General Astronomy Exam Solutions
Course Introduction
General Astronomy provides an overview of the fundamental concepts in astronomy, exploring the structure and dynamics of the universe. The course covers topics such as the motions of planets and stars, the properties of light and telescopes, the life cycles of stars, the formation of galaxies, and the origin and fate of the cosmos. It introduces students to the physical laws governing celestial objects, methods astronomers use to observe and analyze the universe, and the latest discoveries in the field. Designed for students with little or no prior background in science, General Astronomy encourages curiosity about our place in the universe and the processes that shape it.
Recommended Textbook
Astronomy The Universe at a Glance 1st Edition by Eric Chaisson
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Chapter 1: The Night Sky
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Sample Questions
Q1) That Polaris will not always be the pole star is due to
A) the sidereal day being shorter than the solar day.
B) precession shifting the celestial pole.
C) the Moon following the ecliptic, instead of the equator.
D) the Earth's revolution being slightly less than exactly 365.25 days.
E) the Solar winds blowing the Earth farther away from the Sun.
Answer: B
Q2) If the Moon rises exactly at sunset, what will its phase be? Why?
Answer: The phase will be full because it is rising opposite the Sun. If the Moon is directly opposite the Sun in the sky, its phase will be full.
Q3) Modern scientific theories are NOT
A) testable.
B) continuously tested.
C) simple.
D) perfect.
E) elegant.
Answer: D
Q4) How far above or below the ecliptic can the Sun move?
Answer: The Sun follows the ecliptic eastward across the sky, never leaving it.
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Chapter 2: Light and Telescopes
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Q1) Due to our ozone layer, ultraviolet astronomy must be done from space.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) The light-gathering power of a telescope varies with the ________ of the diameter of the lens or mirror.
Answer: square
Q3) What do infrared and ultraviolet waves have in common? How do they differ?
Answer: Both are forms of electromagnetic radiation, both travel at c in a vacuum, and both are largely absorbed by our atmosphere. They differ greatly in frequency, wavelength, and photon energy, however, with UV much more penetrating than IR, as anyone who has experienced a sunburn is aware.
Q4) Radio dishes are large in order to
A) attract funding from NASA and the NSF.
B) give greater magnification.
C) increase their angular resolution and collect the very weak radio photons.
D) increase the range of waves they can collect.
E) detect shorter waves than optical telescopes for superior resolution.
Answer: C
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Chapter 3: The Solar System
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Q1) According to Newton's second law, if you double the force acting on a body, the acceleration will double.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Kepler based his theories on the precise planetary observations of Tycho Brahe.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) According to Newton, the gravity of the ________ is needed to explain planetary orbits.
Answer: Sun
Q4) Like the Sun and the Moon, the stars appear to move from west to east from one day to the next.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q5) Galileo's discovery of four moons orbiting ________ provided new support for the ideas of Copernicus.
Answer: Jupiter
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Chapter 4: Earth and Its Moon
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Sample Questions
Q1) When two tectonic plates collide
A) they both stop moving.
B) they always produce high mountain chains like the Himalayas.
C) volcanoes always mark the boundary between them.
D) they continue moving, producing a variety of large deformations.
E) that region is safe from earthquakes now the plates are fixed.
Q2) The average density of the Moon is less than that of the Earth.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Moon's crust is thickest on the ________ side.
Q4) Without the greenhouse effect operating in our atmosphere
A) We would not have to worry about any warming problems in the future.
B) Earth would have an average temperature of -23 degrees Celsius.
C) The ice in the polar regions would have melted long ago.
D) The ozone layer would not be weakening.
E) The Earth would have become much more like Venus long ago.
Q5) Few of the Moon's craters are actually due to volcanism, as was widely thought prior to Apollo.
A)True
B)False
Page 6
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Chapter 5: The Eight Planets
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Q1) Essentially, the Great Red Spot is
A) Neptune's largest atmospheric feature.
B) a large cyclonic storm (hurricane).
C) always located within 10 degrees of Jupiter's north pole.
D) composed primarily of iron oxide.
E) traveling north and south across Jupiter's face.
Q2) Which statements about the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune is FALSE?
