Astronomy Final Exam Guide – Flashcards
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Inner Planets- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
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Terrestrial Planets
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o Small o Rocky o Very close to the sun o Few Moons o No rings
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Characteristics of Terrestrial Planets
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Mars and Jupiter
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Most asteroids orbit the Sun between ____ and ______
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Outer Planets- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
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Jovian Planets
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o Enormous o Gaseous o Far from the Sun o Separated by large distances o Have ring systems o Many moons
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Characteristics of Jovian Planets
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Sculpted by volcanic activity. It orbits very close to Jupiter because the force of gravity is so strong
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Io
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May harbor liquid water beneath icy surface. High probability of life
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Europa
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• Rotates on side • System of rings and satellites revolve around • Hazy atmosphere with few clouds • Tilt = extreme seasons o 84 years to orbit sun
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Uranus
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Dust collects together into planetesimals. Planetesmials collect together into protoplanets. Protoplanets gather up left over debris and become planets.
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Dust collects together into _________. _________ collect together into _________. _________ gather up left over debris and become planets.
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The solar system formed from a cloud of cold gas and dust that collapsed (solar nebula) about 4.6 billion years ago
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Nebular Theory
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Rocky asteroids
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Inside frost line
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Icy comets
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Outside frost line
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Terrestrial Planets
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Surfaces altered during Heavy Bombardment. Accreted from planetesimals of rock and metal.
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Jovian Planets
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Formed in regions cold enough for water to freeze. Ejected icy planetesimals that are now Oort cloud comets. Accreted from icy planetesimals. Formed in a region of the solar system with lower orbital spin. Large moons formed in surrounding disks of material.
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More massive and lower in average density
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Compared to terrestrial planets, jovian planets are
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• Hydrogen and helium gas (Highest) • Hydrogen compounds • Rock • Metals
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Abundance in the Solar Nebula
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• Metal (highest temperature) • Rock • Hydrogen compounds • Hydrogen and helium gas
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Temperature at which material would condense
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• Hydrogen compounds (farthest) • Rock • Metals
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Distance from the Sun at which they could condense into a solid in the solar nebula
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Colliding cloud particles exchange angular momentum and, on average, end up with the rotation pattern for the cloud as a whole
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The nebular theory predicts that the cloud will flatten into a disk as it shrinks in size. The collapsing cloud should form a disk because:
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All
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How many of the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction as Earth does?
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Hydrogen and Helium
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What is Jupiter's main ingredient?
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fairly circular and in the same plane
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Planetary orbits in our solar system are
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Hydrogen and helium
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The composition of the solar nebula was 98%
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Collapse, condensation, accretion
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Major steps of solar system formation:
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Comets
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Leftover ice rich planetesimals are called
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A sun like star is about a billion times brighter than the light reflected from its planets
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Why are extrasolar planets difficult to detect?
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• The sun and Jupiter orbit around their common center of mass • The sun wobbles around that center of mass with the same period as Jupiter • The Sun's motion around the solar system's center of mass depends on tugs from all the planets • Astronomers around other stars that measured this motion could determine the masses and orbits of all our solar system's planets
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Gravitational tugs
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• Detect planets by measuring the change in a star's position on the sky • Good technique for finding: o Massive planets (greater gravitational tug) o Further planets (further the center of mass)
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Astrometric Technique
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• Measuring a star's Doppler shift can tell its motion toward and away from us o First extrasolar planet to be discovered= 51 Pegasi • Good technique for finding: o Close Stars o Massive Stars
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Doppler Technique
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• Orbital period, distances, and shape • Planet mass, size, and density • Atmospheric properties
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What properties of extrasolar planets can we measure?
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• Astrometric technique • Doppler Technique • Transit Method
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How do we measure orbital period?
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Newton's version of Kepler's 3rd Law
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How do we measure average orbital distance?
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• Astrometric technique • Doppler technique
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How do we measure orbital shape?
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• Astrometric technique • Doppler technique
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How do we measure planet mass?
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Transit method
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How do we measure planets size (radius) ?
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When a planet crosses in front of a star • This reduces the star's apparent brightness and tells us the planet's radius
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Transit
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Density = Mass/Volume o Can get a planet's density if we know its mass (Doppler method) and its radius (from transit method)
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How do we measure planet density?
