Question | Answer |
Who is Aristotle? | most associated with the ancient Greek world view |
What did Aristarchus do? | He rejected the geocentric world view |
What did Eratosthenes do? | He accurately determined the size of Earth |
What is Ptolemy? | He's an almagest |
Explain the geocentric model of the universe | model of the universe with the Earth at the center and all other objects moving around it. |
Explain the Heliocentric model of the universe | model of the universe with the Sun at the center and all other objects moving around it. |
What did Copernicus do? | Heliocentric world view |
Who is Tycho Brahe? | The last astronomer without a telescope. He provided Kepler with the data needed in order to develop his 3 laws |
What is J Kepler known for? | The three laws of planetary motion |
What is the first law of planetary motion called? | The Law of Ellipses |
Describe the law of ellipses. | The orbit of a planet is an ellipse where one focus of the ellipse is the sun. |
What is the second law of planetary motion called? | The Law of Equal Areas |
Describe the law of equal areas? | A line from the planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal amounts of time. |
What is the second law of planetary motion called? | The Law of Harmonies |
Describe the law of harmonies | The period of a planet's orbit squared is proportional to its average distance from the sun cubed. |
What did Galileo do? | He used a telescope and challenged the conventional wisdom of the motion of objects and the nature of the heavens |
What did Galileo observe through his telescope? | The phases of Jupiter, the moons of Jupiter, sunspots, and mountains on the moon |
What is Newton known for? | The three laws of motion and the universal law of gravity |
What is the first law of motion called? | The Law of Inertia |
Describe the law of inertia | A body remains at rest, or moves in a straight line (at a constant velocity), unless acted upon by a net outside force. |
What is the second law of motion called? | F = ma |
Describe what F = ma means | The acceleration of an object is proportional to the force acting upon it. |
What is the third law of motion called? | The Law of Reciprocal Actions |
Describe the law of reciprocal actions? | For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. |
Describe the Law of Universal Gravitation | F = G m1 m2 / r2 |
Wave nature of light | light has wave properties; light is a special forum because our eyes are sensitive to it |
frequency * wavelength | velocity of light |
what is light | one type of electromagnetic wave |
list the wavelengths from shortest to longest | radio
infrared
visible
ultraviolet
x-ray
gamma ray |
what are red wavelengths | the longest wavelengths we see |
what are blue wavelengths | the shortest wavelengths we see |
what is a blackbody? | a perfect absorber of light; a perfect emitter of light |
define wein's law | as the object gets hotter, the wave length gets shorter |
define stefan boltzmann's law | the hotter it is, the brighter it is |
What gives off a continuous spectrum? | A hot solid, liquid or gas, under high pressure. |
What produces an emission line (bright line) spectrum? | A hot gas under low pressure |
When are adsorption line (dark line) spectrum's seen? | When a source of a continuous spectrum is viewed behind a cool gas under pressure. |
Kirchhoff's law | describe the type of spectrum produced by different sources |
doppler effect | an apparent change in the wavelength of energy produced by an object that is caused by the object's motion towards or away from the observer; seen in the shifting of spectral lines. |
What is the density of Pluto? | 2000 kg/m3 |
What is so strange about Pluto's orbit? | It has an elliptical orbit. Sometimes Pluto is closer to the Sun than is Neptune because of this. |
What are Pluto's physical properties most like? | The ice moons around the Jovian planets. |
What type of planet is Pluto? | A dwarf planet |
Uranus and Neptune have similar what? | Properties |
The Great Red spot is associated with what planet? | Jupiter |
The Great Dark spot is associated with what planet? | Neptune |
What planet has helium precipitation? | Saturn |
What planet has a 90 degree tilt | Uranus |
What planet has retrograde rotation? | Venus |
What gives Neptune and Uranus their blue green color? | Methane gas |
Which solar objects have differential rotation? | gas giants |
What planet has constant clouds? | Venus |
What is the largest solar highland? | Aphrodite Terra |
Where is the Aphrodite Terra found? | Venus |
What space object has synchronous rotation? | the moon |
What space object has resonance rotation? | Mercury |
Has a surface dominated by impact craters? | Moon and Mercury |
Largest solar mountain (it's also a shield volcano)? | Olympus Mons |
Where is Olympus Mons found? | Mars |
Cassini Division is associated with what planet? | Saturn |
What are scarps? | Huge cliffs on Mercury |
What planet has no atmosphere? | Mercury |
What planet has a weak magnetic field? | Mercury |
What is the Caloris Basin? | a large impact crater |
Where is the Caloris Basin located? | Mercury |
What is a jumbled terrain? | unusual hilly formation on mercury |
What planet has a jumbled terrain? | Mercury |
What are inter crater plains? | smoothed surface regions |
What planet has inter crater plains? | Mercury |
What is the Valles Mariners? | Enormous Valley that runs along the equator of Mars |
What planet has Polar Icecaps? | Mars |
What planet is about 50K cooler than the Earth
