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ASTRONOMY 104 MIDTERM EXAM STUDY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
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ASTRONOMY 104 MIDTERM EXAM STUDY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
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ASTRONOMY 104 MIDTERM EXAMSTUDY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
A Earth-orbiting artificial satellite is passing by Polaris. At closest
approach it is about a fist at arm's
length away in angular separation. What is the closest approach in angle
and in spatial separation?
Correct Answer -About 10 degrees
in angle and the spatial separation is virtually the same as the Earth-
Polaris spatial
separation since the Earth-satellite spatial separation is negligible for most
purposes compared to
the Earth-Polaris spatial separation.
Two stars are a fist width's apart on the sky. (The fist is at arm's length.)
What is the angular
separation of the two stars? How far apart are they in space?
Correct Answer -The angular separation is about 10 degrees
. The spatial separation CANNOT be determined from the
given information
A straight line on a linear plot represents a/an
___________________function.
Correct Answer -linear
A curve on a linear plot that decreases as 1 over the square of the
horizontal axis coordinate represents
,a/an __________________function.
Correct Answer -inverse-square
If a function goes to infinity at x = 0 (i.e., the origin of the horizontal axis),
it
Correct Answer -may be an inverse-square function.
On a standard logarithmic or log plot, an axis unit is:
Correct Answer -a power of 10
On a base-10 logarithmic scale, the unit is a power of:
Correct Answer -10
"Let's play Jeopardy! For $100, the answer is: Zero."
What is , _______________Alex?
Correct Answer -the eccentricity of a circular orbit
Most comets that are gravitationally bound to the Sun have very elliptical
orbits. This means that most
bound comet orbits have eccentricities that are:
Correct Answer ->> 0 in some sense, but less than 1.
The eccentricity of a body in orbit about the Sun is 0.20. How does its
distance from the Sun vary?
Correct Answer -At APHELION the body is 20 % farther from the Sun than
the standard mean distance. At
PERIHELION it is 20 % closer to the Sun than the standard mean distance.
, There are two gravitationally-bound bodies isolated in space. Describe
their motion.
Correct Answer -The two bodies orbit their joint center of mass in ellipses.
To very good approximation, the planets move in:
Correct Answer -elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse.
A planet is orbiting the Sun in an ELLIPTICAL orbit.
Correct Answer -It moves fastest at PERIHELION and slowest at APHELION.
Much of astronomy lore about what is seen on the sky is at least vaguely
well known and dates back:
Correct Answer -d) millennia
Parallax is:
Correct Answer -the change in angular position of an object due to the
change in position of the observer.
"Let's play Jeopardy! For $100, the answer is: This condition of astro-
bodies means that they show no
parallax to unaided-eye observations for any movements about the Earth's
surface."
What is their ________________, Alex?
Correct Answer -b) remoteness relative to the size of the Earth
Briefly describe the celestial sphere.
Correct Answer -It is an imaginary sphere CENTERED on EARTH. All the
heavenly bodies are located on it.
It is SO LARGE that the size of the Earth is INSIGNIFICANT in comparison:
this implies
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