Differential rotation is when a planet’s equatorial and polar regions rotate at different
rates.
There is a superforce that separates into the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear
forces below a critical temperature.
Stars do not twinkle; the instability of the atmosphere causes this effect.
Herschel believed the Milky Way was a disk of stars, while Shapley found the extended
halo more like a ball.
As a star’s temperature increases, the frequency of peak emission also increases.
All Cepheids are giants, but not all giant stars are Cepheid variables.
Quasars can emit thousands of times as much energy as normal galaxies.
From full moon to third quarter moon takes about a week.
Seyferts have properties that lie between quasars and normal spiral galaxies.
Our Sun lies about 30,000 light years out from the Galactic Center.
No binary black hole has ever been detected.
In a neutron star, the electrons in the core are all in contact with each other.
Perhaps as much as 95% of the matter in superclusters is dark matter.
In the Local Group, most members are either dwarf ellipticals or spirals.
Primordial nucleosynthesis implies the Big Bang makes all elements up to iron.
We now know of polar caps on Mercury, the Moon, Earth, and Mars.
All RR Lyrae stars are about 5 times the Sun’s luminosity.
Pluto’s orbit has a lower inclination to the ecliptic than any planet.
The least massive red main-sequence stars may have lifetimes of a trillion years.
Samples of the Earth’s molten outer core come directly through the mantle, pour out of
volcanoes, and can be studied in labs.
In the larger clusters, colliding galaxies tend to pass through one another.
Like emission nebulae, planetary nebulae glow because hot stars are causing the gases
to ionize when exposed to strong ultraviolet radiation.
The sidereal day is determined by the Earth’s rotation with respect to the stars.
The rings of Uranus were discovered when it passed in front of a star, and the dark rings
occulted the star several times for brief intervals.
The 400″ Keck reflector can see objects 100 times fainter than the 40″ Yerkes lens.
Shapley found that globular clusters are only found in the Galactic bulge.
A telescope design that uses a lens and no mirrors is a refractor.
Saturn’s rings appear to be brighter and younger than the dirty, dark rings around
Uranus and Neptune.
The darkness of the night is due in part to the cosmological redshift, with the energy of
the most distant objects diluted in the universal expansion.
Gamma-ray bursters seem scattered randomly over the entire sky.
Due to their great masses, all four jovian worlds are much denser than the Earth.
The tidal pull of the Moon is an example of a differential force, as the near and far sides
of the Earth do not experience the same gravitational pull of the Moon.
Most molecules found in the interstellar medium are based on carbon.
Centaurus A is the closest lobe radio galaxy, and may be a collision between a spiral
and an elliptical galaxy.
The time for the Moon to orbit Earth, relative to the stars is
A) 23 hours, 56 minutes.
B) about 7 days.
C) 27.3 days.
D) 29.5 days.
E) 18 years, 11.3 days.
Which of these gases is least abundant in our atmosphere?
A) hydrogen
B) carbon dioxide
C) argon
D) nitrogen
E) oxygen
On the H-R diagram, the bright blue stars that dominate the naked-eye sky lie
A) at the top right.
B) at the top left.
C) in the middle of the main sequence.
D) at the lower right.
E) at the lower left.
In noting that the Earth is “differentiated,” we mean that
A) the density increases as you descend downward toward the core.
B) the Earth is very different than any other planet we study.
C) the Earth’s magnetic field varies at different locations on the globe.
D) the density of oceanic basalt is less than that of granite on the mountain tops.
E) the radioactive heating in the core is increasing with time.
How long does the sunspot cycle last, on average?
A) between 25 and 35 days
B) 365.25 days
C) about seven years
D) about 11 years
E) about 76 years
Concerning dark energy, we do know
A) that it is created when matter annihilates anti-matter.
B) its density remains constant over time, so it is not important in the early universe.
C) combined with dark matter, it will ultimately produce a closed universe.
D) that it was revealed with Type II supernovae distances in the late 1990s.
E) that it makes up 90% of all the matter and energy in the whole universe.
If you are in the Moon’s umbral shadow, then you are witnessing
A) nighttime.
B) a total solar eclipse.
C) a total lunar eclipse.
D) a partial solar eclipse.
E) some kind of lunar eclipse.
The force of gravity varies with the
A) product of the two masses.
B) inverse of the distance separating the two bodies.
C) inverse square of the distance separating the two bodies.
D) Both A and B are correct.
E) Both A and C are correct.
Compared to a type A0 star, a type A9 star is
A) hotter.
B) cooler.
C) bluer.
D) more massive.
E) more luminous.
Synchrotron radiation produces a ________ spectrum.
A) continuous nonthermal
B) emission line
C) absorption line
D) continuous, with some emission lines
E) continuous, with some absorption lines
Three terrestrial-sized planets in orbits of a fraction of an AU have been found near
A) Cygnus X-1.
B) a magnetar.
C) Supernova 1987A.
D) a millisecond pulsar.
E) a white dwarf.
How massive are the largest known galaxies?
A) a few million solar masses
B) a hundred million solar masses
C) a few billion solar masses
D) a trillion solar masses
E) hundreds of trillions of solar masses
Black dwarfs are
A) very common, making up the majority of the dark matter in the universe.
B) often made from very low mass protostars that never fuse hydrogen.
C) rare, for collapsing cores of over three solar masses are uncommon.
D) rare, for few binary systems are close enough for this merger to happen.
E) not found yet; the oldest, coldest white dwarf in the Galaxy has not cooled enough
yet.
