Astronomy Test 2 Answers – Flashcards

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What is not true about the time and duration of prayer?
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It is fixed each year by the time and duration of prayers in Mecca
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All of the following are true about the Islamic calendar except
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It is a solar calendar
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The qibla can be found by
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Using a great circle joining any location in the world and Mecca
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All of the following are true about the Hilal except:
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It is easy to spot in the clear skies of the Middle East
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When light enters the atmosphere, the angle at which it travels changes. This occurs because the light is ______. Because of this, if the Sun is seen near the horizon, it will actually be_____.
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refracted, lower than it appears
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The Metonic cycle is the
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19-year period over which the lunar phases occur on about the same dates
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The main difference between as astrolabe and an equatorium is that
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The astrolabe can be used to calculate the yearly motion of the stars while the equatorium focuses on planetary position over many years
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The main contribution of Islamic astronomy was
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Improving the accuracy over Greek observations by using larger instruments
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The Alfonsine Table was
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A table of calculated planetary positions using the method of Ptolemy
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The problem with Ptolemy's model of the Moon's orbit, namely that its distance would vary by a factor of two contrary to the observations of its angular size was improved by
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Al-Shatir
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The Middle Ages marks a period between
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The fall of Rome and the fall of Constantinople
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The real significance of Copernicus's book De Revolutionibus was that it
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Reintroduced the idea of a heliocentric universe and presented arguments for it
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Which of the following is not one of the three new aspects on astronomy introduced by Copernicus?
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The introduction of a mathematical method to calculate the absolute distance to the planets
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The Nuptials of Philology and Mercury
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Outlines the seven Liberal Arts
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The "Easter Problem" in Christendom was
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Determining the date of Easter from astronomical observations each year
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The person responsible for getting Copernicus to write up his researches on planetary models was
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Rheticus
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The first planetary tables that were based on Copernicus' heliocentric models were Erasmus Reinhold's
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Prutenic Tables
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The controversial book of this famous person published in 1543, suggested that the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun
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Copernicus
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The date of Easter in the Julian calendar was calculated by
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Using a 532 year cycle that combines 19 year and 28 years
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Which of the following is NOT one the "seven Liberal Arts"
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History
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The accurate measurements of the Earth circumference using trigonometry and a mountain overlooking a true horizon was made by
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Biruni
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The Tusi couple is
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a way to describe linear motion by using a circle rolling inside the circumference of another circle with twice the radius
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The introduction of sines into trigonometry in place of chords and derivation of a rigorous formula for a spherical triangle were achievements of
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al-Battani
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The following is not an use for astronomy in the Islamic world
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explaining the origin of the world
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Charlomagne was responsible for all of the following except
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Translation of the Almagest
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The person responsible for completely reconciling the doctrine of the Catholic Church with Aristotle was
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Thomas Aquinas
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All of the following influenced the revival of astronomy in Europe except
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The discovery of Greek writings hidden in caves outside Rome
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The concept of impetus was introduced by medieval professors Buridan and Oresme to explain
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Forced motion as opposed to natural vertical motion in Aristotle's philosophy
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The so-called Maragha School of planetary theory was established at the observatory of that name by
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al-Tusi
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The major observatory of the Islamic period which was lavishly equipped with instruments and had a large staff but only lasted a few years because its astrology failed?
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Istanbul
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Which of the following statements about astrology during the Islamic period is true?
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It was acceptable as a part of medical practice
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The creation of new techniques to determine the qibla, even including atmospheric refraction was by
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Ibn-Yunus
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The term in Arabic for the earliest waxing crescent Moon each month is
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hilal
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All of the following was true about Aristotle's philosophy during the Middle Ages except
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was universally accepted
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The university textbook New Theory of the Planets used in the Middle Ages was written by
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Peurbach and Regiomontanus
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When Copernicus first created his Sun-centered model of the universe, it did not lead to substantially better predictions of planetary positions than the Ptolemaic model. Why not?
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Copernicus used perfect circles for the orbits of the planets
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At universities in Europe during the Middle Ages, the most important subject was
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Theology
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What did Kepler teach in Graz?
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Mathematics
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Tycho Brahe is most famous for
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Accurate observations of planets and stars
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If a planet has a period of 8 years, according to Kepler's third law, it will have a semi-major axis of
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4 AU
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Which book did Johannes Kepler write in 1596 in defense of Copernican System?
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Mysterium Cosmographicum
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Kepler third law states that the relationship between orbital period and semimajor axis is
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P^2=a^3
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Kepler presented his second and first (in that order) laws of motion in the following book
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Nova Astronomia
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What did Johannes Kepler discover
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Laws of Planetary Motions
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Tycho Brahe used the following observation to disprove for the first time, Aristotle's doctrine that nothing ever changes in the superlunary region
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the new star of 1572
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According to Kepler's first law, all orbits of planets are
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Ellipses
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The planetary tables that used Tycho's data and Kepler's Laws of planetary motions were
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Rudolphine Tables
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The first model to accurately predict the position of the planets was created by
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Ptolemy
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Which of the following features of Ptolemy's epicyclic models was the one that was most objected to by others?
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the equant
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Hipparchus
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placed the brightest stars in the first magnitude and the faintest in the sixth
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Magnitudes
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Describe apparent brightness
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