Introduction to Astronomy Midterm Exam - 1350 Verified Questions

Introduction to Astronomy

Midterm Exam

Course Introduction

Introduction to Astronomy offers a comprehensive overview of the universe beyond our planet, exploring fundamental concepts such as the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and planetary systems. Students will learn about the history of astronomy, the laws of planetary motion, the life cycles of celestial bodies, and the tools and techniques astronomers use to observe the cosmos. The course also addresses recent discoveries and current research, making connections between astronomical phenomena and their impact on our understanding of the universe. Through a blend of lecture, discussion, and observational activities, students gain a deeper appreciation for the scale, complexity, and beauty of the universe.

Recommended Textbook

Understanding Our Universe 1st Edition by Stacy Palen

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Chapter 1: Our Place in the Universe

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Q1) A light-year is measured in units of:

A) time

B) speed

C) mass

D) distance

Answer: D

Q2) The scientific method is a process by which scientists:

A) prove theories to be known facts

B) gain confidence in theories by failing to prove them wrong

C) show all theories to be wrong

D) test the ideas of Aristotle

Answer: B

Q3) One of the central assumptions in astronomy is that the physical laws of nature:

A) change when objects move at high speed

B) stay the same throughout the age of the universe

C) depend on the mass of the objects involved

D) are the same everywhere in the universe

Answer: D

Q4) Name three dwarf planets.

Answer: Pluto,Ceres,Eris.

Page 3

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Chapter 2: Patterns in the Skymotions of Earth

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Q1) For an observer in Seattle,Washington,which is located at latitude = +47^\(\circ\),what is the minimum height above the southern horizon that the Sun will have throughout the year,and approximately when will this occur?

Answer: The Sun will be at its minimum height above the southern horizon at noon on the winter solstice (Dec.22).In Seattle at a latitude of +47°,the celestial equator will have a height of 90^\(\circ\) - 47^\(\circ\)= 43^\(\circ\)above the southern horizon.Because the Earth's axis is tilted by 23.5° relative to the direction perpendicular to its orbital plane around the Sun,the Sun will reach a height of 43^\(\circ\) - 23.5^\(\circ\)= 19.5^\(\circ\) above the southern horizon at noon on the winter solstice.

Q2) The longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere occurs on the summer solstice.

A)True

B)False

Answer: True

Q3) On which great celestial circle(s)on the celestial sphere would you find the position of the autumnal equinox?

Answer: On both the celestial equator and the ecliptic planes.

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4

Chapter 3: Laws of Motion

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Sample Questions

Q1) Which of the following did NOT require the use of a telescope to observe?

A) Spots on the Sun

B) Retrograde motion of the planets

C) Phases of Venus

D) Jupiter's moons

Answer: B

Q2) __________ hypothesized that planetary motions could be explained by a force arising from the attraction between the mass of the planet and Sun that decreased with the square of the distance between them.

A) Johannes Kepler

B) Isaac Newton

C) Tycho Brahe

D) Nicolaus Copernicus

Answer: B

Q3) What is required to change an object's motion?

Answer: An unbalanced force.

Q4) What acceleration would result from a 5-N force acting on a 3-kg object? (A Newton [N] has units of kg m/s².)

Answer: a = F/m = 5 N/3 kg = 1.67 m/s²

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Chapter 4: Light and Telescopes

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Q1) Compare the light-gathering power of the human eye to that of a 10-inch telescope.

Q2) Which of the following photons carry the least amount of energy?

A) A blue photon of the visible spectrum,whose wavelength is 450 nm

B) An infrared photon,whose wavelength is 10^-5 m

C) A red photon in the visible spectrum,whose wavelength is 700 nm

D) A microwave photon,whose wavelength is 10^-2 m

Q3) The 305-m Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has a resolution that is closest to that of:

A) the Hubble Space Telescope (0.1 arcsec)

B) a human eye (1 arcmin)

C) the Chandra X-ray Telescope (0.5 arcsec)

D) a 1-m optical telescope (1 arcsec)

Q4) How does the resolution of a telescope depend on its focal length?

A) The longer the focal length,the better the resolution.

B) The longer the focal length,the worse the resolution.

