50 Cards in this Set
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You are standing on the earth's equator. Which way is Polaris ?
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on the northern horizon
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Sun is about . . . larger than the Earth.
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100 times
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(True or False) The largest altitude occurs at the zenith.
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TRUE
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Our address in the correct order:
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USA, Earth, solar system, Milky Way, Local Group, Local Supercluster
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Is this sentence: "In Atlanta, the Sun exactly rises due East and sets exactly due West" (true/false)
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True, but only at the equinoxes
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What is the ecliptic ?
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the Sun's apparent path along the celestial sphere
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By locating the north celestial pole (NCP) in the sky, how can you determine your latitude?
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The altitude of the NCP is the same as your latitude.
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Kepler's second law, which states that as a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out equal areas in equal times, means that:
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a planet travels faster when it is nearer to the Sun and slower when it is farther from the Sun.
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The point of closest planetary approach to the Sun is called
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perihelion
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upiter and Saturn have some satellites that are larger than the Moon (T/F)
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true
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It is the summer solstice. This means:
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summer is starting in the northern hemisphere and winter is starting in the southern hemisphere
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On June 21st (summer solstice) the Sun never sets at the North Pole. (t/f)
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TRUE
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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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What makes Polaris special ?
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It appears very near the north celestial pole
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How many planets (besides Earth) are visible to the unaided eye ?
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5
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Which of the following never goes in retrograde motion ?
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the sun
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What conditions are required for a solar eclipse?
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The phase of the Moon must be new, and the nodes of the Moon's orbit must be nearly aligned with the Earth and the Sun.
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Which of the following is largest ?
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the size of the Milky Way divided by 1,000
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Tycho Brahe is famous for his naked eye observations of
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a supernova a comet planetary motions
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Spring and Fall start:
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at the equinoxes,
when the hemispheres are equally illuminated
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The names of the seven days of the week are based on the:
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seven naked-eye objects that appear to move among the constellations.
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What conditions are required for a lunar eclipse?
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The phase of the Moon must be full, and the nodes of the Moon's orbit must be nearly aligned with the Earth and the Sun.
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If two planets have the same angular diameter but one is four times farther away, then the more distant is . . . times larger than the closer one.
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4
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Why did Ptolemy have the planets orbiting the Earth on "circles upon circles" in his model of the universe?
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to explain the fact that planets sometimes appear to move westward, rather than eastward, relative to the stars in our sky
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How did Eratosthenes estimate the size of the earth in 240 B.C.?
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by comparing the maximum altitude of the Sun in two cities at different latitudes
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Which of the following was not observed by Galileo?
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stellar parallax
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What causes the apparent retrograde motion of the planets?
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As the Earth passes another planet, the other planet appears to move backward with respect to the background stars, but the planet's motion does not really change.
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The nearest star in the sky (other than the Sun) is about how far away
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4 light years
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Suppose you live on the Moon. How long is a lunar day (from sunrise to sunrise) in Earth units ?
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about a month
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Ptolemy was important in the history of astronomy because he:
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developed a model of the solar system that made sufficiently accurate predictions of planetary positions to remain in use for many centuries.
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The apparent diurnal motions of the stars are caused by:
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earths rotation
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He discovered that the orbits of planets are ellipses.
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kepler
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The ancient Greek philosophers realized that if the Earth moved around the Sun then we would see small variations in the angular positions of nearby stars, a variation astronomers call
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parallax
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When Copernicus first created his famous 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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In the Northern hemisphere, the position of the Sun on the meridian:
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depends on your latitude.
is more the North in summer
is at lower altitude in winter
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How many arcseconds are in one degree:
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3,600
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Why do we see essentially the same face of the Moon at all times?
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b/c the Moon's rotational and orbital periods are equal
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There are twelve constellations in the zodiac (t/f)
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f
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What is a circumpolar star?
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a star that is close to the north celestial pole
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The Moon and the Sun appear to have nearly the same angular diameter.
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true
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Why do we have seasons on Earth?
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As the Earth goes around the Sun and the Earth's axis remains pointed toward Polaris, the Northern and Southern hemispheres alternately receive more and less direct sunlight.
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Kepler's third law, P2 = a3, means that
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all orbits with the same semimajor axis have the same period.
a planet's period does not depend on the eccentricity of its orbit.
planets that are farther from the Sun move at slower average speeds than nearer planets.
the period of a planet does not depend on its mass.
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He discovered that Jupiter has moons.
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Galileo
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Copernicus suggested that the Sun rather than the Earth is placed at the center of the Solar System.
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true
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Let's assume the conditions for a solar eclipse fulfilled. If the Moon is relatively far from the earth, so that the umbra does not reach the earth, someone directly behind the umbra will see:
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an annular eclipse.
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What is an astronomical unit ?
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the average distance from the Earth to the Sun
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Tycho Brahe suggested a model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. (t/f)
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false
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Kepler found that the period P of a planet's orbital motion around the Sun was related to the planet's "average" distance a from the Sun according to the following proportionality equa- tion: P2 = a3. What would be the approximate period for a planet located at 5 times the Earth's distanc…
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11.2 years
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Roughly how many stars are in the Milky Way ?
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100 billion
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Jupiter is about . . . larger than the Earth.
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10 times
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ASTR 1010: TEST TWO