Chapter 1 – Space Answers – Flashcards
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Aristotle's model was 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 the Earth is at the center of the universe.
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False
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Copernicus's theories gained widespread scientific acceptance during his own lifetime.
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False
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Tycho's observations of the sky were made with the naked eye
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True
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The speed of a planet orbiting the Sun depends on the planet's distance from the Sun
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True
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Kepler's law hold only for the 6 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 is that it still had circular orbits for the planets
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True
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An accurate sketch of Mars's orbit around the Sun would show a slightly elliptical orbit
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True
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Cell phones, radio stations, and nuclear decays all produce light waves
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True
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The shape of a black body curve depends only on the temperature of an object
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True
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The light coming from a very not gas of hydrogen has a continuous emission spectrum
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False
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If the wavelength of light from hydrogen emitted by a star is shorter than expected, the star is moving towards us
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True
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The fact that different atoms, when heated, give off different colors of light, is a manifestation of Newton's third law of gravity
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False
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How long does it take light to travel a distance of one light year?
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One year of about pi x 10^7 seconds
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What is the unit that we use to measure distances in the solar system?
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The astronomical unit or AU is very convenient
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If Earth rotated on its axis twice as fast as it currently does, but its motion around the Sun stayed the same, then
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The night would be half as long. Faster rotation would mean shorter days and nights
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A long thin cloud that stretched from directly overhead to the western horizon would have an angular size of
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90 degrees
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When a thin crescent of the Moon is visible just before sunrise, the Moon is in its
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Waning phase ( look at figure 0.13 for this question)
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According to Figure 0.8 ("The Zodiac") in the text book pg. 8, in December we would see the Sun in the direction of the constellation(s)
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Sagittarius and Capricorn
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If the Moon's orbit around the Earth were a little larger, solar eclipses would be
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more likely to be annular
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What two pieces of info are needed to determine the diameter of a far away object
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Distance and angular size
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The seasons are caused by the precession of Earth's axis
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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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From Lecture Notes: The most northern location on Earth where the Sun can be seen directly overhead at noon is called
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The tropic of cancer
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From Lecture Notes: WHat is the apporximate position of Polaris on the Celestial Sphere
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Approx RA 2h30min, Dec= 89 degrees. Anywhere on the Meridian during summer.
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The Age of Aquarius refers to what?
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It means that in the future the vernal equinox will occur in a direction in line with the constellation Aquarius due to the precession of the Earth's axis of rotation
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If you put an apple 10 m away from your eye in line with the moon, what do you predict?
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it would "eclipse the moon
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The alpha star in a constellation is (as seen from Earth)
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The brightest star in a constellation as seen from Earth
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A major flaw in Copernicus's model was that it still had
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circular orbits
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An asteroid with an orbit lying entirely inside Earth's orbit
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has an orbital semimajor axis of less than 1 AU
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Galileo's observations of Venus demonstrated that Venus must be
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orbiting the Sun
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How long would a radar signal take to complete a round trip between Earth to Mars and back to Earth when the two planets are 0.7 AU apart
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about 11.6 minutes. It takes light 8.3 min to go 1 AU
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The light coming from a star has a dominant wavelength of 1000 nm. How hot is the star in degrees Kelvin
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2900 K
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The H-alpha spectral line 656 nm coming from a distant star appears at a wavelength of 100 nm in the spectrometer. What can we say about the star?
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it's moving towards us at 85% of the velocity of light. 3pi10^11
