Astronomy 101 Quiz 6 Chapter 6

Which of the following best describes the principle advantage of CCDs over photographic film?

CCDs capture a much higher percentage of the incoming photons than film.

Which of the following best describes why radio telescopes are generally much larger in size than telescopes designed to collect visible light?

Getting an image of the same angular resolution requires a much larger telescope for radio waves than for visible light.

Which of the following is not an advantage of the Hubble Space Telescope over ground-based telescopes?

It is closer to the stars.

Which of the following studies is best suited to astronomical observations that fall into the category called timing?

Studying how a star's brightness varies over a period of 3 years.

Which of the following is not a major reason why astronomers would like an observatory on the far side of the Moon?

Telescopes on the Moon could see objects in all parts of the sky equally well, whereas telescopes on Earth can see only portions of the sky that depend on their latitude.

Which of the following telescopes would benefit most from adaptive optics?

The Keck I telescope on Mauna Kea.

Suppose you have two small photographs of the Moon. Although both look the same at small size, when you blow them up to poster size one of them still looks sharp while the other one becomes fuzzy (grainy) looking. Which of the following statements is true?

The one that still looks sharp at large size has better (smaller) angular resolution than the one that looks fuzzy.

The angular separation of two stars is 0.1 arcseconds and you photograph them with a telescope that has an angular resolution of 1 arcsecond. What will you see?

The photo will seem to show only one star rather than two.

Which of the following best describes the development of astronomical telescopes over the past 60 years?

The world's most powerful telescope remained the same for most of this period, but in the past 20 years many new and more powerful telescopes have been built.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory must operate in space because:

X rays do not penetrate Earth's atmosphere.