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astronomy midterm 1

Quiz yourself by thinking what should be in each of the black spaces below before clicking on it to display the answer.
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Question
Answer
show You, Earth, solar system, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Local Supercluster, universe.  
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Using the ideas discussed in your textbook, in what sense are we "star stuff"?   show
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How are galaxies important to our existence?   show
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When we look at an object that is 1,000 light-years away we see it _________.   show
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show we are seeing Galaxy 1 as it looked at an earlier time in the history of the universe than Galaxy 2  
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Suppose we make a scale model of our solar system, with the Sun the size of a grapefruit. Which of the following best describes what the planets would look like?   show
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f you could count stars at a rate of about one per second, how long would it take to count all the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy?   show
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The total number of stars in the observable universe is about _________.   show
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Where is our solar system located within the Milky Way Galaxy?   show
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show yesterday morning.  
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show It is about one-third the age of the universe.  
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show Earth's rotation carries most people around the axis FASTER than a commercial jet travels, and Earth's orbit carries us around the Sun faster than the Space Shuttle orbits Earth.  
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show Because the stars in the constellations are so far away.  
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Astronomers infer that the universe is expanding because distant galaxies all appear to _________.   show
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Which statement about motion in the universe is not true?   show
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show Within the past 500 years.  
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Which of the following is not a general difference between a planet and a star?   show
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Our solar system consists of _________.   show
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A typical galaxy is a _________.   show
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Which of the following best describes what we mean by the universe?   show
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show The event that marked the beginning of the expansion of the universe  
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show Average distances between galaxies are increasing with time.  
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Based on observations of the universal expansion, the age of the universe is about _________.   show
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A television advertisement claiming that a product is light-years ahead of its time does not make sense because _________.   show
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The term observable universe refers to _________.   show
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On a scale in which the distance from Earth to the Sun is about 15 meters, the distance from Earth to the Moon is _________.   show
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On a scale where the Sun is about the size of a grapefruit and the Earth is about 15 meters away, how far away are the nearest stars besides the Sun?   show
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The number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy is approximately _________.   show
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show the average distance between Earth and the Sun  
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show The plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun.  
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show One year.  
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show A couple thousand.  
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What do astronomers mean by a constellation?   show
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show The path the Sun appears to trace around the celestial sphere each year.  
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What is the celestial sphere?   show
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show The patchy band of light that outlines the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy as seen from Earth.  
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Which of the following statements does not use the term angular size or angular distance correctly?   show
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Which of the following correctly describes the meridian in your local sky?   show
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The point directly over your head is called _________.   show
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Stars that are visible in the local sky on any clear night of the year, at any time of the night, are called _________.   show
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show latitude and longitude  
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If you are located in the Northern Hemisphere, which of the following correctly describes a relationship between the sky and your location?   show
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Which of the following best describes why we have seasons on Earth?   show
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show The cycle of the Moon's phases takes about a month. Earth's orbit defines a year. Earth's cycle of axis precession takes 26,000 years. Earth's rotation defines a day.  
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show In about 2 weeks.  
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show a new moon is quite near the Sun in the sky  
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The Moon always shows nearly the same face to Earth because ________.   show
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Lunar eclipses can occur only during a _________.   show
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show The roughly 18-year cycle over which the pattern of eclipses repeats  
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show Over many days or weeks, the planet moves westward relative to the stars, rather than the usual eastward relative to the stars  
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What is stellar parallax?   show
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show The "celestial sphere" is another name for our universe.  
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The Andromeda Galaxy is faintly visible to the naked eye in the constellation Andromeda. Suppose instead it were located in the same direction in space as the center of the Milky Way Galaxy . How would it appear to the eye in that case?   show
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show less than the thickness of a human hair held at arm's length  
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show higher in the sky  
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show latitude 40 degrees south  
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Suppose you are facing north and you see the Big Dipper close to your northern horizon, with Polaris (and the Little Dipper) above it. Where will you see the Big Dipper in six hours?   show
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In any particular place on Earth, certain constellations are visible in the evening only at certain times of the year because _________.   show
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show the spring and fall equinoxes  
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Suppose Earth's axis tilt was significantly greater than its current 23.5 degrees, but Earth's rotation period and orbital period were unchanged. Which statement below would not be true?   show
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show the four seasons would each be twice as long as they are now  
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How does Earth's varying distance from the Sun affect our seasons?   show
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show Your friend will also see a crescent moon.  