A) Neither fits the Dynamo model very well.
B) Uranus' field is tilted 60 degrees off its already tilted rotational axis.
C) Neptune's field is tilted 47 degrees to its more conventional rotational axis.
D) Both pass directly through the cores of their planets, like all other fields.
E) Both may have ammonia water replacing the liquid metallic hydrogen.
Q3) An important structural feature of Jupiter and Saturn, that is not found in Uranus and Neptune, is
A) a large core with a composition similar to a terrestrial planet.
B) a hydrosphere.
C) plate tectonics.
D) a thick layer of metallic hydrogen.
E) a thick layer of molecular hydrogen.
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Chapter 6: Small Bodies in the Solar System
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Q1) Pluto is smaller than many moons in the solar system.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What is the defining property of the Trojan asteroids?
A) Their orbital periods are exactly one year, like ours.
B) They have orbits that cross the orbit of the Earth, but not that of Venus.
C) They have orbits at the distance of Jupiter and 60 degrees ahead of or behind it.
D) They have orbits between Saturn and Uranus.
E) Like Pluto, they are in a 3:2 resonance with Neptune.
Q3) The rings of Uranus were discovered from Earth when the planet passed in front of a star.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The Galileo spacecraft showed that volcanic features on Io could change in
Q5) Define Trojan asteroids.
Q6) Discovered in the 1990s, the ________ is a vaster, darker version of the more famed asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Q7) Neptune's moon Triton appears to have a nearly uncratered surface. Explain.
Page 8
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Chapter 7: Formation of Planetary Systems
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Sample Questions
Q1) As the solar nebula contracts due to gravitation, the cloud
A) spins faster.
B) expands.
C) becomes more spherical in shape.
D) changes direction of motion.
E) begins to cool.
Q2) When we are lucky enough to see an extra-solar planet transit its star
A) It will cause the star to vanish for several hours.
B) We can by the drop in light find the planet's size, mass, and density.
C) We can determine what elements are in its atmosphere.
D) We can determine its shape.
E) We can be certain it is a terrestrial, not a jovian.
Q3) In the currently accepted theory for the formation of the solar system, the planets and other minor bodies and the ________ formed at about the same time.
Q4) Explain the effect angular momentum has on a gas cloud as it contracts.
Q5) Any model of solar system formation must explain why every planet is relatively isolated in space.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: The Sun
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the proton-proton cycle, the helium atom and neutrino have less mass than the original hydrogen. What happens to the "lost" mass?
A) It is recycled back into hydrogen.
B) It is ejected into space.
C) It is converted to energy.
D) It is transformed into electrons.
E) Conservation of mass dictates no mass can be lost.
Q2) Prominences hanging off the limb of the Sun are the same as filaments seen in front of the disk.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The critical temperature to initiate the proton-proton cycle in the cores of stars is
A) 3,000 K.
B) 5,800 K.
C) 2,300,000 K.
D) 10 million K.
E) 100 million K.
Q4) What are the main constituents of the solar wind?
Q5) The chromosphere is red because it is hot enough to ________ hydrogen atoms.
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Chapter 9: Measuring the Stars
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Q1) Two stars have apparent magnitudes of 0 and 5. If both stars are 117 parsecs away, which star is intrinsically brighter and by what factor is it brighter than the other?
Q2) Star A has an absolute magnitude of 2.5 and star B has an apparent magnitude of 2.5, but star A is a main sequence star and star B is a red giant. Which statement below is correct?
A) Star A appears brighter than star B, but star B and star A have the same intrinsic brightness.
B) Star B appears brighter than star A, but star B and star A have the same intrinsic brightness.
C) Star A and star B appear to have the same brightness, but star B is intrinsically brighter than star A.
D) Star A and star B appear to have the same brightness, but star A is intrinsically brighter than star B.
E) It is impossible to determine how bright these stars are or appear to be relative to one another, given the information above.
Q3) What is proper motion? How is it related to transverse velocity?
Q4) On the H-R diagram, most bright naked eye stars would lie at the ________.
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Chapter 10: Star Formation and Evolution
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Q1) The order of evolutionary stages of a star like the Sun would be Main Sequence, giant, planetary nebula, and finally a ________.
