Cosmology Question Bank
Course Introduction
Cosmology is the scientific study of the large-scale properties, origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. This course explores foundational concepts such as the Big Bang theory, cosmic inflation, the expansion of space, and the formation of structure in the universe, including galaxies and galaxy clusters. Students will examine the cosmic microwave background, dark matter, and dark energy, integrating observational evidence with theoretical models. Topics also address current research and unresolved questions in cosmology, offering insight into how modern physics and astrophysical discoveries shape our understanding of the universe.
Recommended Textbook
The Essential Cosmic Perspective 6th Edition by Jeffrey O. Bennett
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18 Chapters
2158 Verified Questions
2158 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Our Place in the Universe
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102 Verified Questions
102 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Milky Way is moving further away from most other galaxies in the Universe.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Jupiter is about 5 AU from the Sun. In a ten billion to one scale model, Jupiter is
A) less than one meter from the Sun.
B) about 75 meters from the Sun.
C) about 15 meters from the Sun.
D) about a kilometer from the Sun.
Answer: B
Q3) Consider the following statement, and explain whether or not it is sensible: It will take me light-years to complete this homework assignment.
Answer: This statement does not make sense because it uses the term light-year as a time, rather than as a distance.
Q4) Consider the following statement, and explain whether or not it is sensible: NASA hopes to build a new telescope that will allow us to see 100 million light-years into the past.
Answer: Not sensible: uses light-years as a time.
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Discovering the Universe for Yourself
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135 Verified Questions
135 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Consider the following statement, and explain whether or not it is sensible: Last night I saw Mars move westward through the sky in its apparent retrograde motion.
Answer: This statement does not make sense because the apparent retrograde motion is noticeable only over many nights, not during a single night. (Of course, like all celestial objects, Mars moves from east to west over the course of every night.)
Q2) Polaris will no longer be the North Star 1,000 years from now.
A)Earth rotates once each day.
B)Earth revolves around the Sun once each year.
C)The direction of Earth's axis in space precesses with a period of 26,000 years.
D)Stars appear to move randomly in the local solar neighborhood.
E)The universe is expanding.
Answer: C
Q3) You see a crescent Moon setting after the Sun sets. Is it waning or waxing?
A) Can't distinguish based on the information provided
B) Waning
C) Waxing
Answer: C
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Chapter 3: The Science of Astronomy
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97 Verified Questions
97 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Kepler's third law, p² = a³, means that
A) a planet's period does not depend on the eccentricity of its orbit.
B) all orbits with the same semimajor axis have the same period.
C) the period of a planet does not depend on its mass.
D) planets that are farther from the Sun move at slower average speeds than nearer planets.
E) All of the above are correct.
Answer: E
Q2) The Metonic cycle is the
A) 29 1/2-day period of the lunar cycle.
B) 12-month period of a lunar calendar.
C) 19-year period over which the lunar phases occur on about the same dates.
D) 18-year, 11-day period over which the pattern of eclipses repeats.
E) period between successive Easters.
Answer: C
Q3) How did ancient peoples of central Africa predict the weather?
Answer: They observed the orientation of the crescent moon relative to the horizon. The orientation of the "horns" is related to rainfall patterns.
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Chapter 4: Making Sense of the Universe: Understanding
Motion, Energy, and Gravity
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103 Verified Questions
103 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Suppose that the Sun shrank in size but that its mass remained the same. What would happen to the orbit of the Earth?
A) Earth's orbit would be unaffected.
B) The size of Earth's orbit would shrink, and it would take less than one year to orbit the Sun.
C) Earth's orbit would expand, and it would take more than one year to orbit the Sun.
D) Earth would change from a bound orbit to an unbound orbit and fly off into interstellar space.
Q2) If I drop a golf ball and a bowling ball simultaneously from same height above the ground, what will happen? Neglect the effects of wind or air resistance.
A) The golf ball and the bowling ball will hit the ground at the same time.
B) The bowling ball will hit the ground before the golf ball.
C) The golf ball will hit the ground before the bowling ball.
Q3) State Newton's three laws of motion.
Q4) The Moon is constantly falling toward Earth.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Give an example in which kinetic energy can be converted to thermal energy.
