Astronomy Final
you would expect to see a waning crescent Moon
rising in the east just before the Sun
Aphelion
point in a planet's orbit that is farthest from the sun
The length of a sidereal month is 27 days. The time from one full Moon to the next is closest to
29.5 days
There are 365.242199 solar days in a year. From this fact, you can conclude that, relative to the distant stars, earth rotates closest to
366.242199 times in a year
The statement that the orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus is due to
Kepler
the equal area law
Kepler's Laws governs how a particular planet speeds up and slows down
the closest star to the North Celestial Pole that is visible to naked eye is
Polaris
a star named Epsilon Eridani is most likely
a fairly dim star in the constellation Eridanus
the Celestial Sphere is
a map of the stars
Perihelion
a planet's closest approach to the sun
The ancient Greeks concluded that the Sun is larger than the Moon because
a total solar eclipse happens over a very small part of the earth
Tycho Brahe observations focused on measures the position of the planets
all the time
the stars that form the Big Dipper
are mostly at nearly the same distance from the Earth, but with exceptions
Ptolemaic model
assumes that the earth is fixed and the sun, moon, and planets all move around the earth
the newspaper says the moon was full last night, this statement is most likely
based on some authoritative reference such as the US Naval Observatory
the milky way is said to consist of about 200 billion stars, how did we get that number
by using a model of the galaxy that correctly accounts for everything that has been measure so far
From the way that lunar eclipses happen, the Ancient Greeks were able to
calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon
If you are looking down over the south pole of the Earth, you will see the Earth rotate
clockwise
Copernicus said that the rotation of the Earth on its axis caused the
daily motion of the heavens
Copernicus said that the retrograde motion of the planets was caused by the
earth and the planets orbiting the Sun
Tycho Brahe's work at Uraniborg was
funded by a large fractions of the national budget of Denmark
for a model to be 'elegant' it should...
have a small number of parameters
the Ptolemaic system was accepted for a long time even after alternative theories were proposed, why?
it correctly predicted what was observed and thus did not need to be replaced
One reason that the Copernican System failed to fit Tycho's observations was that
it used circular orbits instead of ellipses
as seen from North America, the constellation Ursa Major
never sets
The patent for inventing the telescope was obtained by
nobody because it was too simple an idea to patent
Ancient Greek Philosophers believed
that a worthwhile model of a situation must predict what is actually observed
Aristarchus of Samos
the ancient Greek philosopher that believe the sun was fixed and the earth moved around it
what causes the seasons
the angle at which the sunlight strikes the ground determines how much heat is delivered
By measuring the angle between the Sun and the Moon when the Moon was in its first or third quarter, the ancient Greeks were able to calculate
the distance from the Earth to the Sun
The Earth is farther from the Sun than Mercury, but
the earth takes more time to go around the sun but goes slower than mercury
The ecliptic
the path of the sun on the celestial sphere
The first major failure of the Ptolemaic Theory to predict the results of observations was
the phases of Venus
the motion of the Moon around the Earth causes
the phases of the moon
the Summer Solstice
the time when the noon sun is highest in the sky
Eratosthenes of Cyrene
used the angle of the noon sun at Alexandria and Syene to determine the size of the Earth
Which of the following phases of the Moon would be seen high in the south at dawn?
waning quarter
You see the Moon almost directly in the south at 10pm. What phase is it?
waxing gibbous
the sun sets in the
west
Retrograde Motion
westward motion of the planets relative to the stars
one advantage of the spherical earth model is that it completely explains
what holds up the surface of the earth