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PHYS131
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| equinoxes | Celestial Equator and the Ecliptic cross |
| Polaris is 17 degrees above northern horizon...what is latitude? | 17 degrees North |
| Direct horizontal movement of stars at | North pole or south pole |
| Can be seen all night long from Philly? | The Big Dipper |
| The star Polaris can be seen in the direction of | the North Celestial Pole |
| Why are the stars Betelgeuse and Rigel also known as alpha and beta Orionis? | two brighest in constellation |
| Northerners have cold days in January because | the Sun is lower in the sky in January |
| T/F In the darkest part of a solar eclipse, the Moon always exactly covers the face of the Sun. | False |
| A total eclipse of the Moon occurs only at a full Moon | True |
| Night and day have approximately equal length at what time or times of the year? | vernal and autumnal equinoxes |
| A full moon must always rise over the eastern horizon at approximately what time of the day or night? | sunset |
| Imagine a planet whose rotation axis is perpendicular to its orbital plane. How would you describe its seasons? | constant |
| A solar eclipse doeds not occur at every new Moon because | A solar eclipse doeds not occur at every new Moon because |
| a solar day is longer than a sidereal day | true |
| Earth's axis is titled so... | get seasons |
| sun is highest in sky, length of day = greatest | true |
| Annular eclipse | moon too far from earth to completely hide sun |
| tides on earth a direct result of | the forces of the sun and the moon on earth |
| primary winter constellation | orion |
| rotation of the earth's axis | procession (26,000 years) |
| time it takes earth to be in teh same config with respect to the sun | tropical year |
| sun crosses the celestial equator | equinoxes (spring/fall) |
| we always ssee the same side of the moon | true |
| parts of moon's shadow | umbra, penumbra |
| penumbra | only some sunlight blocked |
| moon phases (in order) | new, waxing cresent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning cresent |
| moon rotates on its axis at the same speed it takes to rotate around earth | true (27.3 days) |
| The atmosphere of Earth transmits all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation approximately equally well. | False |
| absorbs all radiation falling upon it and reflects none | perfect blackbody |
| electromagnetic radiation has the shortest wavelength | x-rays |
| Electromagnetic waves can propagate through space even in the absence of a physical medium. | true |
| coolest color for flame | red |
| What is the most important aspect of a telescope? | ability to collect as much light as possible |
| increase the diameter of the main mirror in a telescope by 2x, you collect how much more light | 4 times |
| tops of mts are good for telescopes cuz | better seeing and better infrared transmission |
| wavelength regions MUST be observed from space | gamma rays |
| height of wave | amplitude |
| wavelength | length of wave |
| bottom of a wave | trough |
| top of a wave | crest |
| T/F The total mass of all the asteroids is about the same as the mass of the Earth. | False |
| Comets are composed of | ice and rock, like a dirty snowball |
| Sun's direction to a comet | opposite end of the tail |
| Meteorite | A piece of rock from space that survives the trip through the Earth's atmosphere and lands on the Earth is called |
| A small particle of rock orbiting the Sun would be called | A meteoroid |
| meteor | bright streak of light in the sky |
| A meteor shower occurs when | the Earth passes through the debris of a comet |
| The Oort Cloud is | a spherical distribution of distant comets, extending out past the Kuiper Belt |
| Which satellite of Jupiter is volcanically active? | Io |
| The Earth's magnetosphere is | the region beyond the Earth's atmosphere, where the Earth's magnetic field protects us from the solar wind |
| The surface of Europa, one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, appears to be covered with | a smooth layer of ice, crossed by many cracks. |
| If you were standing on the far side of the Moon, what object would you never see? | Earth |
| What is the Great Red Spot? | A large and long-lived, possibly permanent, storm on Jupiter |
| How does the mass of Jupiter compare to the mass of all the other planets combined? | more than twice as much |
| In which of the following physical characteristics are Earth and Mars most similar to each other? | length of solar day |
| On which planet can we see prominent but variable ice caps? | Mars |
| Why are temperatures on the surface of Mercury seen to fluctuate between a very cold 100K and an extremely hot 700K? | The planet is close to the Sun, has no atmosphere to maintain heat from the Sun, and is rotating |
| Mercury can only be seen easily from Earth | near to the Sun, just after sunset or just before sunrise. |
| What is thought to be the most likely theory about the origin of the Moon? | An object roughly the size of Mars crashed into the Earth, and debris from the collision formed the Moon |
| The Moon's surface shows evidence of volconic flows. | True |
| What is the most significant difference between the dark spot of Neptune and the Great Red Spot of Jupiter? | The dark spot has disappeared; the Great Red spot has been seen for hundreds of years. |
| Where in the solar system would you find the massive extinct supervolcano called Olympus Mons? | Mars |
| What causes the gaps in the rings of Saturns ? | Small moons |
| The rings of Saturn are sometimes very visible, but other times almost disappear when viewed from the Earth because | the plane of the rings is tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane and thus appear edge-on at times |
| Seasonal variations on Uranus would be | extreme |
| What are the names of the two donut-shaped regions where high-energy charged particles are trapped by the Earth's magnetic field in the Earth's magnetosphere? | Van Allen Belts |
| Which of the following planets rotates on its axis in a retrograde fashion, opposite to that of most of the planets and opposite to the direction of revolution of the planets? | Venus |
| The main reason for the very high temperature (750 K) on the surface of Venus is thought to be | the absorption of visible light on the surface of the planet, followed by the atmospheric trapping of infrared radiation. |
