d. diameter of the secondary mirror
b. diameter of the primary mirror
e. length of the telescope
c. focal length
____ 15. Which of the following wavelengths of light emitted by the Sun is most effectively blocked by Earth’s
atmosphere?
a. gamma
c. radio
b. infrared
d. visible
____ 16. What is the most important thing that must happen for a protostar to officially be a star?
a. It must shrink to the proper size.
b. It must begin Hydrogen fusion.
c. It must form a protoplanetary disk.
d. It must convert gravitational to thermal energy.
____ 17. What gets more massive as a result of accretion in an accretion disk?
a. The protostar only
c. Nothing gets bigger
b. Planetesimals only
d. The protostar and planetestimals
____ 18. Why are most of the planets composed of refractory materials found in the inner solar system?
a. Planetary bodies can only be formed from refractory materials.
b. Refractory material existed only in the inner protoplanetary disk.
c. The temperature of the inner protostellar accretion disk was too high for volatile
components to remain solid.
d. All the bodies composed of refractory materials in the outer disk migrated to the inner
disk.
____ 19. Detecting a planet around another star using the transit method is difficult because:
a. the planet must have a rocky composition
b. the planet must pass directly in front of the star
c. the star must be moving with respect to us
d. the star must be very dim
____ 20. The maria on the moon have fewer craters than the lunar highland areas. What do we infer from this
observation?
a. The maria are younger than the highlands.
b. The maria are older than the highlands.
c. Maria crustal rock is softer than highlands crustal rock.
d. The maria were once covered by oceans of water.
e. Maria crustal rock is harder than highlands crustal rock.
____ 21. Which of the following is evidence for liquid water on Mars today?
a. size of ice caps change with seasons
b. dark damp streaks on surface that change with the seasons
c. river valleys
d. sand dunes
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Name: ________________________
ID: A
____ 22. The source or sources of the internal heat of Earth are:
a. friction from tides.
d. all of the above
b. radioactive decay.
e. only A and B
c. radiation.
____ 23. Why did the terrestrial planets lose their primary atmospheres?
a. They chemically reacted with the rock on the planets’surfaces.
b. The solar wind blew them away.
c. The planets’ low gravities couldn’t hold them.
d. The force from the planets’ fast rotation rates made them fly off.
____ 24. It would be difficult for humans to survive on the surface of Mars for long periods of time because:
a. there is not enough oxygen in the atmosphere.
b. the range in temperature between day and night is too large.
c. there is no ozone layer to protect the surface from ultraviolet radiation.
d. All of the above are valid reasons
____ 25. Which of the following cause the surface of a planet to heat up?
a. Absorbing visible light from the Sun
b. Absorbing infrared light from the atmosphere
c. Absorbing ultraviolet light from the Sun
d. All of the above
e. Only A & B
____ 26. The compositions of Uranus and Neptune differ primarily from that of Jupiter and Saturn in that the outer
two planets contain more:
a. hydrogen
c. carbon dioxide
b. water ice
d. helium
____ 27. Why are Jupiter and Saturn not perfectly spherical?
a. They rotate rapidly.
b. They have storms that develop preferentially along their equators.
c. They have very active aurorae that heat the atmospheres along the poles.
d. They formed from the collision of two large planetesimals.
____ 28. Which of the following is NOT a true statement about the Great Red Spot, Jupiter’s most prominent storm
system.
a. It has been there for at least 300 years.
b. It is much larger than Earth.
c. It is a high pressure storm, swirling counterclockwise.
d. It’s size and shape have been the same for at least 300 years.
____ 29. The bands on Saturn have very subduded colors compared to the bands of Jupiter. What does the difference
in color indicate?
a. Different chemistry
c. Slower rotation
b. Greater obliquity
d. Fewer storms
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Name: ________________________
ID: A
____ 30. We refer to some of the inner regions of Jupiter and Saturn as metallic hydrogen because they:
a. are as dense as lead
b. electrons can move freely
c. are solid
d. provide support for the upper layers of hydrogen and helium
____ 31. Why can water exist in the hot interiors of the giant planets?
a. Water released from moons via cryovolcanism is absorbed.
b. Some of the metallic hydrogen in the core mixes with oxygen.
c. The pressure is high enough to prevent the water from becoming vapor.
d. Regions of the interior are cooler than the surrounding regions.
