Astro Midterm

How many centimeters are there in one kilometer

Counts everything after the decimal,including nonzeros

64,200,000,000 is equal to

4.4´10>6 divided by 8.8´10>10 is equal to

If light takes 8 minutes to reach Earth from the sun and 5.3 hours to reach Pluto, what is the approximate distance from the sun to Pluto?

the sun is

If the nearest star is 4.2 light-years away, then

Which arrangement is in order of increasing size, left to right

The Milky Way Galaxy

In science fiction movies, it is common to use a space craft to travel across the Milky Way Galaxy or to assert that we have been visited by

Suppose we wish to travel to the nearest star using a super space ship capable of traveling at 1 x 10^10 km/yr. We have nothing even close t

Which sequence is correct when ordered by increasing size

If the distance from the Sun to the Earth is represented by roughly 15 meters, then the distance from the Earth to the Moon on the same scal

1. What would you have to change about the Earth to stop our planet from having significantly different seasons?

In Australia (in the Southern Hemisphere) when are the days the shortest and the nights the longest?

Which of the following is an important part of the reason it is hotter in summer than in winter?

An eccentric billionaire wants to build a mansion in a location on Earth where the effect of the seasons is the least pronounced--where summ

Why is there a 4-minute difference between the solar day and the sidereal day?

The seven days of the week are named after:

What time of day (roughly) will a new moon rise

You and some friends decide (during a party during the Full Moon) that you cannot live without having the secret recipe for the veggie burge

A serial killer from a strange cult that follows astrology only kills his victims when the Moon is full. He leaves a note on the body of his

During what phase of the Moon is the Moon up only during the night hours and all night long?

In one way of naming stars, a ____ letter indicates its brightness relative to the other stars in the constellation.

Most of the constellations in use today originated in ____ mythology

a Ursa Majoris

The apparent visual magnitude of a star is 7.3. This tells us that the star is

The celestial equator is

An observer in the Northern Hemisphere watches the sky for several hours. Due to the motion of Earth, this observer notices that the stars n

You live at a latitude of 39° S. What is the angle between the southern horizon and the south celestial pole?

You live at a latitude of 16° S. What is the angle between the southern horizon and the south celestial pole?

When it is winter in the northern hemisphere, it is ____ in the southern hemisphere.

The sun moves ____ along the ecliptic among the stars.

The summer solstice (at the start of summer) is the point on the ecliptic where the sun

At the time of the winter solstice (the start of winter) the sun is

At the time of the winter solstice (the start of winter) the sunlight is at a lower angle and thus is ____ than(as) in the start of summer.

The inclination of the axis of the earth varies from 22° to 24° degrees taking ____ to complete a cycle.

During the month of June the north celestial pole points towards Polaris but during the month of December it points

The first quarter moon rises

a lunar eclipse occurs when

During a total lunar eclipse

a totally eclipsed moon glows coppery red because

During a total lunar eclipse

If the moon enters Earth's shadow but does not reach the umbra, the eclipse is termed

A marble has a diameter of 2 cm. At what distance would the marble have an angular diameter of 1 arc second? Here one radian is 57.3 degrees

If the Moon's orbital plane was aligned with the celestial equator we could

In which direction does the daily motion of the Moon occur in the sky, against the background stars, when viewed from the Earth?

A(n) ____ is a circle whose center is located on the circumference of another circle

Ptolemy's model of the universe

____ introduced the concept of the eccentrics and epicycle to planetary motion about Earth, created a star catalog, and is generally credite

The book "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium"

Which of the following planets can be seen as a crescent phase from Earth

Viewed from the center of Stonehenge, the summer solstice sun rises behind the Heelstone

Parallax is the apparent change in location of an object due to the motion of the observer.

If a planet orbits the sun at a distance of 4 AU, then its orbital period is 8 years.

Parallax is the apparent change in location of an object due to the motion of the observer

Which of these were things ancient Greek astronomers never even considered in astronomy

The Almagest

a circle whose center is located on the circumference of another circle.

