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Assignment 1
Multiple Choice
Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
____
1. Of the following, which is the largest?
a. the Sun
b. Jupiter
c. Comet Halley
d. the universe
e. a galaxy
____
2. One thing that a space traveler in our solar system would easily notice that distinguishes the Earth from all the other planets is:
a. it has an atmosphere
b. it has abundant liquid water on its surface
c. it has a moon (satellite)
d. it orbits (revolves around) the Sun
e. it is much, much larger than any other planet
____
3. All the stars that we can see with the unaided eye are:
a. in our solar system, just beyond the orbit of Pluto
b. in a sphere about 10 LY in diameter, centered on the Sun
c. part of the Milky Way Galaxy
d. small pieces of dust and dirt burning up in the Earth's atmosphere
e. so far away that their light takes trillions of years to reach us
____
4. Your little brother, hearing you are taking astronomy, asks you a question. If the Hubble Space Telescope is up in space, can it see farther into the universe because it is closer to the stars? What is your answer?
a. Hey, you are exactly right.
b. No, the Hubble looks down toward the Earth, not out into the universe
c. No, all the different objects in the universe are at about the same distance from us
d. No, the height of the Hubble above the Earth is insignificant compared to the distances to objects in the universe
e. This depends on whether you are in Northern Hemisphere of the Earth or the Southern Hemisphere
____
5. Which of the following statements about the Milky Way Galaxy is FALSE?
a. it contains hundreds of billions of stars
b. the Sun is roughly in its center, and the other stars go around us
c. it contains not only stars, but also raw material for making future generations of stars
d. it looks like a giant, flat frisbee with a ball in the middle
e. there is evidence it contains dark matter, material which we can only observe by its gravitational pull on other material
____
6. The small cluster of galaxies that includes our own Milky Way is called
a. the Milky Way cluster
b. the Andromeda cluster
c. the Small Magellanic Cloud
d. the Virgo cluster
e. the Local Group
____
7. If we compress the history of the universe since the Big Bang into a single calendar year, then human being first develop during which month of that year?
a. January
b. April
c. July
d. October
e. December
____
8. Which of the following statements about the modern study of astronomy is FALSE?
a. astronomers generally study objects that lie beyond the atmosphere of the Earth
b. astronomers realize that what they know today is only a "progress report" and not the final word about how the universe works
c. astronomers can now visit most of the objects that they study
d. much astronomical research involves decoding light and other radiation from cosmic objects
e. astronomers, like other scientists, make models of the phenomena they want to understand
____
9. In science, the ultimate judge of whether a hypothesis is correct or not is:
a. whether it fits in with earlier ideas and theories (especially those of the ancient Greeks)
b. whether it leads to a product that can be sold for a lot of money
c. whether the person proposing it has a professorship at a distinguished university
d. whether it can be tested and confirmed by experiments and observations
e. whether a majority of scientists support it in votes taken every 2 years
____ 10. Which of the following is the largest?
a. hundreds of thousands
b. billions
c. millions
d. thousands
e. the cost of our textbook
____ 11. If the population of human beings keeps growing on this planet, estimates are that we will soon have more than ten billion members of our species on the increasingly crowded surface of the Earth. How would you express this number in scientific notation?
a. 10 × 9
b. 109
c. 10 × 106
d. 1010
e. this number is too large to be expressed in scientific notation
____ 12. You are observing a star about 946 trillion km (100 lightyears) away. How old is the most recent information you can get about this star?
a. 946 trillion seconds
b. 300,000 seconds
c. 100 seconds
d. 100 years
e. This can't be determined without having more information.
____ 13. A galaxy is approximately 100 million LY away, where each LY is 9.46 × 1012 km. Express its distance in km, using scientific notation:
a. 9.46 × 1012 km
b. 946 × 1012 km
c. 9.46 × 108 km
d. 100 × 109.46 km
e. 9.46 × 1020 km
____ 14. Based on the scientific and statistical tests of astrological predictions, which of the following statements is the most reasonable?
a. astrology has passed every test with flying colors and scientists now agree that the positions of celestial objects are very important in determining our personalities and future
b. astrology has not passed any clear scientific or statistical test and, as a result, most scientists are very doubtful that it can predict anything meaningful about our lives
c. astrology has passed about half of the tests that have been devised for it, and it is very controversial; about half the scientists think it works, and the other half do not
d. no one has ever tested astrology, so it is not possible to say whether it is a useful predictive tool
e. because it was Ptolemy who wrote the books on which modern astrology is based, most scientists believe it must be correct, no matter what any tests reveal
____ 15. For complicated reasons, having to do with an astronomy textbook being dropped on the head of an astronomy professor from the 4th floor window of a student dormitory, you find yourself spending quite a bit of time in the Dean's Office one day. Just then, an eccentric but rich alumnus stops by and says he is willing to donate $237,000 to the college, but only if the Dean can write the number in scientific notation. Alas, the Dean majored in political science in college, and took as few science and math courses as possible. He looks to you for help. What answer would you whisper to him?