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Light: the Cosmic Messenger
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139 Verified Questions
139 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Size of Molecules: You have a small flask of oil. You pour this oil onto a clear, calm pool of water and watch the oil slick spread out slowly with time. Imagine that it is your belief that the oil is not a continuous substance but made of individual particles called "molecules". Assuming this hypothesis is true, can you make a testable prediction on how the oil slick will behave as it spreads? Will this prediction allow you to estimate the size of the "molecules?" Search online to see if there is any evidence that the Greeks attempted such an experiment.
Q2) Which of the following is not a good reason to place observatories on remote mountain tops?
A) to reduce light pollution
B) to reduce light distortion
C) to reduce light absorption
D) to be able to observe at radio wavelengths
Q3) Which of the following observational techniques is most appropriate for measuring Doppler shifts?
A) Spectroscopy (taking a spectrum)
B) Imaging (taking a picture)
C) Timing (measuring how the amount of light changes with time)
Q4) Atomic number refers to ________.
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Chapter 6: Formation of Planetary Systems: Our Solar System
and Beyond
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174 Verified Questions
174 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which moons are sometimes called the Galilean moons?
A) The four largest moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto
B) The two largest moons in the solar system: Ganymede and Titan
C) The moons that orbit their planet "backward" compared to their planet's rotation, such as Neptune's moon Triton
D) The moons orbiting Uranus, which was once named "planet Galileo"
Q2) Pluto is different from the other outer planets in all of the following ways except which one?
A) Its surface temperature is very cold.
B) It is made mostly of ices.
C) Its orbit is not very close to being circular.
D) It has only one moon.
E) It doesn't have rings.
Q3) According to our present theory of solar system formation, which of the following lists the major ingredients of the solar nebula in order from the most abundant to the least abundant?
A) Hydrogen and helium gas; hydrogen compounds; rock; metal
B) Hydrogen compounds; hydrogen and helium gas; metal; rock
C) Hydrogen and helium gas; rock; metal; hydrogen compounds
D) Hydrogen, water, methane, helium
Page 8
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Chapter 7: Earth and the Terrestrial Worlds
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180 Verified Questions
180 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is the most basic definition of a greenhouse gas?
A) A gas that absorbs infrared light
B) A gas that makes a planet much hotter than it would be otherwise, even in small amounts
C) A gas that keeps warms air from rising, and therefore warms the surface
D) A gas that reflects a lot of sunlight
Q2) The three principal sources of the internal heat of terrestrial planets are
A) conduction, differentiation, and accretion.
B) accretion, differentiation, and radioactivity.
C) accretion, differentiation, and eruption.
D) convection, differentiation, and eruption.
E) conduction, convection, and eruption.
Q3) Which of the following show evidence of ancient river beds?
A) the Moon
B) Mercury
C) Venus
D) Mars
E) all of the above
Q4) What is the "runaway greenhouse effect"?
Q5) Why does Earth have so much more oxygen (O ) than Venus or Mars?
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Jovian Planet Systems
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85 Verified Questions
85 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is "ice geology"? Give an example illustrating why it is important in the outer solar system.
Q2) How thick are Saturn's rings from top to bottom?
A) a few million kilometers
B) a few tens of thousands of kilometers
C) a few hundred kilometers
D) a few kilometers
E) a few tens of meters
Q3) How many more times is the atmospheric pressure in Jupiter's core greater than the atmospheric pressure at Earth's surface?
A) 10 thousand
B) 100 thousand
C) 1 million
D) 10 million
E) 100 million
Q4) Why is Triton such an unusual satellite?
Q5) The Huygens landing showed that the surface of Titan is as hard as a rock.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Asteroids, Comets, and Dwarf Planets: Their
Nature, Orbits, and Impacts
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118 Verified Questions
118 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) the atmosphere of Venus
A)nickel and iron
B)80 percent nitrogen, 20 percent oxygen
C)95 percent carbon dioxide
D)mostly hydrogen and helium
E)frozen methane, ammonia, water, and other gases and dust
Q2) According to the nebular theory, how did the Kuiper belt form?
A) It is material left over from the interstellar cloud that never contracted with the rest of the gases to form the solar nebula.
