Astronomy Chapters 0-3 – Flashcards
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The Milky Way Galaxy is about 1 million times larger than the Earth.
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False
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The stars in a constellation are physically close to one another.
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False
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The solar day is longer than the sidereal day.
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True
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The seasons are caused by the precession of the Earth's axis.
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False
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A lunar eclipse can only occur during the full phase.
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True
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The angular diameter of an object is inversely proportional to its distance from the observer.
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True
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If we know the distance of an object from Earth, we can determine the object's size by measuring its parallax.
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False
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If Earth rotated twice as fast as it currently does, but its motion around the Sun stayed the same, then: a) the night would be twice as long b) the night would be half as long c) the year would be half as long d) the length of the day would be unchanged
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b) the night would be half as long
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A long, thin cloud that stretched from directly overhead to the western horizon would have an angular size of: a) 45 degrees b) 90 degrees c) 180 degrees d) 360 degrees
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b) 90 degrees
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When a thin crescent of the Moon is visible just before sunrise, the Moon is in its: a) waxing phase b) new phase c) waning phase d) quarter phase
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c) waning phase
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If the Moon's orbit were a little larger, solar eclipses would be: a) more likely to be annular b) more likely to be total c) more frequent d) unchanged in appearance
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a) more likely to be annular
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If the Moon orbited Earth twice as fast but in the same orbit the frequency of solar eclipses would: a) double b) be cut in half c) stay the same
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c) stay the same
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Aristotle proposed that all planets revolve around the Sun.
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False
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During retrograde motion, planets actually stop and move backward in space.
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False
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The heliocentric model of the universe holds that Earth is at the center and everything else moves around it.
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False
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Copernicus's theories gained widespread scientific acceptance during his lifetime.
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False
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Galileo's observations of the sky were made with the naked eye.
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False
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The speed of a planet orbiting the Sun is independent of the planet's position in the orbit.
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False
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Kepler's laws hold only for the six planets known in his time.
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False
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You throw a baseball to someone; before the ball is caught, it is temporarily in orbit around Earth's center.
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True
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A major flaw in Copernicus's model was that it still had... (a) the sun at the center (b) the earth at the center (c) retrograde loops (d) circular orbits
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(d) circular orbits
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An asteroid with an orbit lying entirely inside Earth's orbit... (a) has an orbital semimajor axis of less than 1 AU (b) has a longer orbital period than Earth's (c) moves more slowly than Earth
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(a) has an orbital semimajor axis of less than 1 AU
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If the Earth's orbit around the Sun were to double in size, the new "year" would be (a) less than 2 (b) 2 (c) more than 2 current Earth years
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(c) more than 2 current Earth years
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The wavelength of green light is about the size of an atom.
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False
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Two otherwise identical objects have temperatures of 1000 K and 1200 K respectively. The object at 1200 K emits roughly twice as much radiation as the object at 1000 K.
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True
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As you drive away from a radio transmitter, the radio signal you receive from the station is shifted to longer wavelengths.
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True
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Imagine an emission spectrum produced by a container of hydrogen gas. Changing the amount of hydrogen in the container will change the colors of the lines in the spectrum.
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False
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The energy of a photon is inversely proportional to the wavelength of the radiation.
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True
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An electron moves to a higher energy level in an atom after absorbing a photon of a specific energy.
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True
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A star much cooler than the Sun would appear... (a) red (b) blue (c) smaller (d) larger
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(a) red
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Compared with ultraviolet radiation infrared radiation has a greater (a) wavelength (b) amplitude (c) frequency
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(a) wavelength
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An X-ray telescope located in Antarctic would not work well because of... (a) the extreme cold (b) the ozone hole (c) continues daylight (d) Earth's atmosphere
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(d) Earth's atmosphere
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The blackbody curve of a star moving toward Earth would have its peak shifted... (a) to lower intensity (b) toward higher energies (c) toward longer wavelengths (d) toward lower energies
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(b) toward higher energies
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The main advantage to using the HST is the increased amount of "nighttime" viewing it affords.
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False
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The term "seeing" is used to describe how faint an object can be detected by a telescope.
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False
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One of the primary advantages of CCD's over photographic plates is the former's high efficiency in detecting light.
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True
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Radio telescopes are large in part to improve their angular resolution, which is poor because of the long wavelengths at which they are used to observe the skies.
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False
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Infrared astronomy can only be done from space.
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False
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Gamma ray telescopes employ the same basic design that optical instruments use.
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False
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Because gamma-rays have very short wavelengths, gamma-ray telescopes can achieve extremely high angular resolution.
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False
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Because gamma-rays have very short wavelengths, gamma-ray telescopes can achieve very extremely high angular resolution.
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False
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The main reason that professional research telescopes are reflectors is that... (a) mirrors produce sharper images than lenses do (b) their images are inverted (c) they do not suffer from the effects of seeing (d) large mirrors are easier to build than large lenses
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(d) large mirrors are easier to build than large lenses
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If telescope mirrors could be made in odd sizes, the one with the most light-gathering power would be... (a) a triangle with 1-m sides (b) a square with 1-m sides (c) a circle with 1 m diameter (d) a rectangle with two 1-m sides and two 2-m sides
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(d) a rectangle with two 1-m sides and two 2-m sides
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The primary reason professional observatories are built on the highest mountaintops is to... (a) get away from city lights (b) be above the rain clouds (c) reduce atmospheric blurring (d) improve chromatic aberration
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(c) reduce atmospheric blurring
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The best way to study young stars hidden behind interstellar dust cloud would be to use... (a) x-rays (b) infrared light (c) ultraviolet light (d) blue light
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(b) infrared light
