AST
Using scientific notation, which of the following best describes 1047 kilograms?
1.047 x 103 kg
Which of these are the correct use of scientific notation? (Select all that apply)
1.77 x 1022
Mutation is
A change to DNA that is sometimes beneficial and sometimes not
Why can't we see a galaxy that were originally 15 billion light-years away?(Assume the universe is 14 billion years old.)
Because looking 15 billion light-years away means looking to a time before the universe existed.
During the Cambrian explosion
Biodiversity increased significantly
From the lists below, choose the one that best ranks the following astronomical objects from smallest to largest
Earth, Solar System, Galaxy, Universe
What do we call the day(s) of the year when the Sun rises directly in the East and sets directly in the West?
Equinoxes
What is the Universe?
Everything that exists, including Earth, planets, stars, galaxies, and all that they contain; the entire cosmos.
Why are there very few asteroids beyond Jupiter's orbit?
Ice could form in the outer solar system.
What is the path of the star Alpha Centauri (dec = -60º50') as seen from 40º north latitude?
It never rises.
Why do astronomers today think that we have an asteroid belt and not a planet between Mars and Jupiter?
Jupiter's gravity prevented material in that zone from getting together
The four terrestrial planets are:
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
Of these which is the closest to us?
Moon
On the Moon
My weight is less, my mass is the same.
Kepler's second law says "a line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal amounts of time." Which of the following statements means nearly the same thing?
Planets move farther in each unit of time when they are closer to the Sun.
The natural object (not one that humans built) in space that's closest to Earth is
The Moon
How does mean solar time compare with standard time if you are at the far eastern edge of a time zone?
The mean solar time is later than standard time.
If Jupiter did not exist Kirkwood gaps would not exist
True
An idealized object that does not reflect or scatter any radiation that hits it, but simply absorbs every bit of radiation that falls on it is called:
a blackbody
Newton showed that to change the direction in which an object is moving, one needs to apply:
a force
A super cluster is
a grouping of clusters of galaxies
A large body in space that consistently makes its own visible light (instead of merely reflecting another body's light) is called
a star
An artist who likes working with sources of light decides to make a modern sculpture out of electrified glass tubes that contain very thin (rarified) neon gas. When the sculpture is finished, and the electricity is turned on, the tubes glow with a rich red color. What we are seeing is:
an emission spectrum
Orbits of asteroids in the asteroid belt
are grouped into patterns by resonances with Jupiter.
Where on Earth do stars always circle the zenith (and never rise and set)?
at the north pole
Why is there a difference between the synodic month and the sidereal month?
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
On the celestial sphere, halfway between the celestial poles lies the
celestial equator
According to Kepler's third law, there is a relationship between the time a planet takes to revolve around the Sun and its
distance from the Sun
To leave the gravitational pull of the Earth, and explore other planets, satellites must have at least:
escape velocity
According to Kepler's 2nd Law, comets (which have eccentric orbits) should spend a lot more of their time:
far from the Sun
When a periodic comet leaves its dusty debris behind in its orbit, the Earth can intercept this debris and
have a meteor shower as the dust burns up
Chemically, the process leading to life on Earth began with lots of liquid water and
hydrocarbons (molecules which had hydrogen and carbon)
You are on a camping trip, far away from city lights. You look up into the dark night sky, and see lots of stars, some brighter, some dimmer. All the stars you see with your unaided eye are
in the Milky Way Galaxy
An astronomer discovers a new star and wants to measure its temperature. She would typically do this by:
making a blackbody curve and finding the wavelength of the peak (maximum)
A picture is taken with a news paper showing the date of June 22, showing the Sun directly over head at Noon. Where can you deduce that this picture was taken?
on the Tropic of Cancer (230 N)
I want to examine the surface of a planet that is covered by a thick atmosphere (which includes oxygen and contains a very thick layer of water clouds that never clears). What wavelength of electromagnetic radiation would I be smartest to use:
radar waves
Not all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation can penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. Of the following types of waves that come from space, which one are you likely to be able to detect most easily from our planet's surface:
radio waves
If you keep pushing a person on a swing with little pushes, at just the right frequency, they will swing very high. This is an example of
resonance.
Wien's Law relates the wavelength at which a star gives off the greatest amount of energy to the star's
temperature
If the Earth goes around the Sun, why is the ecliptic not lined up with the celestial equator?
the Earth's axis is tilted by about 23 degrees from the vertical
At which of the following locations on Earth is the direction we call East not clearly defined?
the North Pole
The star that provides energy for life on Earth is
the Sun
The Astronomical Unit (AU) as defined by astronomers is
the average distance between the Earth and the Sun
What recent series of discoveries has made astronomers more optimistic about our prospects of finding life out there?
the discovery of planets around thousands of stars in our Galaxy
A light year is
the distance that light travels in one year
In the Drakes Equation, fc means
the fraction of these intelligent civilizations that develop science and the technology to build radio telescopes and transmitters
The Drake Equation allows astronomers to estimate
the number of civilizations out among the stars with which we might communicate
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, circled a point near the Earth
The fastest speed at which we might communicate with another technological civilization among the stars (according to our present understanding of science) is
the speed of light
All molecules (like molecules of water or carbon dioxide) are made up of
two or more atoms
The point in the sky directly above your head at any given time is called the
zenith
What type of meteorites are most useful for defining the age of the solar system?
Primitive, because it has not changed since the accretion stage
A star is 230 light years away. The light we see tonight from that star left it
230 years ago
An asteroid orbits the Sun at an average distance a = 4 AU. How long does it take to orbit the Sun? Hint: Remember that p^2=a^3.
8 year
What is an asteroid?
A rocky object in space that can be a few meters to hundreds of kilometers wide
This is surprising discovery plausible? A small asteroid that orbits within the asteroid belt has an active volcano.
Implausible. Asteroids are too small to be geologically active now.
Which of the following statement use the term light-year in an appropriate way?
The Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in diameter. C) It's about 4 light-years from here to Alpha Centauri D) It will take the Voyager spacecraft about 20,000 years to travel just 1 light-year.
A solar eclipse occurs when ________ shadow falls on ________
The Moon's; Earth
Which explanation for the asteroid belt seems the most plausible?
The belt is where most of the asteroids happened to survive.
Let's suppose an alien species sees in the ultraviolet. What does this tell us about the Star System they evolved in compared to the Sun and the star of the system that the Predator from the film Predator came from.
Their star is hotter than the Sun.
The location of the Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy is
a little less than 30,000 LY from the center
The fact that some asteroids cluster in what are called asteroid families is probably the result of
resonances with the jovian planets
Newton's reformulation of Kepler's third law allows us to measure the masses of bodies in orbit around each other, if we can measure:
the distances and periods of revolution
The Sun's apparent path around the celestial sphere is called
the ecliptic
