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Assignment 3
Multiple Choice
Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
____
1. The scientist who formulated the three laws of planetary motion by analyzing the data on the precise location of planets in the sky was:
a. Tycho Brahe
b. Galileo Galilei
c. Johannes Kepler
d. J. C. Adams
e. you can't fool me, we inherited these laws from ancient Greek thinkers whose names are lost
____
2. What specific event really made it possible for the three laws of planetary motion to be discovered?
a. a brilliant comet in 1601 blazed across the sky and was seen to cross in front of Venus
b. Tycho Brahe died and his assistant was able to get full access to his data
c. Galileo's books were published in Danish and became widely available to the public
d. an alignment of all the known planets in one part of the sky called everyone's attention to them
e. the plague broke out in England and forced Isaac Newton to return home from college
____
3. The 17th century astronomer who kept a roughly 20 year continuous record of the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets was:
a. Tycho Brahe
b. Galileo Galilei
c. Isaac Newton
d. Nicolaus Copernicus
e. Jean Luc Picard
____
4. We now know that the orbit of a stable planet around a star like the Sun is always in the shape of:
a. a circle
b. a parabola
c. a straight line
d. an ellipse
e. none of the above
____
5. The parameter that describes how much an ellipse deviates from a perfect circle is called:
a. perihelion
b. the semi­major axis
c. the eccentricity
d. the astronomical unit
e. Newton's ratio
____
6. When a planet, in its orbit, is closer to the Sun, it:
a. moves slower than average
b. reflects less sunlight than average
c. feels less gravitational pull than average
d. moves faster than average
e. spins faster on its axis
____
7. According to Kepler's third law, there is a relationship between the time a planet takes to revolve around the Sun and its
a. size
b. period of rotation
c. distance from the Sun
d. eccentricity
e. astrological sign
____
8. The idea that objects (in the absence of an outside force) tend to continue doing what they are already doing is called the law of
a. eccentricity
b. inertia
c. action­reaction
d. angular momentum
e. Congressional action
____
9. Newton showed that to change the direction in which an object is moving, one needs to apply:
a. a force
b. an orbit
c. an inertia
d. a perigee
e. a bribe
____ 10. Which of the following statements about forces is FALSE?
a. forces change the momentum of a body
b. forces cause an acceleration to take place
c. forces always occur in equal and opposite pairs
d. where there is no force, objects continue to move the way they were moving
e. there are places on Earth where all forces are absent
____ 11. A net force on an object will always cause a change in the object’s
a. speed.
b. direction.
c. mass.
d. momentum.
e. temperature.
____ 12. Suppose you are in an elevator that is traveling upward at constant speed. How does your weight compare to your normal weight on the ground? a. It is less.
b. You are weightless.
c. It is the same.
d. It is greater.
e. It will change depending on your height.
____ 13. Which of the following has the greatest density?
a. a cubic meter of snow
b. a cubic meter of air
c. a cubic meter of astronomy textbooks
d. a cubic meter of feathers (packed tightly)
e. a cubic meter of lead
____ 14. A single star in the process of forming starts by spinning slowly (while it is quite large and relatively cool.) As the star collapses under the pull of its own gravity, its size decreases. As a result, its rate of spinning:
a. will increase
b. will decrease
c. will stay the same
d. will either increase or decrease depending on the star's temperature
e. this question cannot be answered from the information we are given
____ 15. An astronomy textbook weighs four pounds on the surface of the Earth. After finishing your course, you are so tired of the book, you arrange for NASA to shoot it into space. If it is now twice as far from the center of the Earth than when you were reading it, what would it weigh? (Note, assume that the book is moving away from the Earth not falling freely around it.)