Ptolemy's model of the universe

introduced the concept of the eccentrics and epicycle to planetary motion about Earth, created a star catalog, and is generally credited wit

The distance from Alexandria to Syene is about 500 miles. On the summer solstice the sun is directly overhead at noon in Syene. At Alexandri

Which of the following people did not accept a heliocentric model of the universe?

First described the Copernican theory

The Copernican system was no more accurate than the Ptolemaic system in predicting the positions of the planets because

Brahe's universe was the same as the Copernican universe except that

Tycho Brahe's greatest contribution to astronomy was

A ____ is a commonly accepted set of scientific ideas and assumptions.

Galileo's observations of the gibbous phase of Venus proved

Galileo's telescopic discoveries of mountains on the moon and spots on the sun were controversial because they suggested that the sun and mo

Galileo's telescopic discovery of moons orbiting Jupiter was important because it showed that

a single conjecture that can be tested.

a system of rules and principles that can be applied to a wide variety of circumstances but may not be universally accepted.

Which of the following was not based on uniform circular motion?

Halley's Comet has an orbital period of 76 years. What is the average distance of Halley's Comet from the sun?

Saturn is on average 10 AU from the sun. What is the approximate orbital period of Saturn?

In pre-Copernican astronomy, it was almost universally believed that

An apparent westward motion of a planet in the sky compared to the background stars (as viewed from the Earth) when observed on successive n

The purpose of using epicycles and deferents to explain the motion of the planets in the night sky was to account for

Which of the following objects cannot transit (i.e. pass in front of) the Sun as seen from Jupiter

The greatest inaccuracy in Copernicus' model of the solar system was that the planets

Which of the following planets can be seen as a crescent phase from Earth?

According to Aristotle, which of the following would be an example of violent motion?

Gravity obeys the inverse square law. This statement implies that the gravitational force of one body on another will be ____ apart.

The radius of Earth is 6378 km. The force of gravity on a 1 kg ball at Earth's surface is 9.8 kg m s2. What is the force of gravity on this

The ____ produce(s) tides on the Earth.

Spring tides occur

How much energy is released if 2 kg of matter is converted into pure energy? Hint: E = mc2 and c = 3.0108 m/sec

If the mass of the Earth decreased by a factor of two with no change in radius, your weight would

Since gravity behaves as an inverse square relation the force due to gravity between two masses

Which type of curve would accurately represent a closed orbit?

If a theory is believed with great confidence because it has been thoroughly tested then it will be called a

Aristotle believed that objects falling to the ground fell at a constant speed.

The apparent positions of stars around the sun during an eclipse have been used to prove the general theory of relativity.

According to Aristotle an object with no forces in it will

According to Galileo, the acceleration of a freely falling object due to gravity is ____ the larger the mass of the object.

Newton concluded that some force had to act on the moon because

When two objects of unequal mass orbit each other, the center of mass is

Gravity obeys the inverse square law. This statement implies that the gravitational force ofone body on another will be ____ apart.

perigree is

A comet near the sun whose orbit is ____ would never be near the sun again.

Newtonian physics tells us that Kepler's second law

A(n) ____ orbit is one where the orbiting object is always above the same location on Earth's surface.

The apogee of a(n) ____ orbit does not exist.

Which of the following is not an example of conservation of angular momentum?

Tides occur because the gravitational force of the moon on the Earth ____ with increasing distance from the moon.

According to the theory of general relativity, gravity is caused by

One of the first tests of the general theory of relativity was

Due to the curvature of space-time by the sun, light from stars that passes near the edge of the sun will

The second postulate of special relativity states that

If the mass of the Earth decreased by a factor of two with no change in radius, your weight would

The force due to gravity between two objects depends on

Since gravity behaves as an inverse square relation the force due to gravity between two masses

How often do spring tides occur

Modern astronomers suspect the corona is heated by

The corona of the sun can be observed

Sunspots are known to be magnetic phenomena because

The intensity of a sunspot is found to be 3 times smaller than the intensity emitted by the solar surface. What is the approximate temperatu

The sunspot cycle affects

The sun's magnetic field is evident in the looped shapes of

The variation in the strength of the calcium H and K emission from sun-like stars implies that these stars

Why is the temperature at the region of a sunspot cooler than the photosphere?