| What does apparent magnitude tell us about a star? | The brightness of a star, as seen from the Earth. |
| What is the heaviest element produced by fusion in the cores of stars? | Iron |
| What fraction of the stars surrounding the Sun are main sequence stars? | Almost all of them, about 90%. |
| All stars on the main sequence... | generate energy by hydrogen fusion in their cores |
| What prevents a neutron star from collapsing and becoming a black hole? | gravity balanced by neutron degeneracy pressure |
| A planetary nebula is | a shell of ejected gases, illuminated by light from a dying central star. |
| The Crab Pulsar in the Crab Nebula is what kind of object? | A kind of neutron star |
| A star that is burning hydrogen into helium in a shell around its core. | red giant star |
| At what stage of its evolutionary life is the Sun? | Main sequence, middle age, hydrogen burning |
| What is a supergiant star on the asymptotic giant branch? | A large red star burning hydrogen into helium |
| The mass limit beyond which electron degeneracy fails (the Chandrasekhar limit) is? | 1.4 solar masses |
| What is a white dwarf star? | A dead star about the same size (diameter) as the Earth. |
| What keeps a white dwarf star from collapsing? | Electron degeneracy pressure |
| The source of the Sun's energy is | thermonuclear fusion (combination) of hydrogen atoms |
| How does the number of sunspots on the Sun vary with time? | Relatively regularly, with a period of 11 years |
| At what location in the space around a black hole does the escape velocity become equal to the speed of light? | event horizon |
| If you were traveling at nearly the speed of light, what would your mass be compared to your mass at rest? | Much more massive |
| What theory suggests that gravity can distort spacetime itself? | Einstein's General Relativity |
| What would happen to the gravitational force upon the Earth if the Sun were replaced by a 1 solar mass black hole? | It would remain as it is now. |
| According to Special Relativity, if you are at rest and your twin travels to another star and back at half the speed of light, when your twin returns, they will be | Younger than you |
| Cepheid type stars are useful to astronomers as indicators of | . distance, particularly to nearby galaxies. |
| What event may trigger new star formation in a spiral arm? | . compression from a density wave |
| The Sun's position in the galaxy is | in the disk of the Galaxy, inside a spiral arm or segment of a spiral arm. |
| The Milky Way galaxy | is one of many billions of galaxies in the Universe |
| What prevents optical telescopes from seeing the central regions of the Galaxy? | Interstellar dust blocks optical wavelengths and there is a lot of dust towards the center. |
| The "central engine" of an active galaxy (e.g., a quasar) appears to be | a supernova explosion in an extremely dense star cluster at the center of the galaxy |
| The largest range of sizes of galaxies is found in which class of galaxies? | Elliptical |
| According to the standard galaxy classification scheme, an E6 galaxy | s flatter looking than an E2 galaxy |
| In a collision between two galaxies | stars rarely collide, but the gas between the stars does |
| Which of the following is least easily explainable as a result of interaction between galaxies? | Both spiral and elliptical galaxies are seen at very large distances |
| The Local Group of galaxies, of which the Milky Way is a member, is composed mostly of spiral galaxies. | False |
| The Magellanic Clouds seen from the southern hemisphere are examples of what type of objects? | Irregular galaxies |
| The most likely reason that clusters of galaxies have more elliptical than spiral galaxies is that | spirals merge to form ellipticals |
| What galaxy is considered the Milky Way's "sister" galaxy? | Andromeda |
| Perhaps the most surprising thing about quasars is that they appear | to produce the energy output of more than 100 galaxies in the size of the solar system |
| The nuclei of most spiral galaxies appear redder than their spiral arms because of | young blue stars in the arms, and old red ones in the nuclei |
| What is a supercluster of galaxies? | A cluster of galaxy clusters |
| According to Hubble's Law, about how old is the Universe (Ho = Hubble's constant)? | Age = 1/Ho |
| The cosmic background radiation provides strong evidence that | the Universe evolved from a hot, dense state |
| The cosmic microwave background is | radiation left over from the Big Bang, after the Universe expanded and cooled. |
| The cosmic background radiation is visible in every direction because | we are looking back to when the Universe was young in every direction |
| The distance to a galaxy and its recessional velocity are related by | Hubble's Law |
| Distant galaxies are all moving away from us, with speed increasing with increasing distance | Hubble FLow |
| The theory of inflation has been proposed to resolve which problems with the Big Bang model? | The horizon problem and the flatness problem. |
| The night sky is relatively dark because the Universe | has a finite age. |
| We only observe events that happened in the past because | the speed of light is finite |
| If the Universe is expanding, won't the Solar System eventually expand apart? | No, its gravity holds it together |
| Galaxy cluster masses estimated from the amount of visible light are typically much smaller than the masses indicated by their gravitational interactions. | True |
| What fraction of the mass in our galaxy is in a form that we have been able to see? | ~10% |
| It is possible to observe the same distant object in more than one location in the sky simultaneously as seen from Earth. | true |
| Hours of daylight on the first day of Spring | 12 |
| Over the course of a night, constellations move across the sky from east to west...why | rotation of earth on its own axis |
| Which of the following is more likely to be seen when the Sun is active? | Sunspot |
| At the very end of its life, the Sun will become | white dwarf |
| What causes light from a star to be Doppler shifted? | speed of that star toward or away from us |
| Number of high and low tides per day | 2 each |
| T/F A total eclipse of the Moon only occurs at full Moon | True |
| Diagram that leads us to believe galaxies are most made of dark matter? | rotation curve |
| if the universe is at critical density, what shape is it? | flat |
| distant but very lumnious active star in the galaxy | quasar |
Created by:
ktoprani