Astronomy Midterm

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The Galileo space craft measured that the moon Ganymede had a magnetic field, indicating that it's interior was at least partly melted and warm. What do scientist think is the most likely reason for this

Ganymede is heated by tidal forces from Jupiter

The "prime meridian" (where longitude equals zero) passes through:

Greenwich, England

When astronomer say that Ganymede is a differentiated body, they mean that it

Has a heavier core, surrounding by lighter, icy mantle and crust

By far the most abundant element in the giant (jovian) planets is:

Hydrogen

If you were to take a large sample of four giant planets, the most common element you would find in them is

Hydrogen

Any rock in the earths crust that has cooled from an original molten state is called

Igneous

What features are abundant on Callisto and Ganymede and almost absent on Europa and lo

Impact craters

The jovian planet that has the longest year (period of revolution) is:

Neptune

In what way is the moon similar to the earth

None of the above

Callisto, the fourth Moon of Jupiter is, takes 17 days to orbit Jupiter. If I stand on the surface of Kalisto and see Jupiter high in the sky over my head, and then we eat. Five Earth Day's in the same spot, where will I see Jupiter

Overhead, where it was before

The material that would eventually make all the major bodies in our solar system first gather together a smaller pieces which astronomers call

Planestesimals

The planet in our solar system whose orbit actually brings it inside the orbit of another planet is

Pluto

Which planet has the biggest moon relative to it own size? Not the biggest moon in terms of kilometers, but the biggest as a percentage of the size of the planet it orbits

Pluto

Let's say we find a star that is located on the points or circles in the sky listed in the answer choices below. Then, on the same night, we moved to a location on earth that is some significant distance from our first location. There will now be a different star at or on

The zenith

What do you astronomers think is the origin of the many irregular moons around the outer planets (irregular meaning they are orbiting backwards and/or have eccentric orbits)

These moons were likely formed elsewhere and captured by the giant planets

What is one important way in which both the moon and mercury are different from earth

They do not have an atmosphere

The 17th century astronomer who kept a roughly 20 year continuous record of the positions of the sun, moon, and planets was

Tycho Brahe

What specific event really made it possible for the three laws of planetary motion to be discovered

Tycho Brahe died and his assistant was able to get full access to his data

The planet that most resembles the earth and size and internal composition

Venus

What planet can come closest to the earth and its orbit and look brightest in our skies

Venus

What is the most important reason that astronomers have learned more about our planetary system in the last 30 to 40 years then all of history before then

We have been able to send spacecraft to gather information about planets and moons up close

Which of the following is not a way that the moon titan probably resembles the earth

at its surface the temperature and pressure are just right for water to exist in all three phases (gas, liquid, and ice)

If you could see the new moon, at what time of day (roughly) would it rise?

at sunrise

Which of the following statements about our moon is false

on Earth, we can see all its sides in the course of a month as it goes around us

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

the tilt of its axis

In studying the surfaces of solid bodies in the solar system, astronomers have learned that the number of craters per unit area

is roughly proportional to the age of the surface we are examining

The dwarf planet Pluto was discovered in 1930. Since that time, which Jovian planet has completed a full revolution around the sun

more than one of the above

Which of the following is not one of the key reasons that so many spacecraft from earth have visited Venus and mars

their atmospheres are very similar to the Earth in terms of their chemical make-up

Astronomers discover a new comet that orbits the Sun, but has its aphelion (the furthest point in its orbit) beyond Neptune. Astronomers studying this comet have the right to expect that it:

will follow Newton's laws of motion

A single star in the process of forming starts by spinning slowly (while it is quite large and relatively cool.) As the star collapses under the pull of its own gravity, its size decreases. As a result, its rate of spinning:

will increase

Which of the Jovian planets does not have any satellites

you can't fool me, all the jovian planets are accompanied by satellites

Which planet in the solar system has not been examined by spacecraft instruments that have either flown by or orbited them

you can't fool me, spacecraft have visited all the planets in our solar system

The time it takes for the Sun to return to the same place in our sky after the earth has rotated once it's called

A solar day

According to the fossil record, how old is the oldest evidence of lifeforms on the surface of the earth?

About 3.5 billion years

One way in which the ozone layer is used for lifeforms on the earth surface is that it

Absorbs ultraviolet light, preventing much of it from reaching the surface

Why do many people consider Isaac newton one of the greatest scientist who ever lived

All of the above

Which ancient Greek thinker suggested (long before Copernicus) that the Earth is moving around the Sun?

Aristarchus

The primary clouds in the atmosphere of Jupiter and Saturn are composed of

Frozen ammonia Crystal

The latitude of the Earth's equator is

0 degrees

An astronomy textbook, when printed out, weighs four pounds on the surface of the Earth. After finishing your course, you are so tired of the book, you arrange for NASA to shoot it into space. When it is twice as far from the center of the Earth than when you were reading it, what would it weigh? (Note, assume that the book is moving away from the Earth not falling freely around it.)

