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Astro final Spring 2003 The final will cover: prologue through chapter 4, chapters 6, 7,10,11,12, and a little14. The final exam will count 200 points and it will count about 2 tests. If you improve on the final relative to previous performances, it will count as more than two tests, perhaps as three. Multiple choice from all chapters as well as past tests and quizzes will be a pretty good guide to the final. You may be asked to define some of the following vocabulary terms. minute of arc Occam’s razor retrograde motion second of arc Parallax theory hypothesis epicycle heliocentric model ellipse stellar parallax Astronomical unit(AU) Galilean moons mass inertia full (phase) gibbous (phase) crescent (phase) acceleration velocity wavelength frequency photon electromagnetic spectrum rotation solar (lunar) eclipse umbra revolution volatile penumbra corona perigee apogee binary star Doppler effect spectroscope asteroid escape velocity ion stellar wind asteroid belt Kuiper belt meteor meteoroid meteorite sunspot luminosity pressure hydrostatic equilibrium conduction convection radiation apparent magnitude main sequence parsec absolute magnitude white dwarf+ electron degeneracy+ Hertzsprung-Russell diagram planetary nebula+ Chandrasekhar limit+ Supernova+ The following questions might also be asked: 1. What makes the constellations of the zodiac special? 2. Name the planets that are never seen very far from the Sun in the sky. 3. Why was Copernicus forced to use epicycles in his model? 4. Which criterion for a good model did Kepler’s model satisfy better than previous ones had? 5. The Earth is closer to the Sun in January than it is in July. During which of these two months is it moving faster? 6. Which of Venus’s phases could not be explained by the Ptolemaic model? 7. Why, strictly speaking, are theories never “proven”? 8. Be able to distinguish between mass and volume, mass and weight. 9. Distinguish between acceleration and speed. 10. You are in a car going around a curve. Describe the accelerations that take place 11. What are the three primary controls of your car that are directly connected with acceleration? 12. The period of a wave is defined as the amount of time required for the wave to complete one cycle. What, then, is the relationship between the period and the frequency of a wave? 13. What are Kirchhoff’s laws? 14. What are Bohr’s rules? 15. Suppose each of two planets were found to have a natural satellite at the same distance from the planets’ centers. The period of the satellite of planet X, though, is greater than that of the satellite of planet Y. Which planet must have the greater mass? Explain your reasoning. 16. Which planets have rings? 17. If you were classifying the planets by size only, you might make three classes. What planets would be in each class? 18. Which would a small planet be more likely to have hydrogen or carbon dioxide in its atmosphere? Explain. 19. How does the speed of a gas molecule at Earth’s escape velocity (say 11 km/sec) compare to the speed of a commercial airliner (500 miles per hour = 800 km/hour)? How many times faster is it? 20. What is a blink comparator and for what is it used? 21. Is it probable that Pluto is a former moon of Neptune? Why or why not? 22. Draw a sketch of a comet, labeling its coma, nucleus, and tail. 23. Please distinguish among meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. 24. Describe the nature and types of cometary tails: How many are there and which way do they point? A sketch might be appropriate. 25. Why is the dust tail of a comet curved and the ion tail straight? 26. Why are asteroids not thought to be remnants of an exploded planet? 27. Enumerate (list) and briefly describe the main processes of heat transfer. Which ones are operating for the Sun? 28. Which is the core of the Sun, a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma (hot gas with the electrons stripped from the atoms)? Please explain. 29. Explain, at a molecular level, how a gas exerts pressure on the walls of its container. 30. Describe how the Sun’s equilibrium is maintained? 31. How can the size of a (non-eclipsing binary) star be determined? 32. Name and describe the basic method used to measure the distance to nearby stars. 33. It would be good to have a basic understanding of luminosity classes and how one can determine long distances using spectroscopic parallax. 34. Why are Cepheid variables key factors in determining distances? What are the sources of uncertainty using Cepheid variables in this way? 35. What is the single most important property of a star that determines the steps it goes through after ending its main sequence life? 36. Explain how a white dwarf in a binary system can undergo a supernova phase+ 37. About how large will the Sun become when it reaches the red giant stage?+ + = You may be able to answer these on the basis of things already known, from earlier exposure, or by figuring things out. But the material is largely or entirely from chapter 14.