Astronomy test 2
The average radius of the earths orbit is
1.0 au
The first successful soft landing on the moon was surveyor 1 in
1966
If the planets are numbered from 1 to 8, going outward from the Sun, the planet mars is number
4
What total force will cause an object with a mass of 1kg to gain 5 meters per second every second?
5 newtons
Which of the following types of objects include things that could reasonably be described as "flying rocks" or "flying mountains?"
Asteroids
Which of the following objects would be most likely to have a long elliptical orbit that takes it from far outside the orbit of mars to a close approach to the sun?
Comet
Which of the following planets or moons has an atmosphere whose temperature and pressure permit all three forms of water?
Earth
Which of the following objects has no magnetic field at all?
Earths moon
Which of these planets has a solar day that is very close to an earth day in length?
Mars
Which of the following planets can be said to have almost no atmosphere
Mercury
Which of these Mars rovers has been operating on the surface of mars for fourteen years so far?
Opportunity
The first space probe to place a robotic rover on the surface of Mars was
Pathfinder
The capture theory in which our moon forms desperately and is captured by earth became popular when computer models showed that such a capture would have been possible
The capture theory was dropped partly because it predicts it predicts that the moon should have hydrated rocks and it does not
When newton calculated the magnitude of the acceleration of earths moon relative to the earth, and compared it to the acceleration of falling objects on the surface of the earth, he found that
The moons acceleration was smaller
Why couldn't we just fly a space shuttle to the moon for at least a fly-by?
The space shuttle did not have enough fuel to reach escape velocity
Which of the following planets has no moons at all
Venus
Which of the following planets or moons has an atmosphere with about 90 times the surface of earths
Venus
water ice can be found on all but one of these planets. Which one has no ice?
Venus
A lunar crater is best described as
a circular ring wall surrounding a flat area
the ancient greeks thought that
a heavy object should fall faster than a lighter object because the heavy object is pulled down with more force
In comparison to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, newtons theory of universal gravitation predicted
almost the same motions but with corrections
Mars has
an atmosphere of carbon dioxide with about 1% the surface pressure of Earth's
Space probes often use gravitational slingshot maneuvers. The main purpose of these maneuvers is to
change the direction and speed of the probe without using rockets
At present the distance from the earth to the sun
changes enough to make the intensity of sunlight vary by 6 percent
The currently accepted theory of how the moon formed is the
collision theory
When a space probe uses a gravitational slingshot maneuver, it
comes close to a planet to change the probes speed and direction
The discovery that there is water ice on the moon has motivated many nations to launch moon missions because it
could make a moon base possible
Which of the following objects has no magnetic field at all?
earths moon
The magnetic field of mars is
essentially zero
suppose that a spacecraft is in roughly circular orbit near the surface of the earth, moving at around 5 miles per second. Suppose the spacecraft flips over backwards and fires its rocket engine to slow its speed to 4.95 miles per second. The spacecraft will then
follow an ellipse that descends a bit and then rises again
Freely falling objects with different masses fall with the same acceleration because
gravity exerts more force on the more massive object
Mercury rotates so that it
has a solar day that lasts for two complete orbits around the sun
The force of gravity explains
how the tides work but not how lightning works.
The statement that lunar material is much "dryer" than earth material refers to the absence of
hydrated minerals
The circular structures on the surface of the moon are the result of
impacts
the gravitational attraction of the earths for other objects,
is smaller for objects farther from the earth but never vanishes entirely
The lunar maria are thought to have been cause by ancient
lava flows from large impacts
Which of the following planets can be said to have almost no atmosphere?
mercury
When the rocket engine in a spaceship stops firing, the spaceship keeps moving because
no force stops it
The observed magnetic field of Mercury is surprising because it was expected to have
no magnetic field at all because it rotates so slowly
The phase diagram for water is presented on a graph with axes for temperature and
pressure
The earths magnetic field plays an essential role in
protecting the earth from charged from the sun
A full cycle of day and night is called sol. In terms of 24 hours earth days, a martian sol is
slightly longer than one day
Since the last Apollo mission to the moon and the last soviet LUNA sample-return mission
spacecraft began to be sent there by 1994
An astronomical unit is defined to be
the average distance from earth to the sun
you are standing in an elevator that is accelerating upward at 1m/s2. which of the following pairs of force is an actions-reaction pair that have to be exactly equal and opposite to each other?