1 lb

A star is 230 light years away. The light we see tonight from that star left it

230 years ago

Based on the scientific and statistical tests of astrological predictions, which of the following statements is the most reasonable

Astrology has not passed any clear scientific or statistical test and, as a result, most scientist are very doubtful that I can predict anything meaningful about our lives

What problem has precession caused for many of the schools of astrology

Because of precession, the constellations are no longer lined up with the astrological signs that are named after them; since astrology was set up, the two have slipped one sign apart

The 88 sectors into which astronomers today divide the celestial sphere (the whole sky) are called

Constellations

The Renaissance astronomer who wrote the pioneering book that suggested the Earth probably orbits the Sun (instead of the other way around) was:

Copernicus

The satellite whose surface is characterized by a smooth icy crust with a complex network of cracks is:

Europa

What is the source of the fine, powdery dust found on the moon surface

It is the a result of many impacts, breaking surface rocks apart over billions of years

The big problem with the Galileo spacecraft is that

It's main antenna is stuck in the closed position

The Earth is closest to the sun in which month of the year

January

The scientist who formulated the three laws of planetary motion by analyzing the data on the precise location of planets in the sky was

Johannes Kepler

A planet in our solar system who's composition resembles that of our Sun is

Jupiter

Which of the Jovian planets has the shortest period of rotation (The shortest day) ?

Jupiter

The first human being to step out onto the surface of another world was

Neil Armstrong

The spacecraft that sent back the most detailed radar images of Venus that showed us features as small as a football field is

Magellan

The largest part of the earth is it

Mantle

The large roughly circular, dark, younger regions on the moon are called what?

Maria

An important way that scientist have been able to study the interior of the earth is by

Measuring how seismic waves are transmitted through the Earth

The planet closest to the sun in our solar system is

Mercury

The great astronomer of ancient times to summarize and improve a system of circles upon circles to explain the complicate emotions of the planets (and publish the system in a book now called The Almagest) is

Ptolemy

I want to examine the surface of a planet which is completely covered by thick layer of clouds all the time. What wavelength of electromagnetic radiation would be smartest to use

Radio waves (like radar)

Scientist have been concerned about a set of industrial chemicals called CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) because they

Rise into the atmosphere and destroy ozone

At which of the following locations on earth is the direction we call East not clearly defined

The North Pole

Which of the following is NOT an argument for showing that the earth must be around

The Sun is seen blocking different constellations in the course of a year

What was a surprise to astronomers when they carefully examine Neptune with the Hubble space telescope in 1994

The gray dark spot had disappeared

Why does Mars have an overall reddish color when we see it surface from a far

The material of Mars surface contains a lot of iron oxide, the same chemistry that makes resting metals look reddish

In Ptolemy's System the planets orbit the earth and not the sun. How did the system explain the retrograde motion of planets like Jupiter?

The planets moved on a small circle whose center, in turn, circle to a point near the earth

The same process that explains why astronomer see less helium in the upper atmosphere of Saturn when they take spectra also explains

The reason Saturn is warmer than we expect

The star that provides energy for life on Earth is

The sun

The point in the sky directly above your head at any given time is called

Zenith

The location of the Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy is

a little less than 30,000 LY from the center

Which of the following is a way we believe that the early atmosphere of the earth differed from the atmosphere we have today?

all of the above

Which of the following is not a correct statement about the ways the Jovian planets differ from the terrestrial planets

all the jovians have satellites around them and none of the terrestrials do

Within a constellation, a smaller, recognizable pattern of stars is often called:

an asterism

We now know that the orbit of a stable planet around a star like the Sun is always in the shape of:

an ellipse

We believe the Maria on the earths moon are

ancient impact craters in which lava beds welled up from inside the Moon

The mountains on the moon

are the result of giant impacts during the Moon's long history of being hit

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

because the Earth is going around the Sun in the course of a year

How did Eratosthenes measure the size of the Earth?

by measuring the height of the Sun in the sky on the same day in two cities at different latitudes

To come up with the precise mathematical form of his law of gravity, Newton first had to invent the mathematical techniques that we now call:

calculus

The same gas makes up most of the atmosphere of Mars and Venus. This gas is

carbon dioxide

Which part of the earth has the greatest density

core

What is one way that astronomers have actually gotten an idea of the age of surfaces of terrestrial planets other than the earth

counting craters

The way scientists know that a hypothesis in astronomy is a reasonable description of nature is to

do experiments and observations about the predictions of the hypothesis

Of the people who landed on the Moon, how many were trained scientists?

exactly one

When it comes to our place in the solar system today, which model do we except

heliocentric

The number of degrees of arc that your location is north or south on the earths equator is called your

latitude

The upper clouds in the atmosphere of Neptune are composed of

methane

The rate at which a collection of the same radioactive atoms will decay depends on

only on internal processes within the atoms; nothing external matter should

The slow tipping of the Earth's axis in a circle with a period of about 26,000 years is called:

precession

Rocks that have not been chemically modified by being significantly heated are called

primitive

The lunar highlands are made mostly of rocks that

rose to the top as the Moon cooled from a molten state early in its history

According to the theory of plate tectonics

slow motions within the mantle of the Earth move large sections of the crust around

The majority of the moons orbiting the outer (Jovian) planets are

small moons orbiting in a retrograde direction (opposite to the direction their planet turns and orbits)

Our best evidence and theoretical calculations indicate that the solar system began with a giant spinning system of gas and dust that scientists call:

solar nebula

Why was the problem of devising a workable yearly calendar so difficult on Earth?

the Earth's rotation period does not divide evenly into the Earth's period of revolution

A light year is

the distance that light travels in one year

The celestial sphere turns once around each day because

the planet on which we live on is rotating


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