Astronomy HW Questions (Ch. 11-14) – Flashcards
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Which of these layers of the Sun is coolest?
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photosphere
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Sunspots appear darker than their surroundings because they
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are cooler than their surroundings.
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At the center of the Sun, fusion converts hydrogen into
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helium, energy, and neutrinos
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Solar energy leaves the core of the Sun in the form of
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photons.
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What causes the cycle of solar activity?
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changes in the organization of the Sun's magnetic field
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What do we need to measure in order to determine a star's luminosity?
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apparent brightness and distance
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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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the time between eclipses and the average distance between the stars
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Which of these stars has the greatest surface temperature?
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a 30 MSun main-sequence star
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A brown dwarf is
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an object not quite massive enough to be a star
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Which of these stars does not have fusion occurring in its core?
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a red giant
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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 white dwarf
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What happens to the core of a high-mass star after it runs out of hydrogen?
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It shrinks and heats up.
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Fusion of a carbon nucleus with another carbon nucleus.
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24Mg(12p,12n)
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Fusion of an iron nucleus with a helium nucleus.
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60Ni(28p,32n)
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Fusion of a carbon nucleus with a neon nucleus.
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32S(16p,16n)
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What would happen to a neutron star with an accretion disk orbiting in a direction opposite to the neutron star's spin?
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Its spin would slow down
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Which of these binary systems is most likely to contain a black hole?
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an X-ray binary containing an O star and another object of equal mass
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Viewed from a distance, how would a flashing red light appear as it fell into a black hole?
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Its flashes would shift to the infrared part of the spectrum.
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Where do gamma-ray bursts tend to come from?
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extremely distant galaxies
