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Star

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a large glowing ball of gas that generates head and light through nuclear fusion in its core. *sun is a star

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planet

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a large object that orbits a star and shines marily by reflecting light from its star.

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Considered planet only if:

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orbits a star, large enough to on gravity to make it round, has cleared most other objects from its orbital path.

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Moon

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an object that orbits a planet

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asteroids

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a relatively small and rocky object that orbits a star.

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comets

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a relatively small and one-rich object that orbits a star

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Solar system

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sun and all the material that orbits it

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star system

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a star sometimes more than one and any other planets and other materials that orbit it

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galaxy

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a great island of stars in space all held together by gravity and orbiting a common center

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Cluster of galaxies

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a collection of galaxies bound together by gravity.

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supercluster

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a gigantic region of space where many individual galaxies and many groups and clusters of galaxies are packed more closely together than elsewhere in the universe

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universe

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the sum total of all matter and energy- that is all galaxies and everything between them

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observable universe

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the portion of the entire universe that can be seen from Earth

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AU

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The average distance between Earth and the Sun, 150 million km

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LY

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the distance that light can travel in 1 year - 10 trillion km

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rotation

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the spinning of an object around its axis. Ex: Earth rotates once each dat around its axis

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orbit

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the orbital motion of one object around another. Ex: earth orbit around the sun once a year

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Why can't we see a galaxy 15 billion light-years away? (Assume the universe is 14 billion years old.)

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Looking 15 billion light-years away means looking to a time before the universe existed

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How did we come to be?

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The matter in our bodies came from the Big Bang, which produced hydrogen and helium. All other elements were constructed from H and He in stars and then recycled into new star systems, including our solar system.

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How can we know what the universe was like in the past?

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When we look to great distances, we are seeing events that happened long ago because light travels at a finite speed.

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Can we see the entire universe?

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No. The observable portion of the universe is about 14 billion light-years in radius because the universe is about 14 billion years old.

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Let's reduce the size of the solar system by a factor of 10 billion; the Sun is now the size of a large grapefruit (14 cm diameter).

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a tip of a ballpoint pen

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How big is the Earth compared to our solar system?

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On a scale of 1-to-10 billion, the Sun is about the size of a grapefruit. The Earth is the size of a tip of a ballpoint pen about 15 m away. The distances between planets are huge compared to their sizes.

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List our "Cosmic address" from large to small?

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Earth, Solar system, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Local Supercluster, universe.

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When we say the universe is expanding what do we mean

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the average distance between galaxies is growing with time

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If stars existed but galaxies did not,

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we would not exist because we are made of material that was recycled in galaxies

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Could we see a galaxy that is 20 billion light-years away?

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No, because it would be beyond the sounds of our observable universe

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The star betelgeuse is about 425 light-years away. If it explodes tonight,

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we won't know about it until 425 years later from now

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If we represented the solar system on a scale that allowed us to walk from the Sun to Pluto in a few minutes, then

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the planet would all be marl-size or smaller and the nearest stars would be a thousand of miles away

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The total number of stars in the observable universe is roughly equivalent to

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the number of grains of sand on all the beaches on earth

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The age of our solar system is about

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one-third of the universe

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The fact that nearly all galaxies are moving away from the us, with more distant ones moving faster, tell us that

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the universe is expanding

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Two stars that are in the same constellation

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may actually be very far away from each other

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The north celestial pole is 35 degrees above your northern horizon. This tells you that

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you are at latitude 35 degrees North

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Beijing ans Philadelphia have about the same latitude but very different longitudes. Therefore, tonight's night sky in these two places

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will look about the same

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In winter, Earth axis points toward the starPolaris. In spring,

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the axis also points toward Polaris

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When it is summer in Australia, the season in the United States is

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Winter

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If the sun rises precisely due east,

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it must be the day of either the spring or fall equinox

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A week after full moon, the phase is

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a third quarter

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Some type of lunar or solar eclipse occur

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at least four times a year

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When we see saturn going through a period of apparent retrograde motion, it means

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Earth is passing Saturn in its orbit, with both planets on the same side of the sun

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If there is going to be a total lunar eclipse tonight, then you know that

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the Moon phase is full

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In the Greek geocentric model, the retrograde motion of a planet occurs when

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the planet actually goes backward in its orbit around Earth

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Which is not a major advantage of Copernicus's sun-centered model over the Ptolemaic model?

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it made significantly better predictions of the planetary positions in our sky

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When we say that a planet has a highly eccentric orbit, we mean that

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in some parts of its orbit it is much closer to the sun than in other parts

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Earth is closer to the sun in January then in July. Therefore, in accord with Kepler's second law,

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Earth travels faster in its orbits around the Sun in January than in July

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According to Kepler's 3rd law,

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JUpiter orbits the sun at a faster speed then Saturn

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Tycho Brahe's contribution to astronomy included

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collecting data that enabled Kepler to discover the laws of planetary motion

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Galileo's contribution to astronomy included

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making observations and conducting experiments that dispelled scientific objections to the Sun-centered model

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What is not true about scientific process?

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science advances only through the scientific methods

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What is not true about a scientific theory?

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A theory is essentially an educated guess

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Example that describes an object that is accelerating

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a car going around a circular track at a steady 100 miles per hour

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Suppose you visit another planet

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your mass would be the same as on Earth, but your weight would be different

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Which person is weightless?

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a child in the air as she plays the trampoline

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Consider that statement "there's no gravity in space" this statement is

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Completely false

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to make a rocket turn left, you need to

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fire an engine that shoots out gas to the right

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compared to its angular momentum when it is farthest from the Sun, Earth's angular momentum when it os nearest to the sun is

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the same

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the gravitational potential energy of a contracting interstellar cloud

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gradually transforms into other forms of energy

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If earth were twice as far from the Sun, the force of gravity attracting Earth to the Sun would be

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one-quarter as strong

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According to the law of universal graviton, what would happen to Earth if the SUn were somehow replaced by a black hole of the same mass?

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Earths orbits would not change

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If the Moon were closer to Earth, high tides would

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be higher than they are now

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Why is a sunflower yellow?

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it reflects yellow light

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Blue light has higher frequency than red light. Blue light therefore has

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higher energy and shorter wavelength than red light

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Radio waves are

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a form of light

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Compared to an atom as a whole an atomic nucleas

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is very tiny but has most of the mass

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some nitrogen atoms have 7 neutrons and some have 8 neutrons; these 2 forms of nitrogen are

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isotopes of each other

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the set of spectral lines that we see in a star's spectrum depends on the star's

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atomic structure

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a star whose spectrum peaks in the infrared is

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cooler than our sun

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a spectral line that appears at a wavelength of 328 nm in the spectrum of a distant object. We say that the objects spectrum is

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Red Shifted

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how much greater is the light-collecting area of a 6-meter telescope than that of a 3-meter telescope?

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4 times

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The Hubble space telescope obtains higher-resolution images than most ground-based telescope because it is

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above Earths' atmosphere

CH 1-5 :Astronomy – Flashcards

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