Astronomy Final Pt 1
Light takes approximately one second to travel from Earth to the Moon. This means that the Moon is approximately
A) 1 astronomical unit from Earth. B) 1 light-year from Earth. C) 3,000 kilometers from Earth. D) 300,000 kilometers from Earth. E) near the top of Earth's atmosphere.
24) From Kepler's third law, an asteroid with an orbital period of 8 years lies at an average distance from the Sun equal to
A) 2 astronomical units. B) 4 astronomical units. C) 8 astronomical units. D) 16 astronomical units. E) It depends on the asteroid's mass.
10) You are standing on Earth's equator. Which way is Polaris, the North star?
A) 30 degrees up, due West B) on the northern horizon C) directly overhead D) The answer depends on whether it's winter or summer. E) The answer depends on what time of day (or night) it is.
8) How many arcseconds are in one degree?
A) 60 B) 360 C) 3,600 D) 100 E) 10,000
7) Which of following best describes the shape of the Milky Way Galaxy?
A) Basketball-shaped (a sphere). B) Football-shaped C) A flat disk D) A flat disk with a bulge in the middle.
4) On the cosmic calendar, where every month is about 1.2 billion years long, and where the Big Bang happened on January 1, when did the Sun and Earth form?
A) January B) March C) September D) December
Which of these astronomical objects is a large collection of stars held together by gravity?
A) Nebula B) Galaxy C) Star System D) Asteroid
19) Which of the following is NOT a motion of the Earth?
A) Rotation on its axis. B) Revolution (orbital motion) around the Sun. C) Precession (wobbling of its axis like a top). D) Escape with the Sun from the Milky Way Galaxy. E) Expansion with the Milky Way Galaxy away from most other galaxies.
14) What effect or effects would be most significant if the Moon's orbital plane were exactly the same as the ecliptic plane?
A) Solar eclipses would be much rarer. B) Solar eclipses would be much more frequent. C) Total solar eclipses would last much longer. D) The Sun would always be blocked by the Moon.
5) Where did the elements hydrogen and most helium form?
A) Stars B) Planets C) Comets D) Big Bang
17) The point directly overhead for any observer is:
A) The Horizon B) The Zenith C) The Meridian D) The North Celestial Pole E) The Celestial Equator
12) Why is it summer in the Northern Hemisphere when it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere?
A) The Northern Hemisphere is always closer to the Sun than the Southern Hemisphere. B) The Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun and receives more direct sunlight. C) The Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun and receives more indirect sunlight. D) It isn't; both hemispheres have the same seasons at the same time.
6) What is the size of the Sun's diameter compared to that of the Earth?
A) The same size. B) 10 times larger C) 100 times larger D) 1/10 of the Earth's size. E) 1/100 of the Earth's size.
16) Why were the Greeks unable to detect stellar parallax?
A) They did not look for it. B) They could not see distant stars. C) They did not have the ability to measure very small angles. D) They did not observe for long enough periods of time. E) They did detect it, but they rejected the observations.
23) Who discovered that Jupiter has moons?
A) Tycho Brahe B) Aristotle C) Kepler D) Galileo E) Ptolemy
22) Who discovered that the orbits of planets are ellipses?
A) Tycho Brahe B) Copernicus C) Kepler D) Galileo E) Ptolemy
25) Kepler's second law, which states that as a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out equal areas in equal times, means that
A) a planet travels faster when it is nearer to the Sun and slower when it is farther from the Sun. B) a planet's period does not depend on the eccentricity of its orbit. C) the period of a planet does not depend on its mass. D) planets have circular orbits.
11) The constellation Orion, located on the celestial equator, is visible on winter evenings but not on summer evenings because of
A) blockage by the full moon. B) the tilt of Earth's rotation axis. C) the location of Earth in its orbit around the Sun. D) the precession of Earth's rotation axis.
20) How did Eratosthenes estimate the size of Earth in 240 B.C.?
A) by observing the duration of a solar eclipse B) by measuring the size of Earth's shadow on the Moon in a lunar eclipse C) by comparing Sun angles of two locations at noon on the equinox D) by sending fleets of ships around Earth E) by walking south and measuring the extent of the southern celestial sphere
9) Hubble discovered that the Universe is
A) expanding. B) contracting C) remaining the same size D) a figment of our imagination.
13) If the Moon is setting at 6 A.M., the phase of the Moon must be
A) first quarter. B) third quarter. C) full. D) new. E) waning crescent.
15) Which of the following never goes in retrograde motion?
A) the Sun B) Venus C) Mars D) Jupiter E) Saturn
Suppose we look at a photograph of many galaxies. Assuming that all of these galaxies formed at the same time after the Big Bang, which galaxies would appear to be the youngest?
A) those galaxies that are the farthest away B) those galaxies that are closest to us C) those galaxies whose actual size is small D) those galaxies that appear to be the bluest E) All of the galaxies would appear to be at the same age.
21) Why did Ptolemy have the planets orbiting Earth on "circles upon circles" in his model of the universe?
A) to explain why more distant planets take longer to make a circuit through the constellations B) to explain the fact that planets sometimes appear to move retrograde relative to the stars C) to explain why the Greeks were unable to detect stellar parallax D) to properly account for the varying distances of the planets from Earth E) to explain why Venus goes through phases as seen from Earth
18) An object (car, planet, star) moves twice its original distance from you. What does its angular size do?
A. Stays the same B. Becomes 2 times bigger. C. Becomes 2 times smaller (1/2 its original size). D. Becomes 4 times bigger. E. Becomes 4 times smaller (1/4 its original size).