B) It is made of planetesimals that formed beyond Neptune's orbit and never accreted to form a planet.
C) It consists of objects that fragmented from the protosun during a catastrophic collision early in the formation of the solar system.
D) It is made of planetesimals between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter that never formed into a planet.
E) It is made of planetesimals formed in the outer solar system that were flung into distant orbits by encounters with the jovian planets.
Q3) Why is the Kuiper belt flat but the Oort cloud spherical?
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Chapter 10: Our Star
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101 Verified Questions
101 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What do sunspots, solar prominences, and solar flares all have in common?
A) They are all strongly influenced by magnetic fields on the Sun.
B) They all have about the same temperature.
C) They are all shaped by the solar wind.
D) They all occur only in the Sun's photosphere.
Q2) What are coronal holes?
A) regions in the photosphere where magnetic lines gather, creating cooler areas with much less plasma
B) areas of the corona where magnetic field lines project out into space, allowing charged particles to escape and form the solar wind
C) areas in the corona that allow us to see through to the photosphere
D) tunnels in the outer layers of the Sun that allow photons to escape and form the solar wind
E) all of the above
Q3) Energy from the core of the Sun first travels slowly through a convection zone and then much faster through the outer radiation zone.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Describe two general ways we learn about the Sun's interior.
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Chapter 11: Surveying the Stars
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129 Verified Questions
129 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which main sequence star will have the shortest lifetime?
A) O
B) A
C) M
D) G
E) Can't tell from information provided.
Q2) Which of the following luminosity classes refers to stars on the main sequence?
A) I
B) II
C) III
D) IV
E) V
Q3) A star's luminosity is the
A) apparent brightness of the star in our sky.
B) surface temperature of the star.
C) lifetime of the star.
D) total amount of energy that the star will radiate over its entire lifetime.
E) total amount of energy that the star radiates each second.
Q4) Explain why stars displaying spectral lines of molecules must be relatively cool.
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Chapter 12: Star Stuff
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137 Verified Questions
137 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Suppose that the star Betelgeuse (the upper left shoulder of Orion) were to supernova tomorrow (as seen here on Earth). What would it look like to the naked eye?
A) Betelgeuse would remain a dot of light, but would suddenly become so bright that, for a few weeks, we'd be able to see this dot in the daytime.
B) We'd see a cloud of gas expanding away from the position where Betelgeuse used to be. Over a period of a few weeks, this cloud would fill our entire sky.
C) Because the supernova destroys the star, Betelgeuse would suddenly disappear from view.
D) Betelgeuse would suddenly appear to grow larger in size, soon reaching the size of the full Moon. It would also be about as bright as the full Moon.
Q2) The vast majority of stars in a newly formed star cluster are ________.
A) Less massive than the Sun
B) Very high-mass, type O and B stars
C) Red giants
D) About the same mass as our Sun
Q3) Explain how some stars form in binary systems.
Q4) Briefly summarize the stages of life for a low-mass star.
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Chapter 13: Bizarre Stellar Graveyard
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110 Verified Questions
110 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Each Voyager spacecraft carries a "postcard" designed to be understandable to any aliens that might someday encounter it. On the "postcard," scientists pinpointed the location of Earth by triangulating it between pulsars. Why did the scientists choose pulsars rather than some other type of star?
A) Pulsars are easy to identify by their almost perfectly steady periods of pulsation.
B) Pulsars are very bright and therefore easy to find.
C) Several pulsars are located within a dozen light-years of our solar system, making them useful for finding our solar system.
D) We're pretty sure that aliens will have only radio telescopes and not optical telescopes, so they'll have a better chance of seeing pulsars than ordinary stars.
Q2) You are studying a mystery companion to an evolved star, with mass transfer happening. Which of the following properties suggests that the companion is definitely a black hole?
A) The mystery companion has an X-ray emitting accretion disk.
B) The mystery companion has a mass of over 1.4 solar masses.
C) The mystery companion gives off periodic X-ray bursts.
D) The mystery companion has a mass of over 3 solar masses.
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Chapter 14: Our Galaxy
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112 Verified Questions
112 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Briefly describe how we can use the orbital characteristics of stars at many distances from the galactic center to determine the distribution of mass in the Milky Way.
