Astronomy Chapters 23 & 24

Which of the following statements about a Type II Supernova is true?

A Type II supernova occurs at the end of the life of a star with 10 times the mass of our Sun or more

Which of the following statements about Supernova 1987A is FALSE?

NOT: neutrinos from the explosion were actually detected on Earth

Einstein suggested that the regular change (advance) in the perihelion of the planet Mercury could be explained by:

a distortion in spacetime caused by the gravity of the Sun

When the mass of a star's core is greater than 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, degenerate electrons can't keep it stable as a white dwarf. Instead, it becomes:

a neutron star

Deep inside a black hole (and hidden from our view) is the compressed center, where all the "stuff" of the star goes. Astronomer call this central point

a singularity

Which of the following stages will the Sun definitely go through as it gets older? a. red giant b. source of a planetary nebula c. white dwarf d. black dwarf e. all the above

all the above

Which of the following statements about the life of a star with a mass like the Sun is correct?

as the star is dying, a considerable part of its mass will be lost into space

If you are in a freely falling elevator near the top of a tall building, as the elevator falls, your weight would be:

equal to zero - you would be weightless

A star with a mass like the Sun which will soon die is observed to be surrounded by a large amount of dust and gas -- all material it has expelled in the late stages of its life. If astronomers want to observe the radiation from such a giant star surrounded by its own debris, which of the following bands of the spectrum would be the best to use to observe it?

infrared

The most stable (tightly bound) atomic nucleus in the universe is:

iron

To predict whether a star will ultimately become a black hole, what is the key property of the star we should look at?

mass

In a collapsing star of high mass, when electrons and protons are squeezed together with enormous force, they turn into a neutron and a:

neutrino

When astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in space let go of an orange, it just floats there. Why is that?

the ISS is falling around the Earth, and in free fall, things feel no weight

In 1959, Pound and Rebka did an experiment to test the prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity about the relationship between the pace of time and the strength of gravity. When two identical atomic clocks, one on the ground floor and one on the top floor, were compared,

the clock on the ground floor ran a tiny bit slower

The equivalence principle (principle of equivalence) says that

the effects of gravity are equivalent to the effects of acceleration

The region around a black hole where everything is trapped, and nothing can get out to interact with the rest of the universe, is called

the event horizon

What incident in a massive star's life sets off (begins) the very quick chain of events that leads to a supernova explosion?

the fusion of iron

In the far future, a starship becomes trapped inside the event horizon of a black hole. Although the crew discovers that their ship cannot out, they at least want to send a message to other ships in the area to stay away from the danger zone. If they send out a message in the form of a radio wave, what will be its fate?

the message will never emerge from the event horizon

According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, the stronger a star's gravity,

the slower time runs near it

When a single star with a mass equal to the Sun dies, it will become a

white dwarf

The astronomer who first worked out the mathematical description of black hole event horizons was

NOT: S. Chandrasekhar