Earth is nearly twice as large as Venus.
The density of white dwarf stars is about a million times that of the Sun.
Venus’ surface temperature cools off at night, much like Mercury’s does.
Interest in life on Mars has died since the latest surveys have found no signs of liquid
water on its surface now.
The black hole in the core of a Seyfert galaxy consumes the equivalent of hundreds of
solar masses a day.
The Moon’s surface gravity is only half the Earth’s.
Almost all properties of other stars are described relative to our Sun.
The surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is the most reflective of any in the solar
system, suggesting very fresh ice is exposed.
The COBE data allow us to test the isotropy of the universe.
Each factor in the Drake Equation has a well-known, established value.
Dark dust clouds are cooler than their surroundings.
The initial prediction by Percival Lowell of Pluto’s position was close to the place it
was, in fact, found by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.
Our Sun should become a planetary nebula in another five billion years.
A Type Sa galaxy is a spiral with a large bulge and tightly wound arms.
The thickness of the photosphere is about 100 times the diameter of the Earth, and large
sunspots are larger than our whole planet.
We have observed a comet strike Jupiter.
Combining a star’s proper motion and its distance allows us to determine its transverse
velocity.
Pluto is no longer classified as a planet.
A gravitational assist, or slingshot, can be used to either speed up or slow down a
spacecraft.
Head-tail radio galaxies reveal their motion through the intergalactic gas with a tail-like
structure.
A star cluster with a lot of hot, blue stars must be relatively young.
When galaxies collide, the large-scale galactic structure is affected, but most of the
individual stars are not.
Mars has a weak magnetic field.
The vast majority of stars near us would fall to the bottom right on the H-R diagram.
Molecular clouds are much warmer than typical interstellar gas clouds.
The water hole is a radio region with very low background noise.
Some gamma-ray bursters may be due to the merger of a neutron star and a black hole.
Spring tides occur only at new Moon, when the Moon and Sun pull together.
Helium is more abundant on Saturn than on Jupiter.
All Cepheid variables discovered so far lie in other galaxies.
The fate or future of the universe depends only on the total number of galaxies and
quasars.
The stability of clusters of galaxies suggests that there is between 10 and 100 times as
much dark matter as visible in the galaxies.
21-cm radiation is a result of an electron in hydrogen flipping its spin direction.
The Sun’s average density is about the same at Jupiter’s, suggesting a similar
composition.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is much stronger than Earth’s, and has a magnetic tail that
extends beyond the orbit of Saturn.
Mergers between equally massive galaxies usually produce elliptical galaxies.
A total solar eclipse will only occur when the new moon is both on the ecliptic and at its
greatest distance from Earth.
Which of these bodies are most likely to break up over time?
A) asteroids in the main belt
B) jovian satellites
C) comet nuclei
D) Kuiper Belt bodies
E) Trojan asteroids
How does Drake define a technological civilization?
A) one that can get into space
B) one that can communicate over interstellar distances
C) one that has a written language
D) one that can construct metal tools
E) one that can have the intelligence not to destroy itself
The spectra of interstellar gas clouds show that they have the same basic composition as
A) interstellar dust.
B) Earth’s atmosphere.
C) stars.
D) asteroids.
E) the Martian polar caps.
What percentage of the surface of Venus could be characterized as continental-sized
highlands?
A) less than 10%
B) about 30%, like the Earth
C) 45%
D) 75%
E) 100%
According to Hubble’s Law, the greater a galaxy’s redshift, the
A) closer it is to us.
B) younger it is.
C) faster it’s approaching us.
D) farther it is from us.
E) greater its mass.
The major presence of water detected on the Moon is in
A) the mare.
B) the floors of deep craters in the polar regions, as ice deposits that never thaw.
C) the flows of mud seen on the walls of some craters.
D) the puffs of steam seen coming from some still active lunar volcanoes.
E) faint clouds of ice in the thin lunar atmosphere.
Neutron stars have
A) very strong bipolar magnetic fields.
B) weak or non-existent magnetic fields.
C) periods of days or weeks.
D) monopolar fields that switch polarity every rotation.
E) no relation to pulsars.
Within the boundaries of the constellations Coma and Virgo are found
A) all the galaxies in the Local Group.
B) the most distant known quasars.
C) the largest nearby superclusters of galaxies.
D) the closest red dwarfs to the Sun.
E) the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.
The angular resolution of an 8 inch diameter telescope is ________ times greater than
that of a 2 inch diameter telescope.
A) 2
B) 4
C) 8
D) 9
E) 16
A spherical galaxy, like M87, which looks like a monster globular cluster, is type
A) S0.
B) ES.
C) E0.
D) ES1.
E) 0V.
When a planet’s orbit takes it closest to the Sun, it’s called
A) vernal equinox.
B) aphelion.
C) perihelion.
D) crossing the ecliptic.
E) none of these; a planet’s distance from the Sun never changes.
What is true of the lobes of a radio galaxy?
A) They are perpendicular to the galactic plane.
B) They are hotter than the galactic core.
C) They radiate primarily in X-rays.
D) They extend out along the galactic plane.
E) They form close to the edge of the galaxy.
A neutron star may form from a ________ supernova.
Which of the following appears most favored by natural selection?
A) intelligence
B) opposable thumbs
C) bipedal locomotion
D) binocular vision
E) live birth
What best explains the darkness of the rings beyond Saturn’s?
A) The sunlight is much fainter out there.
B) old, sooty debris and radiation darkening
C) Water ice reflects light poorly at the low temperatures beyond Saturn.
