Mastering Astronomy Chapter 1 Reading Quiz (Final Exam Review) – Flashcards
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What is not a general difference between a planet and a star?
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All planets are made of rock and all stars are made of gas
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What makes up our Solar System?
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The sun and all of the objects that orbit the stars
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What is a typical galaxy?
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a collection of a few million to a trillion or more stars, bound together by gravity
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What best describes what we mean by the universe?
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The sum total of all mass and energy
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What do astronomers mean by the Big Bang?
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The event that marked the beginning of the expansion of the universe
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What do people mean when we they that the universe is expanding?
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Average distances between galaxies are increasing with time
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Based on observations of the universal expansion, what is the age of the universe
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14 billion years
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Why does a television advertisement that claims that a product is light-years ahead of its time does not make sense?
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it uses "light-years" to talk about time, but a light-year is a unit of distance
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Observable Universe
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the portion of the universe that we can see in principle, given the current age of the universe
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On a scale in which the distance from Earth to the Sun is about 15 meters, what is the distance from Earth to the Moon?
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small enough to fit within your hand
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On a scale where the Sun is about the size of a grapefruit and the Earth is about 15 meters away, how far away are the nearest stars besides the Sun?
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About the distance across the United States
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What is the approximate number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy?
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a few hundred billion
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Astronomical Unit (AU)
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the average distance between the Earth and the Sun
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What is the ecliptic plane?
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The plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun
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How long does it take the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun?
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One year