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Transit Method
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How do we measure atmospheric composition and temperature?
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Transit Method
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What method has detected the most extrasolar planets so far?
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Less than 1%
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What fraction of extrasolar planets could be detected by the transit method?
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Astronomic Method
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Which method could detect a planet in an orbit that is face-on to the Earth?
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Transit Method
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Which detection method was used by the Kepler Mission?
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Farther from its star
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For a planet of a particular mass, the astrometric method will detect the largest stellar motion if the planet orbits ___________
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Transit and Doppler
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To determine a planet's average density, we can use the ______ methods together
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several thousand planet candidates
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Kepler spacecraft had discovered in total several _____ planets candidates during all the time of its operation, most of them are thought to be real planets.
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• Corona (first) • Chromosphere • Photosphere
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Layers of the Sun's atmosphere
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• Photosphere (highest) • Chromosphere • Corona
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Density of layers of the Sun's atmosphere
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• Corona (hottest) • Chromosphere • Photosphere
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Temperature of layers of the Sun's atmosphere
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• Corona (highest) • Chromosphere • Photosphere
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Energy of photons in the layers of Sun's atmosphere
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Core
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Nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium occurs in the ____
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Convection zone
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Energy moves through the Sun's __________ by means of the rising of hot gas and falling of cool gas
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Photosphere
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Nearly all the visible light we see from the Sun is emitted from the ________.
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Chromosphere
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Most of the Sun's UV light is emitted from the narrow layer called the _____ where temperature increases with altitude.
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Corona
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We can see the Sun's ____ most easily during total solar eclipses.
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Radiation zone
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The _________ is the layer of the Sun between its core and convection zone.
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• An increase in the core temperature- Increases the fusion rate because the fusion rate is very sensitive to temperature • A decrease in the core radius- A decrease in the core radius causes the core to heat up and increase in density, which therefore leads to an increased fusion rate.
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Would cause the fusion rate in the Sun's core to increase
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• If the fusion rate initially increases, then the core expands- Increasing the fusion rate releases more energy into the core, which raises the temperature and increases the internal pressure, causing the core to expand. • If the fusion rate initially decreases, then the core contracts- Decreasing the fusion rate means less energy is released, so the temperature and internal pressure decreases.
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Must occur for a star's core to reach equilibrium after an initial change in fusion rate
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The Sun's core would start to heat up and the rate of fusion would increase even more.
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What would happen if the fusion rate in the core of the Sun were increased but the core could not expand?
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Helium, energy, and neutrinos
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At the center of the Sun, fusion converts hydrogen into
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Photons
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Solar energy leaves the core of the Sun in the form of
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Changes in the organization of the SUn's magnetic field
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What causes the cycle of solar activity?
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• Rocky core • High pressure water • Liquid hydrogen and helium
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Uranus and Neptune have similar interiors
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FIND
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If you observe a star rising directly in the east, where do you need to look to see it when it is at its highest position above the horizon?
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We would continue to experience seasons in the same way we do now.
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Imagine that the Earth's orbit were changed to a perfect circle about the Sun so that the distance to the Sun never changed. How would this affect the seasons?
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FIND
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Why do the patterns of the stars in our sky look the same from year to year?
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the planets would all be marble size or smaller and the nearest stars would be thousands of miles away.
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If we represent the solar system on a scale that allow us to walk from the Sun to Pluto in a few minutes, then
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Full phase and crossing Earth's orbital plane
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In what phase and location described below will the Moon by when a lunar eclipse occurs?
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14 billion years
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What is the approximate age of the Universe?
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Full
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If the Moon is in a first quarter phase now, in which phase will it be one week from now?
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Collection of a few million to a trillion or more stars, bound together by gravity.
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A typical galaxy is a
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over many days or weeks, the planet moves westward relative to the stars, rather than the usual eastward relative to the stars
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During the time that a planet is in its period of apparent retrograde motion
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Synodic month (29.5 days)
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The time it takes the moon to go from one new phase to the next phase to the next new phase is called a
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Less than half
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During the waxing crescent moon phase, how much of the illuminated portion of the Moon's surface is visible from Earth?
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Yes if we had a big enough telescope
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Could we see a galaxy that is 20 billion light years away?
