The proton storms in the solar wind travel at almost the speed of light.
All four jovian planets are made primarily of hydrogen and oxygen.
When plates collide, they fuse together and come to rest.
The background hiss that Bell Labs detected was the best observational evidence for the
Big Bang.
Blue stragglers are among the first stars formed in a cluster.
Dark matter has not been observed at any electromagnetic wavelength.
White dwarfs were once the cores of stars that produced planetary nebulae.
O and B type stars are usually found associated with emission nebulae.
Main sequence stars lie at the top right corner of the H-R diagram.
Hubble reveals the most distant (first) galaxies were bluer than those of today.
The low surface gravity helps Martian volcanoes grow to great heights.
Life emerged on Earth about a billion years after the solar system formed.
Compared to Earth, the Moon lacks a hydrosphere, atmosphere, and a magnetosphere.
Virgo A (M87) is probably a dead quasar, but our Milky Way is not.
Conditions inside the darkest, densest nebulae are best studied with radio emission from
molecules.
A tropical year is the same as a sidereal year.
The equators of all four jovian planets rotate more rapidly than the polar regions.
The initial rise off the main sequence in stage 8 comes from gravitational energy of the
contracting helium core.
Type II supernova spectra are poor in hydrogen because stars that explode this way use
up all their hydrogen before they leave the main sequence.
During the fusion process, mass is converted into energy.
All gamma-ray bursters have the same fundamental driving mechanism, although we
don’t yet know whether it is a hypernova or a merger of two neutrons stars.
Running water continues to be the major erosive factor of Mars today.
Saturn’s rings are thick, perhaps a few thousand kilometers.
The nearest star system to our Sun, Alpha Centauri, is still over a parsec distant.
Europa is one of the most promising of the bodies in the outer solar system for life in its
salty seas.
The 21-cm line of hydrogen is strongly absorbed by interstellar dust.
Due to tidal stresses, it is likely most of Io is molten, with a relatively thin solid crust.
Hydrogen lines are strongest in class A stars.
A seismograph could register P but not S waves from an epicenter on the opposite side
of the Earth.
Supernova 1987A matched the theoretical predictions for Type I supernovae well.
Ionized helium lines are found in both type B and O stars.
An F-type star would have a larger habitable zone that does our Sun.
The brightest stars in a young open cluster will be
A) Cepheid variables.
B) massive blue main-sequence stars.
C) red giants.
D) yellow main-sequence stars like the Sun.
E) T-Tauri variables.
The simplest life forms appeared on Earth when it was how old?
A) five million years
B) one billion years
C) 2.5 billion years
D) 3.5 billion years
E) 4.5 billion years
If the rest wavelength of a certain line is 600 nm, but we observe it at 594 nm, then
A) the source is approaching us at 1 % of the speed of light.
B) the source is approaching us at 0.1 % of the speed of light.
C) the source is receding from us at 10% of the speed of light.
D) the source is getting 1% hotter as we watch.
E) the source is spinning very rapidly, at 1% of the speed of light.
A newly formed protostar will radiate primarily at which wavelength?
A) visible light
B) X-ray
C) infrared
D) ultraviolet
E) radio
The Schwartzschild radius for a 12 solar mass star is
A) 4 km.
B) 15 km.
C) 36 km.
D) 100 km.
E) 3000 km.
The greatest variation in size, mass, and luminosity occurs in
A) globular clusters.
B) elliptical galaxies.
C) spiral and barred spiral galaxies.
D) Irr I vs Irr II galaxies.
E) Seyfert galaxies.
On an H-R diagram, a protostar would be
A) above and to the right of the main sequence.
B) below and to the left of the main sequence.
C) below and near the right side of the main sequence.
D) above and near the upper left of the main sequence.
E) on the main sequence at the extreme lower right.
Which of these is not a form of electromagnetic radiation?
A) DC current from your car battery
B) light from your camp fire
C) X-rays in the doctor’s office
D) ultraviolet causing a suntan
E) radio signals
In an annular eclipse,
A) the Sun is totally blocked by the Moon.
B) the Moon is totally blocked by the Earth.
C) the Moon appears as a thin, bright ring.
D) the Sun appears as a thin, bright ring.
E) the Sun is partially blocked by the Earth.
Which of these age ranges best describes the lunar maria?
A) 8.6 – 6.0 billion years
B) 3.9 – 3.2 billion years
C) 2.5 – 1.0 billion years
D) 100 – 65 million years
E) a few million years to present lava flows seen erupting
We determine the structure of the Earth’s core using
A) deep mine shafts.
B) satellite imaging.
C) radar and sonar.
D) seismic wave data.
E) magnetic resonance imaging.
The atmospheric gases primarily responsible for our greenhouse effect are
A) carbon monoxide and methane.
B) hydrogen and helium.
C) oxygen and carbon dioxide.
D) argon and water vapor.
E) water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Complex molecules in the interstellar medium are found
A) uniformly throughout the disk of the Galaxy.
B) scattered evenly throughout the universe, a product of the Big Bang itself.
C) only around the supergiant stars like Betelgeuse that make their heavy atoms.
D) primarily in the dense dust clouds.
E) on the surfaces of the coolest class K and M stars only.
In terms of axial tilt, which of the jovian planets shows us the largest inclination?
A) Jupiter
B) Saturn
C) Uranus
D) Neptune
E) Pluto
If a wave’s frequency doubles and its speed stays constant, its wavelength
A) is halved.
B) is also doubled.
C) is unchanged, as c is constant.
D) is now 4 longer.
E) becomes 16 longer.
The helium flash converts helium nuclei into
A) boron.
B) beryllium.
C) carbon.
