Mercury, Venus, and Earth have similar densities.
The surface of Io looks most like the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean of Earth.
In blackbody radiation, the energy is radiated uniformly in every region of the
spectrum, so the radiating body appears black in color.
Millisecond pulsars are never members of close binary systems.
If a fire truck’s siren is rising in pitch, it must be approaching us.
RR Lyrae stars pulsate, but with shorter periods and lower luminosities than Cepheids.
The radiation era lasted for only the first few billion years of the Big Bang.
Our surveys of the Galactic Center are better done in infrared than visible light.
The additional energy given off by active galaxies is because of their higher stellar
density.
The seasonal polar caps on Mars, which grow and shrink over the year, are primarily
carbon dioxide.
The Hipparcos satellite has extended our accurate parallax distance measurements to
over 200 parsecs.
In some cases, we have seen extrasolar planets pass in front of their stars.
The celestial sphere is divided into 88 modern constellations.
Mercury has the widest variation in surface temperatures between night and day of any
planet in the solar system.
In the Doppler effect, a red shift of spectral lines shows us the source is receding from
us.
Emission nebulae get their red color from the red supergiants forming in them.
The rapid decline in quasars 10 billion years ago signifies a rapid decline in galactic
mergers.
The two stellar populations are extremes, but, in fact, stars with intermediate properties
are common.
21-cm radio waves are emitted by all molecular hydrogen.
A massive star can fuse only up to the element silicon in its core.
The Compton GRO was the first telescope used for our exploration of high-energy
astronomy.
Pluto is smaller than many moons in the solar system.
The density wave theory attempts to explain why the spiral arm structure persists over a
long time.
Methane absorbs red light readily, so we would expect a planet with a mostly methane
atmosphere to appear blue.
As a main-sequence star, the Sun’s hydrogen supply should last about 10 billion years
from the zero-age main sequence until its evolution to the giant stages.
Interstellar matter is distributed very evenly throughout the galaxy.
Type Sc are the dustiest and flattest of the galaxies.
The Milky Way is similar in many ways to M31, the Andromeda Galaxy.
The spectra of the oldest stars show the most heavy elements.
According to Newton’s first law, an object traveling in a circle does not have a force
acting on it.
Which of these binaries would appear most similar in color telescopically?
A) F0V and G9III
B) M1V and K9V
C) A2Ia and F7Ia
D) O2V and M4Ia
E) F3IV and G8III
If it gains sufficient mass from a binary companion, a white dwarf can become a
A) brown dwarf.
B) Type II supernova.
C) Type I supernova.
D) planetary nebula.
E) black dwarf.
On the H-R diagram, white dwarfs Sirius B and Procyon B lie
A) at the top left.
B) at the top right.
C) close to the Sun, near the center.
D) at the lower left.
E) at the lower right.
According to Copernicus, the retrograde motion for Mars must occur
A) at inferior conjunction, when Mars laps the Earth and passes between us and the
Sun.
B) at superior conjunction, when Mars lies on the far side of the Sun.
C) at quadrature, when Mars lies exactly 90 degrees east or west of the Sun.
D) at greatest elongation, when Mars can get up to 47 degrees from the Sun.
E) at opposition, when the Earth overtakes Mars and passes between Mars and the Sun.
Most of the extrasolar planets found so far were detected by
A) noting the drop in the star’s light as the planet transits its disk.
B) imaging them with the HST in the infrared, where they are easier to stop.
C) noting the Doppler shifts of the star as the planet orbits it from side to side.
D) receiving radio transmissions from them, much like Jupiter emits.
E) detecting the oxygen in their atmospheres spectroscopically.
The Oort Cloud is believed to be
A) a flattened belt of cometary nuclei just beyond the orbit of Neptune.
B) the circular disk of gas around the Sun’s equator from which the planets formed.
C) a grouping of asteroids and meteoroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
D) a spherical cloud of cometary nuclei far beyond the Kuiper Belt.
E) the great nebula found just below the belt stars of Orion.
When an electron in a hydrogen atom drops from the second to the first excited energy
state it emits a bright red emission line called hydrogen alpha.
Relate a nova and a Type I supernova.
The temperature of the photosphere is about
A) 3,200 K.
B) 5,800 K.
C) 11,000 K.
D) one million K.
E) ten million K.
Typically a granule in the photosphere is about
A) the size of a city, 20-30 kilometers across.
B) the size of Texas, about 1,000 km across.
C) the size of our Moon, about 3,000 km across.
D) the size of Earth, around 12,000 km across.
E) as big as Jupiter, around 100,000 km wide.
The presently accepted value of the Hubble constant gives an age of
A) 4.5 billion years.
B) 8-9 billion years.
C) 14 billion years.
D) 18 billion years.
E) 22 billion years.
Which of these variable stars would be classified as a RR Lyrae?
A) a K giant with a period of 14 days
B) an F giant with a period of 14 hours
C) an M giant with a period of 140 days
D) a B supergiant with a period of 0.14 days
E) a pulsar with a period of 0.14 seconds
What is thought to be the cause of Io’s volcanoes?
A) Jupiter’s magnetosphere and its charged particles
B) energy emitted by Jupiter
C) gravitational tidal stresses from both Jupiter and Europa
D) solar radiation focused by Jupiter’s gravity
E) radioactive decay in Io’s interior
Iron meteorites are believed to come from
A) the core of a differentiated asteroid, now broken up.
B) the crust of a differentiated asteroid, now broken up.
C) a broken up cometary nucleus.
D) debris from the Kuiper Belt.