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FIND OUT
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Relative to the age of the universe, how old is our solar system?
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be moving away from us, with more distant ones moving faster
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Astronomers infer that the universe is expanding because distance galaxies all appear to
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The plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun
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What is the ecliptic plane
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Counterclockwise
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The direction of Earth's rotation is
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It is the slight back and forth shifting of stars positions that occurs as we view the stars from different positions in Earth's orbit of the Sun
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What is the stellar parallax?
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Time
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A light year is a unit of
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A few miles
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If the Milky Way were shrunk down to the size of a tennis ball, the nearest large galaxy to us would be at a distance of
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Sunrise
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A new moon rises at
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More than 3
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If the moon is in the new phase today, how many of the Moon phases (5) would the Moon go through during the next 14 days?
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The axis points toward Vega
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In winter, Earth's axis points toward the star Polaris, In spring
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60° N
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Which latitude gets 20 hours of sunlight on the northern hemisphere summer solstice?
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Earth is passing by Mars in its orbit around the Sun
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What is really happening in space during the periods when we see Mars going through apparent retrograde motion?
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FIND OUT
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Size of the following objects from smallest to largest
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FIND OUT
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Why did Ptolemy have the planets orbiting Earth on "circles upon circles" in his model of the universe?
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26 protons, 30 neutrons, 26 electrons
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An atom of the element iron has an atomic number of 26 and an atomic mass number of 56. If it is neutral, how many protons, neutrons, and electrons does it have?
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FIND OUT
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Kepler's second law, which states that as a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out equal areas in equal times, means that
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The ball has a velocity that is upward and an acceleration that is downward
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You throw a ball straight up in the air. On its way up, what can you say about its velocity and acceleration?
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FIND OUT
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Galileo observed which of the following phases of Venus
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Mass, velocity, and radius
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What quantities does angular momentum depend upon?
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Increase by a factor of four
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According to the universal law of gravitation, if you double the mass of both attracting objects, then the gravitational force between them will
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Io will have the shorter period
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Jupiter's moon Europa orbits at an average distance of 420,000 miles and Jupiter's moon Io orbits at an average distance of 262,000 miles. According to Kepler's 3rd Law,
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Kepler
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He discovered that the orbits of planets of ellipse
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FIND OUT
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The mass of Jupiter can be calculated by
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FIND OUT
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Suppose that a planet is moving in its elliptical path around its star. If for some reason the planet were to stop moving, what would happen?
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Tycho Brahe
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The best naked eye astronomer of all time is
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Kinetic energy
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Thermal energy would be classified as a type of
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Ball B
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Two balls of identical mass are held above the Earth's surface. Ball A is held one meter above the ground and Ball B is held 2 meters above the ground. WHich ball has the greater gravitational potential energy?
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Earth and you exert equal magnitude forces on each other
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Is the force that Earth exerts on you larger, smaller, or the same as the force you exert on it?
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Shorter
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The higher the energy of a photon, the _____ its wavelength is.
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FIND OUT
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According to the universal law of gravitation, if you quadruple the distance between two objects, then the gravitational force between them
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FIND OUT
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As we talked about in class, the size of a telescope indicates the diameter of its primary mirror or lens. Bigger is always better, but exactly how much better is a 12 inch reflecting telescope compared to a 6 inch reflecting telescope?
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Mass
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Suppose that the radius of the planet's orbit is able to be determined from the measured Doppler shifts. Using Newton's version of Kepler's 3rd Law, what property of the orbited star could be determined from such information?
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FIND OUT
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What would happen to the core of the Sun if its temperature rose slightly?
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FIND OUT
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Which of the following was the planet that formed at the nearest location to the Sun that was at a temperature below the freezing point of water?
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Helium, gamma rays, and neutrinos
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At the center of the Sun, nuclear fusion converts hydrogen into
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Collide
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Suppose to try to bring protons close together. Because of the electromagnetic force, the two protons will
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They have very few, if any, satellites
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What is not a characteristic of the outer planets?
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ts amplitude would increase
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Suppose the mass of the planet were increased. What would happen to the radial velocity curve?
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Radius and Mass
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What two quantities need to be measured in order to determine the density of a planet?