C) There is no relation between resolution and focal length.

Q5) Explain two major advantages of CCDs over other imaging techniques.

Q6) Explain how adaptive optics help compensate for atmospheric seeing.

Q7) Explain why the largest telescopes are not refracting telescopes.

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Chapter 5: The Formation of Stars and Planets

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Q1) The difference in composition between the giant planets and the terrestrial planets is most likely caused by the fact that:

A) the giant planets are much larger

B) only the terrestrial planets have iron cores

C) the terrestrial planets are closer to the Sun

D) the giant planets are made mostly of carbon

Q2) Astronomers have used radial velocity monitoring to discover:

A) extra-solar planetary systems that are similar to our own solar system

B) Earth-sized planets around other stars

C) Earth-sized planets at distances of 10 AU from their parent stars

D) extra-solar planetary systems that contain more than one planet

Q3) Astronomers believe that Venus was created with the thick atmosphere it currently has.

A)True

B)False

Q4) To date astronomers have not yet detected Earth-size planets around normal stars.

A)True

B)False

Q5) What does conservation of angular momentum mean?

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Chapter 6: Terrestrial Worlds in the Inner Solar System

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Sample Questions

Q1) Neap tide occurs when the Moon is in the first or third quarter phase and results in:

A) smaller than usual tides

B) larger than usual tides

C) no tides

Q2) If you obtained a sample of Martian rock,determined the abundances of ²³⁸U and ²⁰⁷Pb in it,and found that for every 1 uranium atom there were 7 lead atoms,then what would the age of this rock be? Note that ²³⁸U decays to ²⁰⁷Pb with a half-life of 700 million years.Assume that there was no ²⁰⁷Pb in the rock when it originally formed.

Q3) The reason that Earth is hotter than Jupiter is because the Earth is smaller than Jupiter.

A)True

B)False

Q4) The American and African/European continents are now separated by the Atlantic Ocean,which is approximately 4,000 km wide.Assuming a continental drift rate of 2 cm/year,how long has it been since they were one landmass?

Q5) Describe two reasons why Earth's magnetic field cannot be a result of permanent magnetism.

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Chapter 7: Atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars

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Q1) The presence of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor in a planet's atmosphere is direct evidence of:

A) high surface temperatures as the planet formed

B) volcanic activity

C) cometary impacts

D) the presence of liquid water early in the planet's history

Q2) If water vapor was released from Venus's surface due to tectonic activity into its upper atmosphere,what would most likely happen to it?

A) The water vapor would relieve the greenhouse effect and decrease Venus's surface temperature.

B) Water droplets would condense,rain down,and form lakes on Venus's surface.

C) The water vapor would chemically react with carbon dioxide and form acid rain.

D) UV light would break apart the water molecules,and the hydrogen would be lost into space.

Q3) The fraction of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has always remained about the same as it is today.

A)True

B)False

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Chapter 8: The Giant Planets

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Q1) What is the ratio of Jupiter's volume to that of Earth's if both planets can be modeled as spheres and Jupiter's radius is 11 times that of Earth's?

Q2) Explain why it was difficult for the Voyager space probe to detect Jupiter's ring system as it was approaching the planet,but easy to detect the rings once it passed behind Jupiter.

Q3) __________ has the most extreme seasons of any planet in the Solar System.

A) Jupiter

B) Saturn

C) Uranus

D) Neptune

Q4) Jupiter and Saturn contain solid rocky cores that are approximately 5 to 10 times the mass of the Earth.

A)True

B)False

Q5) As seen from the outer giant planets,the Sun would appear as simply a very bright star in a sea of fainter stars.

A)True

B)False

Q6) Define cloud cannibalism.Where is it observed in the Solar System?

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Chapter 9: Small Bodies of the Solar System

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Q1) Like meteoroids and asteroids,cometary nuclei in the Oort Cloud undergo frequent collisions that often send them into the inner Solar System.

A)True

B)False

Q2) In 1994,dozens of fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with:

A) Jupiter

B) the Earth

C) the Moon

D) Saturn

Q3) Which property of a moon might lead you to believe it was a captured asteroid?

A) It is tidally locked.

