Download 1 - Alice Pevyhouse

1. Who said “The Universe was Knowable” ?
2. Which ancient Greek thinker suggested(long before Copernicus) that the Earth is
moving around the Sun?
3. Which Greek philosopher is responsible for perpetuating the Geo-centric model?
4. The scientist who first made astronomical observations that showed the validity of
the heliocentric model of the solar system was?
5. How did Eratosthenes measure the size of the Earth?
6. The ancient Greeks first heard about the concept of constellations from the
ancient Babylonians and Sumerians (T/F)
7. Today, the number of official constellations is?
8. Within a constellation, a recognizable pattern of stars is often called?
9. The Sun’s apparent path around the celestial sphere is called?
10. In Ptolemy’s system the planets orbit the Earth and not the Sun. How did the
system explain the retrograde motion of planets like Jupiter?
11. We now know that the orbit of a stable planet around a star like the Sun is always
in the shape of?
12. After Copernicus was done with his model, he was able to predict where a planet
would be in the future with much more accuracy than the Ptolemaic model.
13. Why didn’t stellar parallax convince people of Copernicus’s time of the correctness
of a heliocentric model?
14. Copernicus was not happy with the Ptolemaic model for several reasons. One of
which was how Ptolemy had put special restrictions on the motion of which of the
following planets?
15. Which of the observations by Galileo was MOST convincing in determining the
correctness of the Copernican model?
16.Who was the 17th century astronomer that spent 20 years of his life collecting data on
planet positions?
17. Johannes Kepler discovered that planets orbit in an ellipse with the Sun at one focus
(T/F)
18. Kepler’s third law states a relationship between the period of a planet and the size of
the semi-major axis of the orbit (T/F)
20. How did Copernicus account for the retrograde motion of the planets?
21. A “New Age” bride and groom, who are enchanted by the Sun, want to get married
on the day when it is highest in the sky. If they live in the United States, around what day
of the year will the wedding take place?
22. The constellations the Sun passes through, are known as zodiac constellations (T/F)
23. The direction Earth’s axis points changes slowly. In a period of about 26, 000 years it
will complete one circle ‘cycle’ and point back at the same point. This is known as?
24.The Earth’s axis of tilt can vary from its current 23.5 degree tilt (T/F)
26. In another 13,000 years, Earth's axial tilt will point in the opposite direction it does now.
Assuming the other astronomical influences on climate have not changed as much in that time,
which hemisphere should have the larger seasonal changes in temperatures (North or South)
27. One astronomical unit (AU) is about 150 million kilometers. How many miles is this?
28. A Light Year is a unit of?
29. If a planet’s perihelion distance is 3 A.U. and aphelion distance is 5 A.U. What is the
size of the semi-major axis of the orbit?
30. Approximately how many years would it take light to travel across the length of our
Galaxy (hint: think about the size of our galaxy)?
3. We can determine what elements are in the atmosphere of a star by
examining what?
6. The wavelength(color) at which a star emits the most energy depends upon
10. A star will emit waves of all different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum
(T/F)
13. Wien’s Law is a mathematical expression that relates the temperature of a
blackbody to the wavelength that it emits most of its electromagnetic radiation
(T/F)
17. The granulation seen in photographs of the Sun is the tops of convective
cells (T/F)
18. The Sun is continuously losing mass due to nuclear reactions and to the
solar wind (T/F)
21. The hotter region directly above the Sun’s visible surface(the part that we
normally see is called what?
23. Not all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation can penetrate the Earth’s
atmosphere. Which regions of the electromagnetic spectrum are detected most
easily from our planet’s surface?
24.Why is the Sun’s Corona hotter than its photosphere?
26. Where in the Sun does fusion of hydrogen occur?
27. At the end of the proton-proton chain of nuclear fusion, four hydrogen nuclei
have been converted into what?
29. When great currents of hot material rise inside the Sun( and cooler material
sinks downward), energy is being transferred by a process known as?
30. Which part of the Sun’s atmosphere is the hottest?
32. If the “fuel” for nuclear fusion is nuclei of hydrogen, and the Earth’s oceans
are filled with hydrogen atoms all being jostled together, why isn’t there a lot of
fusion happening in our oceans?
33. Astronomers arrange the stars into groups called spectral classes according
to the kinds of lines they find in their spectra. These spectral classes are
arranged in order of?
34. Astronomers now realize that active regions(flares and prominences) on the
Sun are connected with?
1. James Maxwell recognized that a moving charged particle will naturally produce an
electromagnetic wave (T/F)
4. What wavelength is the Chandra Observatory designed to observe in?
5. The Spitzer Space Telescope is designed to look in the infrared part of the
electromagnetic spectrum(T/F)
7. What does the resolution of a Telescope depend on?
8. The point that the mirror of a telescope focuses the image of the mirror is known as the
focal point (T/F)
10. Which type of telescope had a problem with Chromatic Aberration?
11. The difference between a Newtonian and Cassegrain telescope is where the secondary
mirror reflects the light from the Primary (Objective) mirror.
12. What does a new technique called adaptive optics allows astronomers to do?
13. Chromatic aberration is a problem refracting telescopes have because the lenses used
will cause the colors in visible light to have different focal points (T/F)
14. The magnitude of a telescope depends on the focal length of the objective mirror and
the eyepiece being used (T/F)
15. Why are some telescopes placed in space above Earth’s atmosphere primarily for which of the
following reasons?
18. What is the most common element in the Sun?
19. Astronomers have concluded that the Sun's activity varies in an 11-year cycle. How
do the number of Sun Spots vary over this 11-year cycle?
20. On Earth, a period of low solar activity, such as the Maunder Minimum, resulted in
what type of climate?
21. Why does nuclear fusion require high temperatures?
.
24. In which layer of the Sun’s atmosphere are sunspots located?
26. Approximately how old is the Sun?
29. What is the difference between your mass and your weight?
31. According to Newton's laws, how does the amount of gravitational force exerted on Earth by
the sun compare to the amount of gravitational force exerted on the sun by Earth?
32. Just after an alien spaceship travels past Earth at half the speed of light, a person on Earth
sends a beam of light past the ship in the same direction that the ship is traveling. How fast does
an alien on the ship measure the light beam to be traveling as it zips past the spaceship?
33. Who first proposed that gravity is the bending of space-time due to the presence of matter?
35. What is significant about the May 29, 1919 solar eclipse?
36. The Hubble Space telescope has imaged solar systems in the process of forming(T/F)
37. What force causes the contraction of a cloud of interstellar matter to form a star?
39. At what wavelengths can we observe the early stages of protostar formation?
40. In our Solar System, which class of planet (Terrestrial/Jovian) is the densest?
41. In our Solar System, which class of planet(Terrestrial/Jovian) is the most massive?
42. In our Solar System, all the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction.
43. The Nebular Theory is the name given to the theory that describes the formation of new Solar
Systems.
44. Roughly, the spacing between the planets _________ as you move out from the Sun.
45. Approximately how far is our Sun from the edge of the galaxy?