Astronomy Test 1 Part 2

An astronomy textbook weighs four pounds on the surface of the Earth. After finishing your course, you are so tired of the book, you arrange for NASA to shoot it into space. If it is now twice as far from the center of the Earth than when you were reading it, what would it weigh? (Note, assume that the book is moving away from the Earth not falling freely around it.)

1 lb

The "prime meridian" (where longitude equals zero) passes through _______.

Greenwich

The scientist who formulated the three laws of planetary motion by analyzing the data on the precise location of planets in the sky was _____.

Johannes Kepler

What planet has the shortest period of revolution?

Mercury

The 17th century astronomer who kept a roughly 20 year continuous record of the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets was _____.

Tycho Brahe

Newton showed that to change the direction in which an object is moving, one needs to apply ______.

a force

We now know that the orbit of a stable planet around a star like the Sun is always in the shape of _______.

an ellipse

The asteroid belt is located ______.

between Mars and Jupiter

The minimum speed required to launch an object so that it remains the same distance above the ground and just falls around the Earth is called ________.

circular satellite velocity

Which of the following statements about the force of gravity is FALSE?

its strength is inversely proportional to the mass: the more mass, the less gravity

The number of degrees of arc that your location is north or south of the Earth's equator is called your ______.

longitude

When a comet like Comet Hale-Bopp comes closest to the Sun in its orbit, we say that it is at _______.

perihelion

At which of the following locations on Earth is the direction we call East not clearly defined?

exactly the North and South Poles

According to Kepler's 2nd Law, comets (which have eccentric orbits) should spend a lot more of their time _______.

Far from the Sun.

The scientist who first devised experimental tests to demonstrate the validity of the heliocentric model of the solar system was ______.

Galileo

Why do satellites launched into low-Earth orbits not remain there indefinitely?

Because the drag generated by friction causes a loss of energy.

The Renaissance astronomer who wrote the pioneering book that suggested the Earth probably orbits the Sun (instead of the other way around) was _____.

Copernicus

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.

In an ellipse, the ratio of the distance between the foci and the length of the major axis is called _______.

eccentricity

To leave the gravitational pull of the Earth, and explore other planets, satellites must have at least ______.

escape velocity