a. $2.37 × 100
b. $237 × 101
c. $102.37
d. $2.37 × 105
e. $2.37 × 109
____ 16. The average distance between the Earth and the Sun is called:
a. an astronomical unit
b. a lightyear
c. a lightsecond
d. a local group unit
e. an orbital period
____ 17. The closest star to the Sun is roughly how many lightyears away?
a. 4
b. 400
c. 9 trillion
d. less than 1
e. 186,000
____ 18. The celestial sphere turns once around each day because
a. the planet on which we live is rotating
b. the Earth is going around the Sun
c. the phases of the Moon
d. precession
e. everything in the universe turns around the Earth
____ 19. The south celestial pole and the north celestial pole lie in the sky directly above the
a. Earth's equator
b. the observer's zenith
c. ecliptic
d. Earth's axis
e. the town of Bayonne, New Jersey
____ 20. Halfway between the celestial poles lies the
a. horizon
b. zenith for all observers
c. celestial equator
d. path of the Sun on any given day
e. celestial hungarian
____ 21. The number of degrees of arc that your location is north or south of the Earth's equator is called your:
a. latitude
b. longitude
c. declination
d. meridian
e. Yankee quotient
____ 22. The "prime meridian" (where longitude equals zero) passes through:
a. Paris
b. New York
c. the Pacific Ocean, away from all land
d. Beijing
e. Greenwich, England
____ 23. Let's say we find a star that is located on the points or circles in the sky listed below. Then, on the same night we move to a location on Earth that is some significant distance from our first location. There will now be a different star at or on:
a. the celestial north pole
b. the zenith
c. the celestial equator
d. the celestial south pole
e. all of the above
____ 24. The point in the sky directly above your head at any given time is called the
a. nadir
b. zenith
c. celestial pole
d. horizon point
e. bald spot
____ 25. Typically, astronomers express the right ascension of a star on the sky in what units?
a. kilometers
b. hours, minutes, and seconds
c. light years
d. meters squared
e. quarters
____ 26. If you want to locate someone precisely on the surface of the Earth, you specify her exact latitude and longitude. If you want to locate a star precisely on the sky, you need to specify its exact:
a. meridian and great circle
b. constellation
c. north and east point
d. right ascension and declination
e. solstice and equinox
____ 27. The 88 sectors into which astronomers today divide the celestial sphere (the whole sky) are called:
a. zodiacs
b. constellations
c. asterisms
d. epicycles
e. celestial states
____ 28. A very odd friend of yours (living in Bayonne, New Jersey) [substitute your favorite local town to make fun of] asks you for advice (as his astronomy expert). He likes sleeping during the day, and being awake at night, and has taken to going out into an open field and staring at the stars for hours, while slowly chanting the names of the 92 stable elements. But he gets very easily dizzy from watching the slow turning of the stars in the sky. Where in the sky would you advise him to look to see stars that are not turning or just barely turning in the course of a night?
a. on his horizon
b. at his zenith
c. on the celestial equator
d. at the north celestial pole
e. you can't fool me, all stars appear to turn from Bayonne, New Jersey
____ 29. Some Canadian troops are sent (as part of a UN peacekeeping force) to a country located on the Earth's equator. At night, when homesickness makes them gaze sleeplessly at the stars, which of the following will be familiar to them (the same at the equator as in Canada):
a. the celestial poles are on the north and south points of the horizon
b. the celestial equator is overhead and passes through the zenith
c. all stars rise and set (none remains in the sky all night long)
d. all stars are above the horizon exactly half a day
e. none of the above are the same on the equator as in Canada
____ 30. A graduate student in geology who grew up in Florida (near the southernmost tip of the United States) gets to accompany her research professor to the North Pole. What will be different at the North Pole from the way she remembers the sky in Florida?
a. the celestial pole is overhead
b. the celestial equator is on the horizon
c. the way (and whether) the stars rise or set
d. all of the above would be different from the way it is in Florida
e. all of the above (a ­ c) would be the same as in Florida
____ 31. In the Northern Hemisphere, the altitude (height in degrees above the horizon) of the North Star is always roughly equal to the
a. longitude of the observer
b. latitude of the observer
c. altitude of the Sun
d. the tilt of the Earth's axis
e. the temperature at midnight
____ 32. Someone who observes the sky every clear night in Boston for many years will NEVER get to see:
a. the south circumpolar zone
b. the north celestial pole
c. the observer's zenith point
d. the north circumpolar zone
e. the Big Dipper
____ 33. The star that is currently closest to the North Celestial Pole is:
a. Arcturus
b. Betelgeuse
c. Polaris
d. Rigel
e. Arnold Schwarzenneger
____ 34. As seen from the continental United States, the Big and Little Dipper
a. are below the horizon throughout the year
b. are at the zenith throughout the year
c. are on the celestial equator throughout the year
d. are in the north circumpolar zone throughout the year
e. none of the above
____ 35. Where on Earth do stars always circle the zenith (and never rise and set)?
a. at the equator
b. at the north pole
c. at the latitude of Washington D.C.
d. everywhere
e. nowhere
____ 36. From horizon to opposite horizon, the sky takes up how much angular distance?
a. 90 degrees
b. 180 degrees
c. 360 degrees
d. 100 degrees
e. you can't fool me, this number varies with latitude
____ 37. The Sun's apparent path around the celestial sphere is called
a. the horizon
b. the circumpolar zone
c. the celestial equator
d. the celestial hot­zone
e. the ecliptic
____ 38. If the Earth goes around the Sun, why is the ecliptic not lined up with the celestial equator?
a. the ecliptic is a circle fixed in the sky, but the celestial equator is different for observers at different latitudes
b. the Earth's orbit is not a circle but an ellipse
c. the Earth's axis is tilted by about 23 degrees from the vertical
d. the pull of the other planets makes the Earth wobble significantly in the course of a year
e. the land mass of the Earth is more concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere
____ 39. Every celestial object appears to go around the Earth once a day. In addition to this motion, which celestial object has the fastest apparent motion in the sky?
a. Mars
b. the Sun
c. Venus
d. the Moon
e. the Big Dipper
Assignment 1
Answer Section
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ANS: D
3. ANS: C
5. ANS: B
7. ANS: E
9. ANS: D
11. ANS: D
13. ANS: E
15. ANS: D
17. ANS: A
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21.
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25.
27.
29.
31.
33.
35.
37.
39.
ANS:
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ANS:
D
A
B
B
B
E
B
C
B
E
D