Studying the magnetospheres of the jovian planets has allowed us to measure their
A) interior rotation rates.
B) orbital periods.
C) orbital radius.
D) gravity.
E) ring system diameters.
The RR Lyrae stars all have periods of
A) less than a second.
B) several minutes.
C) several hours.
D) several days.
E) several weeks.
You observe a low-mass helium white dwarf. What can you conclude?
A) It is over 100 billion years old.
B) It will soon be a Type II supernova.
C) It is part of a binary star system.
D) Its core is mostly carbon.
E) It was once a blue supergiant.
As a rotating gas cloud contracts, it spins
A) faster due to an increase in angular momentum.
B) slower due to a decrease in angular momentum.
C) at a constant rate.
D) faster due to conservation of angular momentum.
E) slower due to conservation of angular momentum.
What is the meaning of the solar constant?
A) the regularity of the 11 year sunspot cycle
B) the fact that features on the Sun appear to never change
C) the stability of the Sun’s luminosity for as long as life has existed on Earth
D) the amount of energy the Earth receives per unit area and unit time
E) the fact that the amount of hydrogen turning into helium in the core is fixed
The planet whose pole was facing the Sun when Voyager 2 approached in 1986 was
A) Jupiter.
B) Saturn.
C) Uranus.
D) Neptune.
E) Mars.
When strong solar winds are displaced poleward by our magnetic fields, we get
A) the Van Allen radiation belts.
B) intense auroral displays.
C) sunspots.
D) hurricanes in the tropics.
E) droughts and dust bowls in the American West.
Virtually all the carbon-rich dust in the plane of the galaxy originated in
A) low-mass stars.
B) high-mass stars.
C) planetary nebulae.
D) white dwarfs.
E) brown dwarfs.
Which of these theories seems to best explain the Moon’s origin?
A) Impact Theory
B) Capture Theory
C) Coformation Theory
D) Fission Theory
E) Fusion Theory
Like Olympus Mons, volcanoes on Venus
A) form where continental plates collide.
B) are much larger than typical volcanoes on Earth.
C) have been extinct for billions of years.
D) only form at the equator.
E) are shield volcanoes.
What is true of spring tides?
A) The third quarter moon would be high overhead at dawn.
B) The difference between low and high tides would be greatest.
C) There would be one high and one low tide each day.
D) The Moon’s phase will be first quarter.
E) The difference between low and high tides would be smallest.
A star (no matter what its mass) spends most of its life
A) as a protostar.
B) as a main-sequence star.
C) as a planetary nebula.
D) as a red giant or supergiant.
E) as a T-Tauri variable star.
One of the effects of Mercury’s very slow spin is
A) extreme variations in its surface temperature.
B) an intensely powerful magnetic field.
C) tectonic activity.
D) wind patterns that are slow, but global in size.
E) large variations in the size of its polar cap.
Which moon orbits a body only twice as big as it is?
A) Triton
B) our Moon
C) Charon
D) Miranda
E) Mimas
In the Lighthouse Model,
A) the star literally turns on and off like a lighthouse beacon.
B) all pulsars must have their poles pointed directly toward us.
C) if the beam sweeps across us, we will detect a pulse of radiation.
D) the period of pulsation must speed up as the neutron star continues collapsing.
E) the period of pulsation slows down due to the drag of the remnant on its field.
Who discovered the first four pulsars?
A) Anthony Hewish
B) Stephen Hawking
C) Carl Sagan
D) Jocelyn Bell
E) Martin Schwartzschild
In Ptolemy’s geocentric model, retrograde motion occurs when the planet is closest to
us, on the inside portion of the
A) deferent.
B) ellipse.
C) epicycle.
D) equant.
E) ecliptic.
The presence of a magnetic field is a good indication that
A) the Earth’s interior is similar to Mercury’s, as both have fields.
B) a huge iron meteorite lies somewhere high up in the mantle, not in the core.
C) the Earth has a liquid metal outer core, spinning rapidly as it rotates.
D) the Earth’s interior must be completely molten to the center.
E) the Earth’s interior has had time to solidify, with a rigid bar magnet created.
Contrast the volcanism of Io and Triton.
How does the placement of the eyepiece with Newtonian and Cassegrain reflectors
differ?
A reflection nebula appears blue because it scatters the ________ light of the stars near
it.
In addition to the proper motion, we also need the ________ to find the transverse
velocity of a star across our line of sight.
Stellar spectra tell us that ________ is the second most abundant element in the Sun.
Which two continents are the most obvious pieces in the continental jigsaw puzzle of
plate tectonics? Why?
If a star has a parallax of .005″, then its distance is ________ light-years.
Why would a hotter star appear blue-white while a cooler star appear red or not be
visible at all?
White dwarfs like Sirius B are typically the size of ________.
The Magellanic Clouds are good examples of the ________ type of galaxy.
Jupiter’s darker ________ are complex in color and origin, with complex organic
molecules including carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen.
On our Moon, Mercury, Earth, and Mars, there are a variety of meteor craters in terms
of size. Yet all those found on Venus are over 5 kilometers across. Explain.
You are a novice telescope builder. Should you attempt a 6″ Newtonian or Cassegrain
reflector first? Why?
William Herschel’s attempt to map our Galaxy was based on ________ in different
directions in space.
While many elemental spectral lines are visible, almost all molecular lines lie in the
________ portion of the spectrum, since they are at much lower energy.
The ________ is the spherical outer portion of the Galaxy, including the orbits of the
globular clusters and most dark matter.
The latest observations suggest the ratio of matter to energy is about ________.