Q2) Why can radio waves get through the dust clouds, but light is blocked?
Q3) All globular clusters in our Milky Way are about how old?
A) Less than a million years
B) Ten-fifty million years old
C) One to three billion years old
D) Around ten billion years old
E) A variety of ages, from newly born to twenty billion years old
Q4) What is the significance of 8 solar masses in stellar evolution?
Q5) Protostars can be observed in
A) the Crab Nebula.
B) the Andromeda Galaxy.
C) the Orion Nebula.
D) our Solar System.
E) the Helix Nebula.
Q6) For our Sun, the production of carbon will be the end of its nucleosynthesis.
A)True
B)False
Q7) When a low-mass star runs out of hydrogen in its core, it gets brighter. Why?
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Chapter 11: Stellar Explosions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Novae always occur in a close binary star system.
A)True
B)False
Q2) It takes less and less time to fuse heavier and heavier elements inside a high mass star.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The vast majority of pulsars are known only from their pulses in A) X-rays.
B) gamma-rays.
C) visible light.
D) microwaves.
E) radio waves.
Q4) The core of a highly evolved high mass star is a little larger than A) our solar system.
B) our Sun.
C) Jupiter.
D) Earth.
E) a white dwarf.
Q5) How are elements heavier than iron made? Why are they rare?
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Black Holes
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Sample Questions
Q1) The observed slowing of a clock in the vicinity of a black hole is a prediction of A) the Roche Limit.
B) Special relativity.
C) General relativity.
D) Stellar nucleosynthesis.
E) the Cosmological Principle.
Q2) The equivalence principle says that a person in an elevator that is in freefall feels the same acceleration as
A) a person in an elevator going up with an acceleration of g.
B) a person in space, far from any gravitational source accelerating at g.
C) a person in an elevator going down with an acceleration of g.
D) a person in space, far away from any gravitational source with no acceleration.
E) a person in orbit of Earth accelerating at g upward.
Q3) Black holes with masses greater than a million solar masses explain the extremely rapidly moving stars and gas in the cores of galaxies.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 13: The Milky Way Galaxy
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Q1) Although astronomers refer to the Galaxy's disk as rotating, the motion is really due to the ________ motion of each of the objects in the disk.
Q2) Which is the correct description of the Sun's location within the Milky Way?
A) At the outer edge of the Galactic bulge but in the plane of the disc
B) In the disc but at its outer edge
C) As Herschel found, very close to the Galactic center
D) Above the disc and about one-third of the Galactic radius from the center
E) In the disc and about one-half a Galactic radius from the center
Q3) Who discovered the period-luminosity relationship, and why was it so critical?
Q4) Why were globular clusters so vital to Harlow Shapley's success?
Q5) Star formation ceased first in the A) nucleus.
B) spiral arms.
C) bulge.
D) halo.
E) Galactic disk.
Q6) The Galactic center in ________ is best studied using radio and infrared observations.
Q7) Why is visible light a bad choice for studying the core of the Galaxy? What is better?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Galaxies
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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.
Q2) The Milky Way is often considered to be an intermediately wound, barred spiral, which would be type
A) E4.
B) Sa.
C) SBb.
D) SBV.
E) B2S.
Q3) A galaxy that was once a quasar is likely to
A) have burned all its fuel by now and be dark.
B) now be a dwarf irregular.
C) have a black hole at its nucleus.
D) still be a quasar.
E) be less than 5 billion years old.
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Chapter 15: Cosmology and the Universe
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Sample Questions
Q1) The first structures in the universe appear to have formed within
A) the newly formed helium.
B) the normal matter.
C) the electromagnetic radiation.
D) the dark matter.
E) the dark energy.
Q2) Observed temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation are
A) millions of kelvins.
B) hundreds of kelvins.
C) a few kelvins.
D) tens of millionths of a kelvin.
E) immeasurably small.
Q3) The best answer to both the flatness and horizon problems is
A) the Steady State Theory.
B) the GUT theory.
C) the inflationary epoch.
D) dark energy.
E) decoupling.
Q4) ________ is the concept that the universe looks the same in all directions.
Page 17
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