Q2) Interstellar dust consists mostly of ________.
A) microscopic particles of carbon and silicon
B) ozone "smog"
C) hydrogen and helium atoms
D) tiny grains of water ice
E) the same tiny particles found in household dust
Q3) Observing our galaxy at radio wavelengths allows us to see through the dust in the disk that obscures our view.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is a shock wave?
A) A pressure wave that moves faster than the speed of sound
B) A pressure wave that moves slower than the speed of sound
C) A pressure wave that moves faster than the speed of light
D) An electromagnetic wave that can create electrical shocks
E) An electromagnetic wave created when electrons recombine with protons
Q5) Briefly describe the star-gas-star cycle.
Page 16
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Chapter 15: Galaxies and the Foundation of Modern Cosmology
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152 Verified Questions
152 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Spiral galaxies have more gas, dust, and young stars than elliptical galaxies.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Distant galaxies are more likely to be irregular in shape than galaxies closer to the Milky Way.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What evidence suggests that the protogalactic cloud that formed the Milky Way resulted from several collisions among smaller clouds?
A) The stars in the halo of the Milky Way are organized into several dense clusters arranged throughout the halo.
B) The Milky Way resembles an elliptical galaxy more than other spirals do.
C) Halo stars differ in age and heavy-element content, but these variations do not seem to depend on the stars' distance from the galactic center.
D) The bulge of the Milky Way is surrounded by many globular clusters, just as elliptical galaxies are.
E) The Milky Way is the central galaxy of a dense cluster of galaxies.
Q4) How are jets thought to be produced by active galaxies?
Page 17
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Chapter 16: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Universe
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97 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements best summarizes current evidence concerning dark matter in individual galaxies and in clusters of galaxies?
A) Dark matter is the dominant form of mass in both clusters and in individual galaxies.
B) Dark matter is present between galaxies in clusters, but not within individual galaxies.
C) Dark matter is present in individual galaxies, but there is no evidence that it can exist between the galaxies in a cluster.
D) Within individual galaxies, dark matter is always concentrated near the galactic center, and within clusters it is always concentrated near the cluster center.
Q2) Which hypothetical universe has a older age, all other things being equal?
A) The one with more dark energy.
B) Dark energy doesn't affect the inferred age of the universe.
C) The one with less dark energy
Q3) A galaxy with a lot of dark matter would have a high mass-to-light ratio compared to the Sun.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: The Beginning of Time
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Sample Questions
Q1) In stars, helium can sometimes be fused into carbon and heavier elements (in their final stages of life). Why didn't the same fusion processes produce carbon and heavier elements in the early universe?
A) By the time stable helium nuclei had formed, the temperature and density had already dropped too low for helium fusion to occur.
B) Helium fusion occurred, but the carbon nuclei that were made were later destroyed by the intense radiation in the early universe.
C) Temperatures in the early universe were never above the roughly 100 million Kelvin required for helium fusion.
D) No one knows-this is one of the major mysteries in astronomy.
Q2) The more baryons there are in the universe (a higher density of baryonic matter), the lower the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen is. Therefore, if Harry measures a higher ratio of deuterium to hydrogen than Sally, Harry infers
A) the same density of baryons as Sally.
B) a lower density of baryons than Sally.
C) a higher density of baryons than Sally.
Q3) What is Olbers' paradox, and what is its resolution?
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Page 19
Chapter 18: Life in the Universe
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Sample Questions
Q1) We have already launched spacecraft whose orbits will carry into interstellar space.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following statements best reflects our current knowledge about the term ( f_life in the equation Number of Civilizations = N HP × ( f_life × f_civilization × f now?
A) The value of f_life is either 0 or 1.
B) The value of f_life is between 0 and 1.
C) The value of f_life is less than 0.0000001 .
D) The value of f_life is equal to 1/2.
E) The value of f_life is greater than 10.
Q3) The modern-day organisms that seem oldest, in an evolutionary sense, are microbes that live in the hot water around volcanic vents on the ocean floor.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Briefly summarize current knowledge about the term Np in the equation Number of Civilizations = Np × \( f_{\mathrm{}} \)life × \( f_{\mathrm{}} \)civilization × \( f_{\mathrm{}} \) now.
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