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FIND OUT
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According to our present theory of solar system formation, how did Earth end up with enough water to make oceans?
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FIND OUT
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What is a consequence of the discovery of hot Jupiters for the nebular theory of solar system formation?
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FIND OUT
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According to our theory of solar system formation, which law best explains why the central regions of the solar nebula got hotter as the nebula shrank in size?
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In its core
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Where does nuclear fusion occur in the Sun?
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The temperature at which various materials will condense from gaseous form to solid from.
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What is the primary basis upon which we divide the ingredients of the solar nebula into the four categories (hydro/helium; hydro compounds; rock; metal) ?
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Several hundred thousand years ago
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The light radiated from the Sun's surface reaches Earth in about 8 minutes. However, the energy of this light was released by fusion in the Sun's core about
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They are regions that significantly cooler than the rest of the photosphere.
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Why do sunspots appear dark?
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The winding of magnetic field lines due to the Sun's rotation
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Which of the following processes is involved in the sunspot cycle?
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Astrometric
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Which planetary detection technique is good for finding massive planets orbiting far from their star?
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Yes
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Is the transit method for finding extrasolar planets likely to detect an Earth-like planet in an Earth-like orbit?
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No
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Is the Doppler technique for finding extrasolar planets likely to detect an Earth-like planets in an Earth-like orbit?
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FIND OUT
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According to sunspot observations, the Sun appears to complete one rotation about every
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Jovian planets would have formed closer to the Sun
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How would the solar system be different if the solar nebula had cooled with a temperature half its current value?
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Transit
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Which technique for finding extrasolar planets is employed by the Kepler satellite?
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The core temperature would be higher than the Sun's
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Most stars fuse hydrogen into helium in their cores, similar to the Sun. Suppose, however, that a star is fusing helium into carbon in it core. How would the temperature in the core of this star compare to that of the Sun?
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FIND OUT
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The proton proton chain is
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FIND OUT
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Which layer of the Sun is the hottest?
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The star
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As an extrasolar planet orbits around a star, the gravitational attraction between the two objects causes the star to make a small orbit around the system's center of mass. Which object travels in the smaller orbit?
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They both take the same amount of time
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As an extrasolar planet orbits around a star, the gravitational attraction between the two objects causes the star to make a small orbit around the system's center of mass. Which object takes a greater amount of time to complete one orbit?
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Transit
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Which is the only planet detection method allows for determining the radius of the planet?
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11 years
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What is the average length of time between solar maxima?
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FIND OUT
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What is the habitable zone of a star?
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FIND OUT
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Why are solar neutrinos so important?
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It is a Jupiter like planet that orbits very close to its star
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What is a hot Jupiter?
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FIND OUT
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What happens to energy in the Sun's convection zone?
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FIND OUT
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A positron
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The radiation zone
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What is the name of the layer of the Sun that is just above the core?
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Chromosphere
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What part of the Sun is primarily responsible for the solar UV radiation we receive on Earth?
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Comets
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Leftover ice rich planetesimals from the formation of the solar system are called
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4.5 billion years
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About how old is the solar system?
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Hydrogen and helium
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The composition of the solar nebula was 98%
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the Earth-Sun distance
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Before we can use parallax to measure the distance to a nearby star, we first need to know __________.
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Hold up your hand in front of your face, and alternately close your left and right eyes.
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Which of the following is a valid way of demonstrating parallax for yourself?
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Earth's orbit around the Sun.
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Stellar parallax is caused by
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smaller its parallax angle
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The more distant a star, the __________.
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0.16 arcsecond
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Approximately what is the parallax angle of a star that is 20 light-years away?
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3.3 light-years
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Suppose that a star had a parallax angle of exactly 1 arcsecond. Approximately how far away would it be, in light-years?
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A Blue white dwarf Sun An orange main sequence Star A red super giant star
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Surface Area- Highest Temperature to Lowest temperature
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less luminous, cooler, smaller, and less massive
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Compared to a main-sequence star with a short lifetime, a main-sequence star with a long lifetime is __________.
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cooler and larger in radius
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Compared to a high-luminosity main-sequence star, stars in the upper right of the H-R diagram are __________.
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hotter and smaller in radius
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Compared to a low-luminosity main-sequence star, stars in the lower left of the H-R diagram are __________.