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show New Earth.  
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show Third quarter  
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show A full moon high in the sky.  
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All the following statements are true. Which one explains the reason that there is not a solar eclipse at every new moon?   show
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For most of history, the lack of observable stellar parallax was interpreted to mean that _________.   show
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show Earth is catching up with and passing by Mars in their respective orbits.  
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show the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter in the 1990s  
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show The "celestial sphere" is another name for our universe  
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The Andromeda Galaxy is faintly visible to the naked eye in the constellation Andromeda. Suppose instead it were located in the same direction in space as the center of the Milky Way Galaxy How would it appear to the eye in that case?   show
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show Driving in a straight line at 60 miles per hour.  
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Suppose you drop a 10-pound weight and a 5-pound weight on the Moon, both from the same height at the same time. What will happen?   show
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show Because the Space Station is constantly in free-fall around the Earth. Correct  
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show momentum  
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Suppose you are in an elevator that is traveling upward at constant speed. How does your weight compare to your normal weight on the ground?   show
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show a force is acting on the planets  
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show The Sun would rotate faster than it does now.  
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show The ball's gravitational potential energy is greatest at the instant when the ball is at its highest point.  
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show The water can transfer heat to your arm more quickly than the air.  
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show A small amount of the hydrogen in of a nuclear bomb becomes energy as fusion converts the hydrogen to helium.  
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A rock held above the ground has potential energy. As the rock falls, this potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. Finally, the rock hits the ground and stays there. What has happened to the energy?   show
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show Earth's orbit would be unaffected.  
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Imagine another solar system, with a star of the same mass as the Sun. Suppose a planet with a mass twice that of Earth (2MEarth) orbits at a distance of 1 AU from the star. What is the orbital period of this planet?   show
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show The planet's year would be shorter than Earth's  
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Newton showed that Kepler's laws are _________.   show
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show Earth is 150 million km from the Sun and orbits the Sun in one year.  
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When space probe Voyager 2 passed by Saturn, its speed increased (but not due to firing its engines). What must have happened?   show
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show The asteroid's orbit around Jupiter would not change, and it would go out on the same unbound orbit that it came in on  
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show Tides are caused by the difference in the force of gravity exerted by the Moon across the sphere of the Earth  
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At which lunar phase(s) are tides most pronounced (for example, the highest high tides)?   show
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show The Moon once rotated faster, but tidal friction slowed the rotation period until it matched the orbital period.  
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Suppose the Moon's orbit were unchanged, but it rotated faster (meaning it did not have synchronous rotation). Which of the following would be true?   show
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The difference between speed and velocity is that _________.   show
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The acceleration of gravity on Earth is approximately 10 m/s2 (more precisely, 9.8 m/s2). If you drop a rock from a tall building, about how fast will it be falling after 3 seconds?   show
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show mass times velocity  
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Suppose you lived on the Moon. Which of the following would be true?   show
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In which of the following cases would you feel weightless?   show
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Which of the following statements is not one of Newton's Laws of Motion?   show
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Newton's Second Law of Motion tells us that the net force applied to an object equals its _________.   show
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Suppose that two objects collide. Which of the following things is not the same both before and after the collision?   show
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show his angular momentum must be conserved, so reducing his radius must increase his speed of rotation  
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The energy attributed to an object by virtue of its motion is known as _________.   show
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show energy carried by light  
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show 0 Kelvin  
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What does temperature measure?   show
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show The mass-energy, or potential energy stored in an object's mass  
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show decreases by a factor of 9  
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show An object on a bound orbit follows the same path around the Sun over and over, while an object on an unbound orbit approaches the Sun just once and then never returns  
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The allowed shapes for the orbits of objects responding only to the force of gravity are ______.   show
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show It can be used to determine the masses of many distant objects.  
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show Orbital energy is the sum of the object's kinetic energy and its gravitational potential energy as it moves through its orbit.  