E) interstellar space.
How long ago did multicellular life forms appear in the fossil record?
A) 4.5 billion years ago
B) 3.8 billion years ago
C) one billion years ago
D) 63 million years ago
E) 30 million years ago
What important molecules of life did Miller and Urey brew up?
A) RNA
B) fatty acids
C) lean acids
D) amino acids
E) antacids
The density of interstellar dust is very low, yet it still blocks starlight because
A) it is so cold it absorbs higher energy photons.
B) there is 100 times more opaque gas than dust present in the interstellar medium.
C) the dust particles are about the same size as the light waves they absorb.
D) the dust particles are irregular in shape.
E) ice particles reflect all light back toward their stars, not toward us.
The key to finding quasar’s distances was
A) a Type I supernova in the spiral arm of 3C87.
B) the huge red shifts of the hydrogen lines in 3C273.
C) planetary nebula in M51.
D) the luminosity of 3C52 from the Doppler shift and the Fisher-Tully relation.
E) globular clusters in the halo of M87 in Virgo.
In general, the spectral lines of molecules are
A) more complex than those of atoms.
B) the same as the atoms they contain.
C) only absorption lines.
D) less complex than those of atoms.
E) nonexistent.
The Galileo mission put a spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter. Which statement is true?
A) The spacecraft crashed into the moon Europa.
B) The spacecraft used a gravity assist from both Venus and Earth.
C) A saltwater ocean was discovered on Jupiter.
D) Intense magnetic fields were discovered in the asteroid belt.
E) A probe was released which soft landed on Io.
Between us and the Galactic Center, the Milky Way has a mass of
A) several hundred thousand Suns.
B) one to two million Suns.
C) 250 million Suns.
D) 100 billion Suns.
E) over a trillion Suns.
Which of the following is not icy in composition?
A) comet nuclei
B) Kuiper Belt Objects
C) the polar cap of Mars
D) asteroids
E) most jovian satellites
In our location in the Milky Way, the galactic disk is only about ________ ly thick.
A) 10
B) 100
C) 1,000
D) 10,000
E) 100,000
Which statement is true of Venus’ surface?
A) There are two continent sized uplands.
B) It has remained unchanged for billions of years.
C) Atmospheric pressure is very low.
D) There is an extensive hydrosphere.
E) There are no shield volcanoes.
What did radar astronomers find in the polar regions of Mercury?
A) rift valleys
B) large mare basins, such as near our Moon’s south pole
C) temperatures cold enough to allow thin sheets of water ice
D) polar caps of dry ice that vary seasonally, much like Mars
E) auroral displays much like Earth’s
Which of these moons are most interesting to exobiologists?
A) Io and Enceladus
B) Europa and Titan
C) Titan and Triton
D) Europa and Miranda
E) Triton and Charon
Kepler’s first law worked, where Copernicus’ original heliocentric model failed, because
Kepler described the orbits as
A) elliptical, not circular.
B) much larger than Copernicus had envisioned.
C) around the Sun, not the Earth.
D) being on equants instead of epicycles.
E) complex, with epicycles to account for retrograde motions.
The satellite that found the ripples in the cosmic background that led to galaxies is
A) SOHO.
B) the Hubble Space Telescope.
C) the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
D) COBE.
E) the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.
What are constellations?
A) Groups of galaxies gravitationally bound and close together in the sky.
B) Groups of stars making an apparent pattern in the celestial sphere.
C) Groups of stars gravitationally bound and appearing close together in the sky.
D) Ancient story boards, useless to modern astronomers.
E) Apparent groupings of stars and planets visible on a given evening.
What temperature is needed to fuse helium into carbon?
A) 5,800 K
B) 100,000 K
C) 15 million K
D) 100 million K
E) one billion K
A fatal flaw with Ptolemy’s model is its inability to predict the observed phases of
A) the Sun during an eclipse.
B) the Moon in its monthly cycle.
C) Mercury and Venus.
D) Mars and Jupiter.
E) Jupiter and Saturn.
Two important properties of young neutron stars are
A) extremely slow rotation and a strong magnetic field.
B) extremely rapid rotation and a weak magnetic field.
C) extremely rapid rotation and a strong magnetic field.
D) no rotation and a weak magnetic field.
E) no rotation and no magnetic field.
On the H-R diagram, the Sun lies
A) at the top left.
B) at the bottom left.
C) at the bottom right.
D) about the middle of the main sequence.
E) at the top right.
A body in orbit about a planet is a ________.
Explain the colors of emission nebulae.
What happens to most of the solar neutrinos between the Sun’s core and Earth?
What type of galaxy are the two Magellanic Clouds? How do we know this visually?
Why do blue stragglers show up in globular clusters?
Planets with orbital semimajor axes less than 0.1 AU are called ________.
Compare and contrast Jupiter and the brown dwarf in the Gliese 229 system.
The quasar epoch ended when the galactic merger rate ________.
The Local Group consists of about ________ galaxies.
A binary star system is one with two stars orbiting each other. How can the Doppler
Effect be used to find binary stars whose orbital plane is along our line of sight and
determine their periods?
Why does conversion of its core to iron have to mark the end of a star’s life? Which
stars can end up with iron cores?
The neap tide can occur at the ________ or ________ phases of the Moon.
Contrast the roles of dark matter and dark energy in the fate of the cosmos.
Why do the millisecond pulsars violate the usual rotation pattern for pulsars?
Why do we believe galaxy clusters are rich in dark matter?
Define the solar constant.
At its current rate of consuming hydrogen, the Sun can stably shine for ________.