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get smaller.
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If the star Alpha Centauri were moved to a distance 10 times farther than it is now, its parallax angle would
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apparent brightness and distance
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What do we need to measure in order to determine a star's luminosity?
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the time between eclipses and the average distance between the stars
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What two pieces of information would you need in order to measure the masses of stars in an eclipsing binary system?
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luminosity
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The total amount of power (in watts, for example) that a star radiates into space is called its _________.
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Its apparent brightness will decrease by a factor of 9.
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According to the inverse square law of light, how will the apparent brightness of an object change if its distance to us triples?
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M
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Which of these stars has the longest lifetime? A, G, or M
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orbital period and average orbital distance
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To calculate the masses of stars in a binary system, we must measure their _________.
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a cold, dense gas cloud
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What kind of gas cloud is most likely to give birth to stars?
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an anti-electron
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In the proton-proton cycle, the positron is
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4 protons = 1 helium 4 + 2 neutrinos + gamma rays
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Which is the net result of the proton-proton chain?
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top left
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On the H-R diagram, the bright blue stars that dominate the naked-eye sky lie
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about the middle of the main sequence
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On the H-R diagram, the Sun lies
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lower left
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On the H-R diagram, white dwarfs (like Sirius B and Procyon B) lie
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top right
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On the H-R diagram, red supergiants (like Betelguese) lie
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OBAFGKM (Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me)
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From hottest to coolest, the order of the spectral types of stars is _________.
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A cluster whose brightest main-sequence stars are white
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Which of these star clusters is youngest?
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a cluster whose brightest main-sequence stars are yellow
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Which of these star clusters is oldest?
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- Chain of fusion reactions in which four protons combine to form a nucleus of helium - Most important energy-producing nuclear process taking place inside low mass stars like sun
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What is the proton-proton chain?
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M (longest) G A O (shortest) Smaller stars take longer to go through all stages of life than do more massive stars, so they also take longer to reach the main sequence.
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Rank based on the time each takes, from longest to shortest, to go from a protostar to a main-sequence star during the formation process.
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O (highest pressure) A G M (lowest pressure)
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Rank the stars based on the strength of the radiation pressure that pushes outward as they are forming, from highest pressure to lowest pressure.
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Contracting cloud of gas and dust (first) Protostar Main sequence G star Red Giant Planetary nebula White dwarf (last)
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Rank the stages based on when they occur, from first to last.
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Contracting cloud of gas and dust (first) Protostar Main sequence G star Red Super Giant Supernova Neutron star (last)
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Rank the stages for a high mass star, from first to last.
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Helium Carbon Oxygen Iron
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Rank the elements based on when they are produced during fusion in the core of a high mass main sequence star, from first to last.
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-Have higher fusion rate during main sequence life -Late in life fuse carbon into heavier elements -End life as a supernova
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Characteristics of High Mass Star
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-Have longer lifetimes -Final corpse is a white dwarf -End life as a planetary nebula -Example= sun
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Characteristics of Low Mass Star
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Supernova
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The Crab Nebula is the result of a _____ that was witnessed on Earth in 1054.
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High mass star
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Betelgeuse is a supergiant star that will eventually supernova, which means that by mass it is classified as a _______
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Supernova remnant
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The debris from the death of a high-mass star forms a ________ several light years across.
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Neutron star
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A __________ has a density higher than the density of a white dwarf.
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Supernova 1987A
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____________ actually occurred about 150,000 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
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CNO Cycle
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The _______ is the process by which hydrogen fusion proceeds in high-mass stars.
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Helium capture reaction
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Carbon can be converted into oxygen in the cores of high-mass stars if carbon nuclei undergo a ______
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Cold and dense
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Stars can form most easily in clouds that are
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an object not quite massive enough to be a star
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A brown dwarf is
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Its luminosity goes down.
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What happens to a low-mass star after helium flash?
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a white dwarf
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What would you be most likely to find if you returned to the solar system in 10 billion years?
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a red giant
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Which of these stars does not have fusion occurring in its core?
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Nuclear fusion would not occur in stars of any mass.
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What would stars be like if hydrogen had the smallest mass per nuclear particle?
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It shrinks and heats up.
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What happens to the core of a high-mass star after it runs out of hydrogen?