If the spectrum of a sunspot shows that it has a maximum intensity at 650 nm, what is the temperature of the sunspot?

Granulation is caused by rising currents of hot gas below the photosphere.

The Sun appears to rotate only because the Earth is revolving about the Sun.

Most of the light we see coming from the sun originates in the

Granulation is caused by

In some regions of the corona, the magnetic field does not loop back to the sun, and the gas escapes unimpeded. These regions are called ___

Most of the visible light from the sun originates in the photosphere.

The ____ is(are) the hot gases that are the moving extension of the sun's corona

Most of the energy emitted by the sun is generated in the

Fusion is promoted in the core of the sun by the ____ there.

Neutrinos are created in reaction in the ____ of the sun.

Sunspots are dark because

The solar constant is a measure of

There is only one form of neutrino

What evidence supports the contention that other sun-like stars also show a spot cycle much like our sun's sunspot cycle?

The most recent sunspot maximum occurred in 2001. When is the next sunspot maximum expected if the solar cycle continues?

A ____ is believed to occur when energy, stored in a twist in the solar magnetic field above a sunspot, is suddenly released

The United States consumes 2.5×1019 J of energy each year. A typical solar flare releases 5.0×1024 J of energy. How many years could we run

What is the explanation for the pattern of granulation seen on the visible surface of the Sun?

The element most abundant in the Sun is oxygen

The gas motions within granules on the solar surface are

What are the three layers of the Sun's atmosphere, in order of increasing distance from the surface?

The rotation of the Sun is

A filtergram is a photograph of the sun's surface made

____ occur(s) because photons we receive from the edge of the solar disk are emitted further from the base of the photosphere than the photo

The nebular theory of the origin of the solar system was proposed by

The passing star mechanism of the origin of the solar system was proposed by

Why do astronomers believe that the angular momentum problem is no longer an objection to the solar nebula problem?

Which one supports the solar nebula theory of the origin of the solar system?

The oldest rocks found on Earth are about ____ years old.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of the terrestrial planets?

The age of the solar system is believed to be approximately 4.6 billions years old based on the data from

In observations, ____ has a heavy element core, and a deep atmosphere made mostly of hydrogen.

The condensation sequence suggests that ____ should condense closest to the sun.

Condensation in the solar nebula probably led to the formation of

Protoplanets of the Jovian planets could have grown very hot from

The planets all lie in nearly the same plane resulting in a disk-like structure for the solar system. This disk-like structure is believed t

Which one of the following objects is most like the planetesimals that formed in the solar nebular?

The large planetesimals would have grown faster than the smaller planetesimals because

Accretion among the grains in the solar nebula would have been aided by

If a star is found with five planets orbiting it, which of the planets would be expected to have the greatest uncompressed density if the sy

The current atmosphere of Earth is believed to be

The discovery that Jovian-like planets are common around other stars and that gas and dust is swept out of the solar neighborhood fairly ear

On a photograph of the moon, the moon measures 30 cm in diameter, and a small crater measures 0.2 cm. The moon's physical diameter is 1738 k

Once a terrestrial planet had formed from a large number of planetesimals, heat from ____ could have melted it and allowed it to differentia

A future news release might report that a new planet has been found around a star very similar to our sun. This newly discovered planet is c

Most planets thus far discovered around other stars were found by

Planets are thought to be forming today in ____ around stars.

What observation made of other stars seems to suggest the solar nebula hypothesis is correct?

Venus is often called Earth's sister planet because it is similar to the Earth in terms of

Compared to the terrestrial planets, Jovian planets

The asteroid belt is found between which two planets?

How is radioactive dating used to determine the age of an object?

How is the presence of space debris accounted for by solar system models?

What is the main sequence

How can you prove that the outer part of the sun is gaseous not solid

Sunspots - what causes them, Why are they dark, How big are they

What is the sun's photosphere

What are coronal mass ejections

Why was Kelvin wrong about the age of the Sun

Why can the energy of the Sun not come from chemical burning of Hydrogen

What two types of matter compose the Interstellar Medium

What happens to low mass and high mass disks respectively