B) Its orbital axis is tilted by 10 degrees compared to the planet's rotational axis.

C) It rotates clockwise around the planet when viewed from the planet's north pole.

D) Its surface is very smooth and lacks craters.

Q4) Most asteroids are found in orbit around the Sun between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

A)True

B)False

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Chapter 10: Measuring the Stars

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Q1) Excluding the Sun,not a single star has an observed parallax greater than 1 arcsecond.

A)True

B)False

Q2) In the quantum mechanical view of the atom,an electron is best thought of as:

A) a cloud that is centered on the nucleus

B) a pointlike particle orbiting the nucleus

C) free to orbit at any distance from the nucleus

D) all of the above are true

Q3) What is the spectral type of stars that have the strongest hydrogen absorption lines? Why do stars that are hotter than these have weaker hydrogen lines?

Q4) Stars with a higher apparent brightness are necessarily closer to us than fainter stars.

A)True

B)False

Q5) Among main-sequence stars,the most massive stars are more luminous,redder,cooler,and have larger radii than less massive stars.

A)True

B)False

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Chapter 11: Our Star: The Sun

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Sample Questions

Q1) In the radiative zone inside the Sun,photons are transported from the core to the convective zone in a matter of seconds.

A)True

B)False

Q2) Why is hydrogen burning the main energy source for main-sequence stars?

A) Hydrogen is the most common element in stars.

B) Hydrogen nuclei have the smallest positive charge.

C) Hydrogen burning is the most efficient of all fusion or fission reactions.

D) All the above are valid reasons.

Q3) If the Sun converts 5 × 10¹¹ kg of H to He per second and the mass of a single hydrogen nucleus is 1.7 × 10^-27 kg,how many net proton-proton reactions go on per second in the Sun? What is the luminosity produced if the mass difference between a single helium nucleus and four hydrogen nuclei is 4 × 10^-29 kg? Note that 1 watt = 1 m²kg/s³.

A) 7 × 10³⁷ reactions per second; 3 × 10²⁶ watt

B) 3 × 10³⁸ reactions per second; 10²⁷ watt

C) 3 × 10³⁸ reactions per second; 4 × 10²⁶ watt

D) 7 × 10³⁷ reactions per second; 5 × 10²⁵ watt

Q4) How do periods of strong solar activity affect near-Earth orbiting spacecraft?

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Chapter 12: Evolution of Low-Mass Stars

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Q1) In stellar fusion the term "ash" refers to:

A) dusty product of fire from oxidation occurring within the core of the star

B) the result of nuclear fusion that collects in the core

C) the result of nuclear fusion that collects in the outer layers of a star

D) dusty product of fire from oxidation occurring in the outer layers of the star

Q2) About how long will a 2 M_\(\bigodot\)star live as a main-sequence star?

A) 10 million years

B) 1 billion years

C) 10 billion years

D) 100 million years

Q3) A Type Ia supernova has a luminosity of approximately:

A) 10 thousand L_\(\bigodot\)

B) 10 million L_\(\bigodot\)

C) 10 billion L_\(\bigodot\)

D) 10 trillion L_\(\bigodot\)

Q4) Describe the triple-alpha process of nuclear fusion?

Q5) How can the core of a star be degenerate with respect to the electrons but nondegenerate with respect to the nuclei?

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Chapter 13: Evolution of High-Mass Stars

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Sample Questions

Q1) Light is increasingly redshifted near a black hole because:

A) the photons are moving away from us very quickly as they are sucked into the black hole

B) the photons are moving increasingly faster in order to escape the pull of the black hole

C) time is moving increasingly slower in the observer's frame of reference

D) the curvature of spacetime is increasingly stretched near the black hole,which in turn stretches the wavelengths of the photons

Q2) Most of the uranium (U; atomic mass = 238)found on the Earth was formed in Type II supernovae explosions.

A)True

B)False

Q3) Which has a smaller radius,a 2 M_\(\bigodot\) neutron star or a 3 M_\(\bigodot\) neutron star? What supports each of these stars from collapsing to form a black hole?

Q4) An 8 M_\(\bigodot\) star will eventually die as a Type Ia supernova.