a. 4 lbs
b. 8 lbs
c. 2 lbs
d. 1 lb
e. 16 lbs
____ 16. Which of the following statements about the force of gravity is FALSE?
a. it is a universal force, which acts everywhere in space
b. its strength decreases as the square of the distance
c. its strength is inversely proportional to the mass: the more mass, the less gravity
d. the force never becomes zero
e. it causes the paths of the planets to be ellipses and not straight lines
____ 17. To come up with the precise mathematical form of his law of gravity, Newton first had to invent the mathematical techniques that we call:
a. algebra
b. ratio and proportions
c. angular momentum
d. calculus
e. scientific notation
____ 18. In Newton's Law of Gravity, the force of gravity goes up as the:
a. mass goes down
b. distance goes up
c. mass goes up
d. distance goes down
e. more than one of the above
____ 19. Why do astronauts (and cans of soft drink) float around in the Shuttle instead of falling?
a. the Shuttle is so far from the Earth, gravity is negligible
b. the Shuttle's gravity balances the Earth's, so that the net gravity is zero
c. the Shuttle is falling around the Earth (and everything aboard is in free fall)
d. the Shuttle has an antigravity device on board, developed by NASA
e. the rules Newton developed for gravity only hold on Earth, not once you get into space
____ 20. Newton's reformulation of Kepler's third law allows us to measure the masses of bodies in orbit around each other, if we can measure:
a. the rotation rate of each object
b. the distances and periods of revolution
c. the eccentricities and semi­major axes
d. the force and the reaction force
e. those fig­filled cookie bars
____ 21. When a comet like Comet Hale­Bopp comes closest to the Sun in its orbit, we say that it is at:
a. circular satellite velocity
b. the minimum angular momentum point
c. perihelion
d. apogee
e. the tail end of its journey
____ 22. The asteroid belt is
a. a region of icy chunks of material beyond the orbit of Pluto
b. a zone where rocky chunks orbit between Mars and Jupiter
c. a series of orbital zones around the Moon, from which fragments drop down to form craters
d. is a region around the Earth from which meteors (shooting stars) are observed to drop
e. a new fashion accessory being sold by NASA to raise funds for future missions
____ 23. According to Kepler's 2nd Law, comets (which have eccentric orbits) should spend a lot more of their time:
a. close to the planets
b. close to the Sun
c. losing angular momentum
d. far from the Sun
e. increasing the rate at which they spin
____ 24. Why do satellites launched into low­Earth orbits not remain there indefinitely?
a. they do not have enough speed to fall freely around the Earth
b. they tend to collide with other spacecraft and spacecraft fragments
c. they lose speed due to friction with the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere
d. they run out of fuel, and without fuel, all satellites, no matter what their orbit is, must fall
e. this is an unsolved problem, but a NASA committee has been assigned to work on it
____ 25. To leave the gravitational pull of the Earth, and explore other planets, satellites must have at least:
a. circular satellite velocity
b. escape velocity
c. perigee velocity
d. three orbit perturbation
e. the permission of one Congressional committee
____ 26. In the formula E=mc2, the letter c stands for
a. the speed of sound
b. the speed of an electron around the nucleus
c. the amount of energy contained in one hydrogen nucleus
d. the energy of a neutrino emerging from the Sun
e. the speed of light
____ 27. Which type of energy relates to the motion of an object?
a. gravitation potential energy
b. radiative energy
c. kinetic energy
d. mass­energy
e. none of the above
____ 28. Radiative energy is
a. heat energy.
b. energy of motion .
c. energy carried by light.
d. energy from nuclear power plants.
e. more than one of the above.
____ 29. A minor planet has a sidereal period of eight years. What is its average distance from the Sun using Kepler’s 3rd law?
a. 16 AU
b. 8 AU
c. 4 AU
d. 2 AU
e. none of the above ____ 30. If 2 kilograms (kg) of mass is converted to energy in a nuclear explosion, what is the amount of energy released in joules? (Hint : c=3 x 108 m/s)
a. 9 x 1015 joules
b. 1.8 x 1017 joules
c. 1.8 x 1016 joules
d. 6 x 108 joules
____ 31. When the Sun and Moon are lined up and pull together, the tides they raise are called:
a. neap tides
b. spring tides
c. low tides
d. differential tides
e. prolate tides
____ 32. The period of the moon's rotation on its axis is
a. much longer than its revolution around the Earth
b. much shorter than its revolution around the Earth
c. the same as its revolution around the Earth
d. longer or shorter depending on what part of the year we are in
e. zero
Assignment 3
Answer Section
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ANS: C
3. ANS: A
5. ANS: C
7. ANS: C
9. ANS: A
11. ANS: D
13. ANS: E
15. ANS: D
17. ANS: D
19. ANS: C
21. ANS: C
23. ANS: D
25. ANS: B
27. ANS: C
29. ANS: C
31. ANS: B