the force that the floor of the elevator exerts on you and the force that you exert on the floor of the elevator
Viking 1 and 2 were sent to explore
the planet mars
The moon rotates on its axis so that it always keeps
the same side (its far side) pointed away from the earth
In newton's thoery of gravity, everything is attracted
to every object in the universe
The law of inertia states that a moving object will
keep moving if no force acts on it
As viewed from the star Polaris, Venus
rotates clockwise and goes around the sun counter-clockwise
Apollo 11 made the first
crewed landing on the moon
What total force will cause an object with a mass of 5kg to gain 1 meter per second every second?
50 newtons
suppose that you try to lift by exerting an upward for of 5 newtons on it. If gravity exerts a force of 20 newtons downward on the object, what is the total force on the object?
15 newtons downward
The density of water is 1000kg/m^3, the density of rock is about 3000kg/m^3, and the density of iron is 7800kg/m^3. Which of the following densities is closest to the average density of earth?
5200kg/m^3
The international space station is in a roughly circular orbit near the surface of the earth, moving at around 5 miles per second. Suppose that it is desired to raise it to a new circular orbit, farther from the surface by having a rocket give it one or more short boosts. Which of the following schemes will work?
Increasing its speed to 6 miles per second to put it on a rising path and give it another speed boost when its distance from the earth stops increasing
The Lunar Maria
Large, dark plains formed by volcanic eruptions. Latin for "seas," early astronomers thought these dark areas on the moon were filled with water. 16% of the moon's surface is covered in maria.
Which of the following planets has a moon that rises in the west?
Mars
The current model for the way that planets acquire magnetic fields requires which of the following combinations of things?
Rotation and a core that contains a liquid electrical conductor
The first space probes to land on another planet were from the
Russian Venera series
A book weighing 10 newtons sits on a table. Which of the following pars of forces is an action-reaction pair?
The force that the book exerts on the table and the force that the table exerts on the book
On the present surface of mars water has been confirmed to exist
as ice at the poles and water vapor in the atmosphere
On eart, you might find a temperature of 59 degrees on a spring or fall day in the temperate zone. On mars you might expect that temperature
at noon near the equator
For a planet to have substantial amounts of liquid water on its surface, it must have
atmospheric pressure above the triple point of water
A model in which the moon forms from the same rotating cloud of gas and dust as the earth would predict that the moons orbit should be
in the plane of the earths equator
A model in which the moon forms from the same rotating cloud of gas and dust as the earth would predict that the moons orbit should be
in the planet of the earths equator
The earth moon
is 1/4 the size of earth, which is unusually large for a moon
The moons orbit around the earth
is elliptical enough to give us an annular solar eclipse when the Moon is near its apogee
It is expected that a normal terrestrial planet, with no accidental encounters that could add or subtract moons, should have
no moon
When newtons laws were applied to predict the exact motion of the planet Uranus the prediction failed to agree with every precise measurements. This failure led to the discovery
of the planet Neptune
The earths magnetic field plays an essential role in
protecting the earth from charged particles from the sun
At present (within the last few hundred years) the orbit of the earth around the sun is
slightly elliptical so that the intensity of sunlight varies by 6 percent
It is currently thought that moons typically do not form near
terrestrial planets such as earth and mars
The soviet union had a secret program to put the first human on the moon. This program
test launched their moon rocket several times, but it blew up each time
For an object that is moving along a straight path, the acceleration is
the change in the objects speed divided by the time it takes
If you are told that an object that weighs 20 newtons is raised a distance of 10 meters, you know that
the force of gravity on the object is 20 newtons
Suppose you drop two objects from the same height at the same time. Both objects are heavy enough to be unaffected by air resistance. If one object is twice as heavy as the other, Aristotle would predict that
the heavier object would hit the ground long before the lighter one
If you are told that a 20 kilogram object is raised by 10 meters, you know that
the mass of the object is 20 kilograms
A planet that is following Kepler's laws, accelerates
toward the sun
Mercury rotates so that its sidereal day lasts for
two thirds of a complete orbit around the sun
The law of inertia says that if an object is not acted on by any outside force, its acceleration
will always be zero