____ 32. On which of the giant planets do we think we can find deep oceans of water?
a. Uranus and Neptune
c. All of the giant planets
b. Jupiter and Saturn
d. Jupiter and Neptune
____ 33. Saturn’s rings may have originated from:
a. material released from Saturn during a collision with a planet-sized object.
b. material released from volcanic activity on Saturn.
c. the destruction of a moon or planetoid from tidal stresses within the Roche limit.
d. cometary material captured by Saturn’s gravity.
____ 34. How do Saturn’s shepherd moons help maintain the stability of Saturn’s rings?
a. Their gravitational interactions with the ring material herd the rings into shape.
b. Their gravity periodically captures solar system debris and adds it to the ring system.
c. They periodically collide with larger ring objects, pulverizing them.
d. Their magnetic fields confine the rings’ orbits.
____ 35. Why can’t we see rings aroung Uranus even with a telescope?
a. They are transient, so are not always there.
b. They are made of very small rocks.
c. They are made of dark organic material.
d. Uranus does not have rings.
____ 36. Why is the asteroid Ceres classified as a dwarf planet?
a. It has a spherical shape.
b. There are no other objects in the area of its orbit.
c. It is located in the Kuiper Belt with Pluto.
d. It orbits Jupiter.
____ 37. Which of the following is NOT a similarity between Pluto and Eris?
a. They are about the same size.
b. They both have atmospheres.
c. They both have at least one moon.
d. They are located in the Kuiper Belt.
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Name: ________________________
ID: A
____ 38. Haumea and Makemake are _________________.
a. inactive moons of Jupiter
b. dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt
c. active moons of Saturn
d. dwarf planets in the asteroid belt
____ 39. How can moons be more geologically active than planets?
a. Some moons have magnetic fields that are stronger than planets.
b. The tidal stresses experienced by some moons can heat the interior.
c. Moons that are denser than the planets they orbit attract more colliding objects.
d. Some moons have a faster rotation rate than some planets.
____ 40. Astronomers may consider a moon or planet to be geologically active if it has ___________.
a. Young surfaces
c. Internal heat
b. Few craters
d. All of the above
____ 41. What are most of the moons around giant planets made of?
a. Ice and Rock
c. Metals
b. Rock
d. Ice
____ 42. We must serious entertain possibility of finding life on Jupiter’s moon Europa because of the discovery
__________.
a. that patches of its surface near its active volcanoes may be warm enough to support life
b. that early in its history Europa possessed a thick atmosphere
c. that a liquid water ocean may lie beneath its icy surface
d. that its polar ice caps periodically completely melt
____ 43. How do particles from Enceladus wind up in Saturn’s E ring?
a. Cosmic rays bombard the surface rock on Enceladus and expel them into space.
b. A collision with a co-orbiting moon knocked rocky debris into orbit around Saturn.
c. Water geysers erupt from the surface and expel them into space.
d. Volcanoes erupt and expel rocky material into space.
____ 44. Relative to Earth’s moon, most asteroids __________.
a. are much larger in diameter
c. are much smaller in diameter
b. have about the same diameter
____ 45. Which of the following best describes asteroids?
a. irregularly shaped planetesimals made of rock and metal
b. dirty snowballs made of ice and rock
c. pieces of meteroids that have fallen to earth
d. irregularly shaped planetesimals made of ice and rock
____ 46. Where do you find comets that have orbits that are extremely tilted or different from the orbits of the planets
in the Solar System?
a. the Kuiper Belt.
c. the Oort Cloud.
b. the asteroid belt.
d. the rings of Saturn.
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Name: ________________________
ID: A
____ 47. What causes a comet to have a coma and tails?
a. Gravity of the sun pulling the comet apart
b. The comet interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field
c. The comet evaporating in sunlight
d. It’s not a comet without a coma and tail
____ 48. Which of the following best describes the DUST tail of a comet?
a. comes straight out of the coma
b. always points toward the sun
c. made of grains of carbon and rock
d. contains high speed atoms and molecules
____ 49. How does the name of a fragment of an asteroid change as it falls to Earth? Place the terms in the correct
order from space to landing on the ground.
a. meteorite, meteoroid, meteor.
c. meteoroid, meteor, meteorite.
b. meteor, meteoroid, meteorite.
d. meteor, meteorite, meteoroid.
