Astronomy Final

you would expect to see a waning crescent Moon

rising in the east just before the Sun

Aphelion

point in a planet's orbit that is farthest from the sun

The length of a sidereal month is 27 days. The time from one full Moon to the next is closest to

29.5 days

There are 365.242199 solar days in a year. From this fact, you can conclude that, relative to the distant stars, earth rotates closest to

366.242199 times in a year

The statement that the orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus is due to

Kepler

the equal area law

Kepler's Laws governs how a particular planet speeds up and slows down

the closest star to the North Celestial Pole that is visible to naked eye is

Polaris

a star named Epsilon Eridani is most likely

a fairly dim star in the constellation Eridanus

the Celestial Sphere is

a map of the stars

Perihelion

a planet's closest approach to the sun

The ancient Greeks concluded that the Sun is larger than the Moon because

a total solar eclipse happens over a very small part of the earth

Tycho Brahe observations focused on measures the position of the planets

all the time

the stars that form the Big Dipper

are mostly at nearly the same distance from the Earth, but with exceptions

Ptolemaic model

assumes that the earth is fixed and the sun, moon, and planets all move around the earth

the newspaper says the moon was full last night, this statement is most likely

based on some authoritative reference such as the US Naval Observatory

the milky way is said to consist of about 200 billion stars, how did we get that number

by using a model of the galaxy that correctly accounts for everything that has been measure so far

From the way that lunar eclipses happen, the Ancient Greeks were able to

calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon

If you are looking down over the south pole of the Earth, you will see the Earth rotate

clockwise

Copernicus said that the rotation of the Earth on its axis caused the

daily motion of the heavens

Copernicus said that the retrograde motion of the planets was caused by the

earth and the planets orbiting the Sun

Tycho Brahe's work at Uraniborg was

funded by a large fractions of the national budget of Denmark

for a model to be 'elegant' it should...

have a small number of parameters

the Ptolemaic system was accepted for a long time even after alternative theories were proposed, why?

it correctly predicted what was observed and thus did not need to be replaced

One reason that the Copernican System failed to fit Tycho's observations was that

it used circular orbits instead of ellipses

as seen from North America, the constellation Ursa Major

never sets

The patent for inventing the telescope was obtained by

nobody because it was too simple an idea to patent

Ancient Greek Philosophers believed

that a worthwhile model of a situation must predict what is actually observed

Aristarchus of Samos

the ancient Greek philosopher that believe the sun was fixed and the earth moved around it

what causes the seasons

the angle at which the sunlight strikes the ground determines how much heat is delivered

By measuring the angle between the Sun and the Moon when the Moon was in its first or third quarter, the ancient Greeks were able to calculate

the distance from the Earth to the Sun

The Earth is farther from the Sun than Mercury, but

the earth takes more time to go around the sun but goes slower than mercury

The ecliptic

the path of the sun on the celestial sphere

The first major failure of the Ptolemaic Theory to predict the results of observations was

the phases of Venus

the motion of the Moon around the Earth causes

the phases of the moon

the Summer Solstice

the time when the noon sun is highest in the sky

Eratosthenes of Cyrene

used the angle of the noon sun at Alexandria and Syene to determine the size of the Earth

Which of the following phases of the Moon would be seen high in the south at dawn?

waning quarter

You see the Moon almost directly in the south at 10pm. What phase is it?

waxing gibbous

the sun sets in the

west

Retrograde Motion

westward motion of the planets relative to the stars

one advantage of the spherical earth model is that it completely explains

what holds up the surface of the earth