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Which statement must be true in order for a rocket to travel from Earth to another planet?   show
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Approximately where is it currently high tide on Earth?   show
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What is the difference between energy and power?   show
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Visible light from a distant star can be spread into a spectrum by using a glass prism or ______.   show
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show They have a frequency of 2 hertz  
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Suppose you know the frequency of a photon and the speed of light. What else can you determine about the photon?   show
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When considering light as made up of individual "pieces," each characterized by a particular amount of energy, the pieces are called _________.   show
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From shortest to longest wavelength, which of the following correctly orders the different categories of electromagnetic radiation?   show
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show infrared and radio  
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If we say that a material is opaque to ultraviolet light, we mean that it _________.   show
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show Several kilometers  
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show They have different numbers of protons in their nucleus  
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show atomic number = 6; atomic mass number = 13  
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An atom which has 4 protons and 6 neutrons will be electrically neutral if it contains ______.   show
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show molecules go directly from the solid phase to the gas phase  
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Which of the following transitions within an atom is not possible?   show
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show ion  
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show An emission line spectrum consists of bright lines on a dark background, while an absorption line spectrum consists of dark lines on a rainbow background.  
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show radiation with a spectrum whose shape depends only on the temperature of the emitting object  
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According to the laws of thermal radiation, hotter objects emit photons with _________.   show
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show the wavelengths of spectral lines in the star's spectrum  
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show have wavelengths that are longer than normal  
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show The galaxy is moving away from you  
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show 6,000 joules  
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Which of the following statements is true of green grass?   show
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Suppose you are listening to a radio station that broadcasts at a frequency of 97 Mhz (megahertz). Which of the following statements is true?   show
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Gamma rays have a very small ______.   show
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Suppose a photon has a frequency of 300 million hertz (300 megahertz). What is its wavelength?   show
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Which of the following best describes why we say that light is an electromagnetic wave?   show
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show X rays travel through space faster than radio waves  
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show Atom 1: nucleus with 7 protons and 8 neutrons, surrounded by 7 electrons; Atom 2: nucleus with 7 protons and 7 neutrons, surrounded by 7 electrons  
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show It would evaporate into a gas, then the molecules would dissociate into individual oxygen atoms, then the atoms would become increasingly ionized as you continued to raise the temperature  
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Consider an atom of oxygen in which the nucleus contains 8 protons and 8 neutrons. If it is doubly ionized, what is the charge of the oxygen ion and how many electrons remain in the ion?   show
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Which of the following statements about electrons is not true?   show
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show The cloud is cool and lies between you and a hot star.  
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No object produces a perfect thermal radiation spectrum, but many objects produce close approximations. Which of the following would not produce a close approximation to a thermal radiation spectrum?   show
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Which of the following statements about thermal radiation is always true?   show
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show Its surface is cooler than the surface of the Sun  
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The planet Neptune is blue in color. How would you expect the spectrum of visible light from Neptune to be different from the visible-light spectrum of the Sun?   show
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All of the following statements about the Sun's corona are true. Which one explains why it is a source of X rays?   show
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show The star is moving toward us.  
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show Star X is moving away from us faster than Star Y.  
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If we observe one edge of a planet to be redshifted and the opposite edge to be blueshifted, what can we conclude about the planet?   show
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show The total amount of light in the spectrum tells us the star's radius.  
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Suppose that two stars are identical in every way - for example, same distance, same mass, same temperature, same chemical composition, except that one star rotates faster than the other. Spectroscopically, how could you tell the stars apart?   show
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show The one that still looks sharp at large size has better (smaller) angular resolution than the one that looks fuzzy.  
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The angular separation of two stars is 0.1 arcseconds and you photograph them with a telescope that has an angular resolution of 1 arcsecond. What will you see?   show
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show The photograph will have far better angular resolution than you can see with your eye.  
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Which of the following best describes the principle advantage of CCDs over photographic film?   show
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show The 8-meter telescope has 16 times the light-collecting area of the 2-meter telescope  
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Which of the following best describes the development of astronomical telescopes over the past 60 years?   show
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show Getting an image of the same angular resolution requires a much larger telescope for radio waves than for visible light.  
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Which of the following studies is best suited to astronomical observations that fall into the category called timing?   show
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Which of the following is not a reason why telescopes tend to be built on mountaintops that are relatively far from cities and are in regions with dry climates?   show
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show turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere  
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show It is closer to the stars  
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The Chandra X-ray Observatory must operate in space because:   show
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show The Keck I telescope on Mauna Kea.  
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show Observatory X can detect dimmer stars and Observatory Y reveals more detail in images.  
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Which of the following is not a major reason why astronomers would like an observatory on the far side of the Moon?   show
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show The path the Sun appears to trace around the celestial sphere each year.  