____ 50. Which of the following is NOT a primary source of debris in the Solar System?
a. Moons torn apart from tidal stresses
b. Disintegration of comets as they pass near the sun
c. Asteroid collisions
d. All are primary sources of debris
____ 51. Your test is Version A. Please circle the A next to “Version” on your bubble form.
a. Mark this one
b. not this one
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ID: A
Astro 101 Final F15
Answer Section
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ANS: C
F15
PTS:
2. ANS:
OBJ:
3. ANS:
OBJ:
MSC:
4. ANS:
LT
1
B
PTS: 1
DIF: Easy
REF: 1.2
Conceptual TOP: VI.A.i
D
PTS: 1
DIF: Easy
REF: 2.1
Explain why the celestial sphere is only a model of the sky and not reality.
Remembering
A
PTS: 1
5. ANS: E
like LT, F15
PTS: 1
6. ANS: B
PTS: 1
7. ANS: A
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
OBJ: Explain why Earth’s axial tilt causes seasons.
8. ANS: A
F15
PTS: 1
9. ANS: A
F15
PTS: 1
10. ANS: C
F15, like LT
PTS: 1
11. ANS: C
F15
PTS: 1
12. ANS: C
13. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
PTS: 1
1
REF: 2.2
MSC: Understanding
ID: A
14. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
15. ANS: A
LT
PTS: 1
16. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
17. ANS: D
HARD
PTS: 1
18. ANS: C
PTS: 1
DIF: Difficult
REF: 5.5
OBJ: Show how temperature differences in our accretion disk led to the formation of terrestrial and giant
planets.
MSC: Understanding
19. ANS: B
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
REF: 5.6
OBJ: Applied
TOP: VIII.B.iii
20. ANS: A
F15
PTS: 1
21. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
22. ANS: E
F15
PTS:
OBJ:
MSC:
23. ANS:
OBJ:
24. ANS:
F15
TOP: VIII.E | VIII.F
1
DIF: Easy
REF: 6.2
Relate the sources of heating and cooling of a planet’s or moon’s interior.
Remembering
C
PTS: 1
DIF: Easy
REF: 7.1
Conceptual TOP: I.A
D
PTS: 1
25. ANS: E
LT, F15
PTS: 1
26. ANS: B
OBJ: Factual
PTS: 1
TOP: II.F.ii
DIF: Easy
2
REF: 8.1
ID: A
27. ANS: A
CLICKER
PTS: 1
28. ANS: D
F15
PTS: 1
29. ANS: A
30. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
PTS:
TOP:
31. ANS:
OBJ:
MSC:
32. ANS:
F15
1
DIF: Easy
REF: 8.5
OBJ: Conceptual
VI.A
C
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
REF: 8.3
Explain why liquids such as water can exist in the hot interiors of giant planets.
Understanding
A
PTS:
33. ANS:
OBJ:
MSC:
34. ANS:
F15
1
C
PTS: 1
DIF: Easy
REF: 8.5
Discuss the two proposed origins for rings around giant planets.
Remembering
A
PTS:
OBJ:
MSC:
35. ANS:
F15
1
DIF: Medium
REF: 8.5
Illustrate how moons provide orbital stability to ring material.
Remembering
C
PTS: 1
36. ANS: A
F15
PTS: 1
37. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
38. ANS: B
F15
PTS: 1
TOP: I.B | I.D
DIF: Easy
REF: 9.1
3
OBJ: Factual
ID: A
39. ANS: B
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
REF: 9.2
OBJ: Explain how moons can be geologically active today while comparably sized planets are geologically
dead. MSC:
Understanding
40. ANS: D
PTS: 1
41. ANS: A
CLICKER
42.
43.
44.
45.
PTS:
ANS:
ANS:
OBJ:
ANS:
ANS:
F15
1
C
C
Conceptual
C
A
PTS:
PTS:
TOP:
PTS:
1
1
II.A.ii.a
1
DIF: Easy
PTS: 1
46. ANS: C
F15
PTS: 1
47. ANS: C
HARD
PTS: 1
48. ANS: C
F15
PTS: 1
49. ANS: C
F15
PTS: 1
50. ANS: A
F15
PTS: 1
51. ANS: A
PTS: 1
4
REF: 9.2