D) oxygen.
E) iron.
Jupiter gives back into space twice the energy it gets from the distant Sun. Where is this
energy coming from, for the most part?
A) the impact energy of comets like SL-9
B) helium rain descending into its mantle and core
C) the slow escape of gravitational energy left from its formation
D) the radioactive decay of U-238 in its iron-rich core, just as with the Earth
E) the combined tidal stress of all four large Galilean moons
What is true of Mars?
A) Its magnetic field is stronger than Earth’s
B) Its atmosphere is mostly water vapor.
C) Iron oxide on the surface is responsible for its reddish color.
D) A pool of water was discovered by the Mars Rover.
E) Definite microfossils have been found.
According to the turn-off points of the oldest globular clusters, they are about
A) 4.5 billion years old.
B) 6.8 billion years old.
C) 10 billion years old.
D) 12 billion years old.
E) 16 billion years old.
Contrast a hypernova and a Type II supernova.
Approximately how many brown dwarfs are believed to exist in the Milky Way galaxy?
A) 100,000
B) one million
C) one billion
D) one hundred billion
E) ten trillion
If the merger theory is correct, the brightest active galactic nuclei should
A) be in the smallest elliptical galaxies.
B) contain the youngest stars.
C) contain the least mass.
D) contain supermassive black holes.
E) form small irregular galaxies.
What is the primary visible color of an emission nebula?
A) black, because of dust
B) blue from the scattering of light off the tiny molecules
C) blue due to ionized helium atoms
D) red due to the Hα line of hydrogen
E) red because of reddening by dust
For a white dwarf to explode entirely as a Type I supernova, its mass must be
A) at least 0.08 solar masses.
B) 1.4 solar masses, the Chandrasekhar limit.
C) 3 solar masses, the Schwartzschild limit.
D) 20 solar masses, the Hubble limit.
E) 100 solar masses, the most massive known stars.
Which common gas is less abundant in the top of Saturn’s atmosphere, compared to
what we observe at Jupiter?
A) hydrogen
B) helium
C) nitrogen
D) methane
E) argon
A large gas cloud in the interstellar medium that contains several type O and B stars
would appear to us as
A) a dark nebula.
B) an emission nebula.
C) bright blue.
D) a reflection nebula.
E) a dark patch against a bright background.
Which jovian moon has gotten the most attention from exobiologists?
A) Io
B) Ariel
C) Triton
D) Miranda
E) Europa
From the horizon to the observer’s zenith is an angle of
A) 30 degrees for observers at a latitude of 30 degrees North.
B) 90 degrees for everyone on the Earth.
C) 23.5 degrees for observers at the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
D) 66.5 degrees for everyone on the Earth.
E) 0.0 degrees for an observer at the Earth’s north pole.
Before it arrived in orbit about Jupiter, the Galileo spacecraft flew past
A) Comet Halley.
B) Mars.
C) Saturn.
D) the asteroid Gaspra.
E) the asteroid Ceres.
A(n) ________ represents a relatively peaceful mass loss as a red giant becomes a
white dwarf.
A) nova
B) emission nebula
C) supernova remnant
D) planetary nebula
E) supernova
Stellar masses are measured directly by observations of the motions of
A) eclipsing binary systems.
B) spectroscopic binary systems.
C) visual binary systems.
D) All of the above can give us their masses.
E) Stellar masses cannot be measured directly by any method.
The tiny ripples in the background radiation COBE found are due to
A) a gravitational redshift caused by growing dark clumps.
B) different velocities of the edge of the universe.
C) reddening by interstellar dust clouds in our galaxy.
D) variations in the speed of different wavelengths of light.
E) bubble-like nature of space.
What are Type I supernovae used for?
A) Explaining the pulsars in supernova remnants.
B) Calculating the density of the interstellar medium from their remnants.
C) Age-dating the massive stars in clusters where they blow up.
D) Standard candles for determining distances to other galaxies.
E) Determining the half-lives of the heavy elements they create.
Mercury’s surface most resembles which of these?
A) the Earth’s deserts
B) the lunar far side
C) the lunar mare
D) Venus’ polar regions
E) Mars’ deserts
While examining the spectrum of a galaxy, you find all the hydrogen lines are shifted to
longer wavelengths. This galaxy is
A) moving away from us.
B) moving towards us.
C) expanding explosively.
D) blue shifted.
E) not forming new stars.
What would the geometry of a universe at the critical density be?
What role does hydrogen play in spectral classification?
Why do we know that the red Balmer emission line in hydrogen represents a smaller
quantum leap than the violet line?
Neutron stars are the size of ________.
The Galilean moon of most interest to exobiologists is ________.
Explain how crater counts allow us to estimate the ages of surfaces throughout the solar
system.
Of all forms of electromagnetic energy, ________ radiation gives us the least access to
our entire Milky Way Galaxy.
Contrast space flight and radio communication as possible means of SETI.
What is the expected result from the merger of a large irregular and a small irregular
galaxy?
Relate Herbig-Haro objects to the T-Tauri Wind.
To map the Earth’s interior, we rely on ________ waves created by earthquakes.
If a G2 star is 100 times as luminous as our Sun, it must be ________ times the Sun’s
diameter.
In what ways are ground-based observatories catching up with Hubble?
Stefan’s law notes that total energy radiated is proportional to the ________ power of
the temperature of the blackbody.
Relate the age of the universe to the Hubble constant.
Contrast the densities and compositions of the four Galilean moons.
William Herschel discovered the green disk of ________ as the first telescopic planet.
Stable fusion reactions end when ________ builds in a high-mass star’s core.
In the Miller-Urey experiment, the electric discharge was meant to simulate ________.