Astro 103 quiz baa

He discovered that Jupiter has moons.

d) Galileo

The controversial book of this famous person, published in 1543 (the year of his death), suggested that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun.

e) Copernicus

Kepler's third law, p^2=a^3 , means that

e) all of the above are correct

Which of the following is not one of, nor follows directly from, Kepler's laws?

e) the force of attraction between any two objects decreases with the square of the distance between their centers

Which of the following statements about scientific theories is false?

e) theories are not taken seriously if they contradict older, more developed, theories

When Copernicus first created his Sun-centered model of the universe, it did not lead to substantially better predictions of planetary positions than the Ptolemaic model. Why not?

a) Copernicus used perfect circles for the orbits of the planets, whereas planets actually have elliptical orbits.

He discovered that the orbits of planets are ellipses.

a) Kepler

What is meant by a scientific-paradigm?

a) a generally well-established scientific theory or set of theories

One of the "nails in the coffin" for Earth-centered universe was:

b) Galileo's observations of the moons of Jupiter

He was the first to prove that comets lie beyond Earth's atmosphere.

b) Tycho Brahe

Kepler's second law, which states that as a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out equal areas in equal times, means that:

b) a planet travels faster when it is nearer to the Sun and slower when it is farther from the Sun

What is meant by a hypothesis?

b) an explanation for a phenomenon that makes a prediction