A)True

B)False

Q5) Why do large,high-mass main-sequence stars never become red giants?

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Chapter 14: The Expansion of Space

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Q1) The spectrum of a galaxy is observed to have a hydrogen emission line,normally found at 656.3 nm,with a measured wavelength of 928.7 nm.What is its redshift?

Q2) The value of the scale factor R_U depends on the value of redshift z.

A)True

B)False

Q3) What did Edwin Hubble study in the Andromeda Galaxy that proved it was an individual galaxy and not part of our own Milky Way?

A) Cepheid stars

B) Type Ia supernovae

C) Globular clusters

D) Red Giant stars

Q4) The only chemical elements that formed as the universe cooled down after the Big Bang were hydrogen,deuterium,and helium.

A)True

B)False

Q5) Describe the two assumptions regarding the universe that the cosmological principle makes.

Q6) What does the value of R_U,the scale factor,tell us?

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Chapter 15: The Realm of the Galaxies

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Q1) Roughly what percentage of the total mass of a galaxy is made up of luminous,or normal,matter?

A) 5 percent

B) 25 percent

C) 50 percent

D) 90 percent

Q2) Which of the following are NOT predominantly found in the spiral arms of galaxies?

A) Molecular clouds

B) H II regions

C) K- and M-type stars

D) Type II supernovae

Q3) The 3-dimensional shape of __________ is set by the average velocities of the stars along each of the three axes.

A) spiral galaxies

B) elliptical galaxies

C) elliptical galaxies and spiral bulges

D) quasars

Q4) How do the current star formation rates of spiral and elliptical galaxies compare?

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Chapter 16: Our Galaxy: The Milky Way

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Q1) Why is the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy not an AGN right now? Could it be active in the future? Why or why not?

Q2) Cosmic rays come mostly from extragalactic sources and contribute little to the overall energy balance in the Milky Way disk.

A)True

B)False

Q3) We observe molecular hydrogen gas (H₂)using 21-cm emission.

A)True

B)False

Q4) The chemical composition of a star's atmosphere tells us:

A) how much nuclear burning has gone on in the star

B) the star's evolutionary stage

C) the chemical composition of the cloud from which the star formed

D) all of the above

Q5) Open star clusters primarily inhabit which part of spiral galaxies?

A) Disk

B) Halo

C) Bulge

D) Nucleus

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Chapter 17: Modern Cosmology and the Origin of Structure

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Q1) What can solve the flatness and horizon problem in cosmology,and why?

Q2) Our current ideas on galaxy formation suggest that the visible parts of galaxies:

A) form first and are incorporated into dark matter halos later

B) form only in the densest parts of dark matter halos

C) can tell you the total size of the dark matter halo

D) can tell you everything about the formation history of that galaxy

Q3) Structure formation in the universe proceeds hierarchically,meaning that:

A) large objects collapse then fragment to form smaller objects

B) large objects form at the same times as smaller objects

C) small objects collapse then merge to form larger objects

D) only small objects form and are stable over time

Q4) What do astronomers believe will be the final state of our universe?

A) A "Big Crunch" in which everything collapses back in on itself

B) An ever-expanding universe filled with nothing but hydrogen and helium gas

C) A universe that stops expanding and is filled with nothing but white dwarfs,neutron stars,and black holes

D) An ever-expanding universe filled with photons and elementary particles

Q5) Why does the critical mass density of the universe depend on the value of Hubble's constant,H₀?

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Chapter 18: Life in the Universe

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Q1) Why is a cold star not a good candidate to find life?

A) Just because the star is too cold.

B) Because the habitable zone is very narrow.

C) Because its lifetime is too long for life to evolve.

D) Because the elements that are around cold stars do not lead to evolution.

Q2) Some forms of life on Earth are silicon-based.

A)True

B)False

Q3) Complex microorganisms that have complex DNA enclosed in a cell nucleus are called:

A) algae

B) bacteria

C) eukaryotes

D) prokaryotes

Q4) The Drake equation estimates the number of solar systems in our galaxy today that may harbor life.

A)True

B)False

Q5) If you wanted to find intelligent life in the universe,what spectral types of stars would you study and why?

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