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show The patchy band of light that outlines the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy as seen from Earth.  
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Which of the following best explains why a solar day is longer than a sidereal day?   show
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show Never  
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A friend says she saw a planet shining on her meridian at midnight. Which planet can you be sure that she did not see?   show
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show apparent solar time  
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All the following statements are true. Which one explains why mean solar time differs from apparent solar time?   show
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As viewed from any place within the continental United States, noon on apparent solar time is defined as the moment when the Sun is ______.   show
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show A tropical year is slightly more than 365 days.  
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Which of these stars lies closest to the north celestial pole on the celestial sphere?   show
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Suppose you live at latitude 30S. Which star is circumpolar in your sky?   show
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show Sirius  
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show The Sun will pass directly overhead around noon each day.  
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Suppose Earth's axis had a greater tilt (more than 23.5 degrees). Which of the following statements would not be true?   show
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Which of the following explains why navigators prior to a few hundred years ago found it much more difficult to determine longitude than latitude?   show
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It's the summer solstice, the Sun is at your zenith, and you have a UT clock that tells you it is midnight in Greenwich, England. Where are you?   show
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The north celestial pole appears 30 above your horizon. The star Vega is on your meridian. By studying your star charts and your clocks, you determine that Vega crossed the meridian in Greenwich (England) 3 hours ago. Where are you?   show
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Which of the following is not a major pattern of motion in the solar system?   show
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Which of the following is not a major difference between the terrestrial and jovian planets in our solar system?   show
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show The Kuiper belt contains icy comets, not rocky asteroids.  
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show Asteroids orbit the Sun while comets just float randomly around in the Oort cloud.  
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show The diameter of Earth's Moon is about 1/4 that of Earth.  
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Compared to the distance between Earth and Mars, the distance between Jupiter and Saturn is ______.   show
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show the Sun generates energy to shine by losing some 4 million tons of mass each second  
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Venus has a higher average surface temperature than Mercury. Why?   show
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show Both planets are nearly the same size.  
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Which of the following statements about the recently-discovered object Eris is not true?   show
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Mars has two moons that are most similar in character to:   show
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show It would crash in the ocean.  
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Which planet listed below has the most extreme seasons?   show
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n what way is Pluto more like a comet than a planet?   show
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Why was it advantageous for the Voyager mission to consist of flybys rather than orbiters?   show
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show It saves money because the spacecraft uses atmospheric drag to slow down rather than needing to carry enough fuel to slow by firing rocket engines.  
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show the process of combining lightweight nuclei to make heavier nuclei  
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show because the Moon's rotational and orbital periods are equal  
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Why do we have seasons on Earth?   show
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show The Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun and receives more direct sunlight.  
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He discovered that the orbits of planets are ellipses.   show
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He discovered that Jupiter has moons.   show
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Which of the following statements correctly describes the law of conservation of energy?   show
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According to the universal law of gravitation, the force due to gravity is   show
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show mass, velocity, and radius  
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Newton's second law of motion tells us that the net force applied to an object equals its   show
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show The elevator is accelerating downwards.  
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show An electron moves from an upper energy level to a lower one.  
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The frequency of a wave is?   show
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If a material is transparent, then it   show
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show extreme infrared  
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show bending of light rays by turbulent layers in the atmosphere  
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show to eliminate the distorting effects of atmospheric turbulence for telescopes on the ground  
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Currently, the largest optical telescope mirrors have a diameter of   show
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show Light pollution refers to light used for human activities that brightens the sky and hinders astronomical observations.  
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How does the Sun's mass compare with that of the planets?   show
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show Most planets orbit at the same speed.  
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Which planet has the highest average surface temperature, and why?   show
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Which planet, other than Earth, has visible water ice on it?   show
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show all of the above  
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What are the main constituents of the jovian planets?   show
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The most metal-rich terrestrial planet is   show
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Plato   show
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Aristotle   show
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show Measured the circumference of the earth using the zenith of the sun at noon during the solstice in Syene and again in Alexandria.  
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Claudius Ptolemy   show
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show the planets and sun orbit around the earth in small circles (epicycles) within large circles.  
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Copernicus Heliocentric model   show
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Tycho Brahe   show
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Keplers 1st Law   show
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Keplers 2nd Law   show
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show the ratio of the cube of a planets average distance from the sun to the square of its orbital period is the same for each planet. ( a^3=p^2)  
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