D) Rocky debris doesn’t reflect as well as water ice.
E) They are pieces of captured comets.
The 3 K background radiation represents
A) the Big Bang itself.
B) the time of decoupling.
C) the formation of the first galaxies.
D) the outer edge of the universe.
E) formation of the first quasar.
The interval from new Moon to first quarter is about a(n)
A) hour.
B) day.
C) week.
D) month.
E) year.
Which of these is true of planetary nebulae?
A) They are expelled by the most massive stars in their final stages before supernova.
B) They are rings of material around protostars that will accrete into planets in time.
C) They are ejected envelopes surrounding a highly evolved low-mass star.
D) They are the envelopes that form when blue stragglers merge.
E) They are the material which causes the eclipses in eclipsing binary systems.
What is Cygnus X-1?
A) the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus
B) the leading candidate for an observable black hole binary system
C) the strongest X-ray eclipsing binary system in the sky
D) a millisecond pulsar with three Earth-like planets around it
E) the first gamma-ray burster to be spotted in other wavelengths as well
The smallest high tides occur when the Moon phase is
A) first or third quarter.
B) full.
C) new.
D) waxing or waning crescent.
E) waxing or waning gibbous.
The densely packed neutrons of a neutron star cannot balance the inward pull of gravity
if the total mass is
A) less than 1.0 solar masses.
B) greater than Schwartzschild’s limit of 3 solar masses.
C) Chandrasekhar’s limit of 1.4 solar masses.
D) between 1.4 and 2.0 solar masses.
E) not at least 25 solar masses.
Compared to a cluster containing type O and B stars, a cluster with only type F and
cooler stars will be
A) younger.
B) older.
C) further away.
D) more obscured by dust.
E) less obscured by dust.
What is the resolution of a telescope?
A) its ability to see very faint objects
B) its ability to distinguish two adjacent objects close together in the sky
C) its ability to make distant objects appear much closer to us
D) its ability to separate light into its component colors for analysis
E) its ability to focus more than just visible light for imaging
If you are in the Earth’s umbra on the Earth’s surface, then
A) it must be a total solar eclipse.
B) it must be a lunar eclipse of some type.
C) it is night time.
D) the Sun is always visible.
E) the Moon is always visible.
The Trojan asteroids are found
A) orbiting around the Kuiper Belt body Hector.
B) with the others, between Mars and Jupiter; their red color gives them their name.
C) sixty degrees ahead or behind Jupiter, sharing its orbit about the Sun.
D) beyond Neptune, with orbits similar to Pluto’s.
E) closer on average to the Sun than is the Earth.
Compared to Saturn, Jupiter is about
A) half as massive and denser.
B) three times more massive and denser.
C) 100 times more massive.
D) twice the diameter, but less dense.
E) half as dense, but the same mass since it is larger.
For a moon the same density as its planet, the Roche limit lies at ________ times the
radius of its planet.
A) 1.4
B) 2.5
C) 3.6
D) 5.2
E) 7
According to our definition, we have been a technological civilization for about
A) 1000 years.
B) 10,000 years.
C) 100 years.
D) 10 years.
E) 500 years.
What is the main constituent of the atmosphere of Venus?
A) oxygen
B) nitrogen
C) hydrogen
D) carbon dioxide
E) sulfuric acid
What is the source of Jupiter’s intense radio waves and magnetism?
A) charged particles trapped in Jupiter’s solid iron core similar to Earth
B) liquid metallic hydrogen swirling in the rapidly spinning mantle
C) the ionized sulfur ejected into a torus around Jupiter by Io
D) the auroral displays in the polar regions, just like with Earth
E) a liquid iron and nickel outer core, just like Earth’s magnetic field
Pluto’s density is most similar to
A) the terrestrial planets.
B) the jovian planets.
C) the moons of the jovian planets.
D) Mercury, but not Venus, Earth, or Mars.
E) Saturn, but not Jupiter, Uranus, or Neptune.
A star is on the horizontal branch of the H-R diagram. Which statement is true?
A) It is burning both hydrogen and helium.
B) It is about to experience the helium flash.
C) It is burning only helium.
D) The star is contracting.
E) The star is about to return to the main sequence.
Describe the orbits of the Kuiper Belt bodies.
In electromagnetic waves, the electric and magnetic fields vibrate ________ to each
other.
Contrast the chemical composition of interstellar gas with that of interstellar dust.
What is the primary source of erosion on the Moon today?
What is unusual about the rotational (spin) and orbital periods of Venus?
We can estimate the mass of the Galaxy from observations of its ________ curve.
How do many of the jovian-type extrasolar planets seem to defy portions of the solar
nebula theory? How can this perhaps be reconciled?
What, other than its existence, is unusual about the magnetic field of Mercury?
Compared to the underlying photosphere and chromosphere, the corona is ________ in
temperature.
Why is ten million degrees critical to the proton-proton cycle?
Red sunset, red lunar eclipses, blue skies, and reflection nebulae are all the result of the
________ of visible light off tiny dust particles.
Why can’t we be certain that the Andromeda Galaxy exists today?
Most of the hot, young blue stars lie in the ________ of our Galaxy.
The spectrum of radio galaxies indicates the energy is in ________ radiation.
We get a new and full moon every month. Why don’t we get two eclipses every month?
Why is infrared much better than visible light in studying star formation?
In typical globular clusters, the brightest stars are ________.
Explain the process of small irregular galaxies evolving into spirals and giant ellipticals.