? | Mars |
What is the approximate density of Mars? | between 3000 and 4000 |
How much greater is Venus' atmospheric pressure compared to the Earth? | 100 times greater |
How much less is Mars' atmospheric pressure compared to the Earth? | 100 times less |
Which planets have a density less than 3000 kg/m3? | Saturn, Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune |
What is the density of the Moon? | around 3000 kg/m3 |
What gives Mars is rust like color? | Iron Oxide |
What planet's motion is most like the Earth's? | Mars |
What planet's tilt axis is most like the Earth's? | Mars |
What planet has no moons? | Venus |
What is the largest mountain on Venus? | Maxwell Montes |
Highland regions on Venus | Isthar Terra, Alpha Regio, Beta Regio |
What planet has a surface and interior core very similar to Jupiter's? | Saturn |
Core temperature at 6000K | Earth |
which of the planets have HOT iron rich cores? | Earth, Venus |
Which of the planets have COOL iron rich cores? | Mars and Mercury |
What is the Earth's atmospheric chemical composition? | Nitrogen-78%, Oxygen- 21% |
What is Venus' atmospheric chemical composition? | CO2 - 95.3%, the rest is Nitrogen |
What is Mars' atmospheric chemical composition? | CO2 - 95.3%, the rest is Nitrogen |
Unique feature about Saturn is what? | a mechanism for internal heating. |
The density of Saturn is what? | 700 kg/m3 |
Which planets have ring systems? | All the Jovian Planets. |
Which planet's motion is closest to Jupiter's? | Saturn |
What is the Roche limit? | the distance at which a large moon would experience extreme enough tidal stretching to be torn apart. |
What are Shepherd Satellites? | moon's whose gravitational pull influence the shape of the rings |
What is the surface of Earth made of? | Oceans and Continents. |
What is the average density of the Earth? | 5500kg/m3 |
What is the Earth's natural satellite? | Moon |
Main features of the surface of the Moon | Maria & Highlands |
Describe the crust of the moon | thicker on far side thinner on Earth side. |
Describe the interior of the moon | Cool, not iron rich |
Density of Mercury? | 5400 kg/m3 |
What planet has no atmosphere and no moons? | Mercury |
Describe the motion of Jupiter | Fast Differential rotation |
What is the density of Jupiter | 1330kg/m3 |
Describe the interior of Jupiter | rocky core, metallic hydrogen (currents here produce the magnetic field) |
What does the fast rotation of Jupiter cause? | the clouds to form bands around the planet. |
What are the typical colors of Jupiter's cloud layers? | bright yellow, orange and red. |
Density of Venus | 5300 kg/m3 |
What is the Aphrodite Terra | largest highlands |
Where is the Aphrodite Terra located? | Venus |
Beta regio is on what planet? | Venus |
Beta regio has what? | two Shield volcanoes |
Describe the clouds on Venus | Sulfuric acid clouds at 50 km |
What is the temperature of Venus? | VERY HOT 730K, |
What are polar icecaps? | Frozen water and carbon dioxide |
Which planet has evidence of water flow in the past | Jupiter |
Describe the plate tectonic problem on Mars | started the formation of plate (Valles Marineris is a huge rift valley, but the planet cooled too rapidly and the process stopped. |
Which planet has global dust storms | Jupiter |
What are the two Moons on Jupiter | Phobos and Deimos, small irregular shapes, not like our moon, more like captured asteroids. |
high luminosity equals | brightness |
bright hot star equals | brighter than the sun and hotter than the sun |
the left side of an HR diagram is what? | hot |
the right side of an HR diagram is what? | cool |
the lower half of an HR diagram is what? | dim |
the upper half of an HR diagram is what? | bright |
main sequence stars go through what quadrant(s) of an HR diagram? | A and D |
white dwarf stars go through what quadrant(s) of an HR diagram? | C |
red giant stars go through what quadrant(s) of an HR diagram? | B |
high mass stars are where on an HR diagram? | upper left |
low mass stars are where on an HR diagram? | lower right |
what is the life span of a high mass star? | short |
what is the life span of a low mass star? | long |
using only the brightness and the distance to a star what can be determined? | luminosity |
using the temperature and luminosity of a star only what can be determined? | radius |
what are the stages of a star? | main sequence, red giant, yellow giant, red giant, planetary nebula explosion, and white dwarf |
what does a main sequence star fuse? | hydrogen to helium |
what does a red giant fuse? | trick question! they don't fuse anything |
what does a yellow giant star fuse? | helium to carbon |
what is the life span of a high mass star? | short |
what is the life span of a low mass star? | long |
Describe the evolution of a sun-like star? | Low Mass (Sun-Like) -> planetary nebula ->white dwarf High Mass (> 10 solar masses) -> supernova(Type II) -> neutron star or black hole |
has a solar mass greater than 10 | high mass star |
has a solar mass lower than 10 | low mass star |
continuous spectrum | kind of like a rainbow; you see every wavelength |
Emission line spectrum | light emitted at very specific wavelengths; related to the chemical element producing the lines |
Adsorption line spectrum | get the rainbow with certain wavelengths missing |
The wavelength of the emission or absorption lines depends on what? | which atoms or molecules are found in the object under study; What atoms or molecules exist depend on:
temperature, chemical composition. |