All Things Flashcards
Rotation vs revolution
Revolution is moving around something, rotation is something rotating on its axis
Equinox vs solstice
Summer and winter solstices are the lognest and shortest days of the year, equinoxs are when the night and day are the same length
Polar Constellations
which can be seen from canada
which can be seen year round
Seen from Canada: Cassiopeia, Cancer, Virgo
Seen year round from Canada: Draco, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major/Minor
Zodiac constellations
Aries (March 21 – April 19)
Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
Gemini (May 21 – June 20)
Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
Leo (July 23 – August 22)
Virgo (August 23 – September 22)
Libra (September 23 – October 22)
Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)
Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)
Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)
Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)
Pisces (February 19 – March 20)
star map one
Get your star map and look at it
meteors/meteorites/asteroids
Asteriods: Greek word meaning starlike
Meteors: thing high up in the sky
Meteorites: a meteor that hits Earth
catergorize gas giants/terrestrials
composition
density
Gas giant composition: hydrogen, helium, some methane
Terrestrial composition: rocks, silicate, water, and/or carbon
Gas giants are less dense than terrestrials
people
copernicus
galileo
kepler
brahe
hetzsprung russell - diagram
drake
Copernicus: first proposed that the Earth orbits the sun and the Earth spins on its own axis approx. once per day
Galileo: made the first telescope (refracting)
Kepler: found many exoplanets, proposed the 3 laws of planetary motion
Brahe: Discovered a supernova in the Cassiopeia constellation, observed elliptical orbit of a comet
HR diagram: made in 1910 by Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell
Drake equation: created in 1961 by Frank Drake
retrogade motion
Rotates in a way that is unusual
tides
during the solar eclipse spring tides
Spring tides are when the sun and moon are aligned causing strong tides
Neap tides are when they are not aligned causing weaker tides
Spring tides occur during solar eclipses
redshift/blueshift
Stars moving away from us are redshifted, and moving towards us are blueshifted
2 standard candles
cepheid variable stars and type 1A supernovas
outerlayers of the sun
name purpose
Corona, chromosphere, photosphere, convecction zone, radiation zone, core
super novas
Giant explosion after a star dies
neutron stars
Collapsed core of a massive super giant star with a total mass between 10 and 25 solar masses
black holes
An astronomical object that has a gravitational pull so strong that nothing - not even light - can escape it
main sequence stars
Our universe isn’t old enough that’s why most of the stars are found along the Main Sequence.
red giant stars
Uses hydrogen for fuel
white dwarfs
Phase after red giant where the star has exhasuted all its nuclear fuel
Only the hot core remains
pulsar
Neutron stars that send electromagnetic signals toward Earth in millisecond intervals
quasar
Quasi stellar radio sources
Happens when a black hole has debris around it then the debris falls into it, causing it to turn into a sort of particle accelerator
OBAFGKM
O is hottest, M is coolest, our Sun is G
star clusters
open
globular
properties on the chart
Open: few hundred very old stars, 10-30 ly across, scattered around the galactic center
Globular: thousands to millions of stars, that are 10-30 million years old, nearly always in the spiral arms, with a diameter of 30 ly
dark matter
Theorized to be a particle yet to be discovered
telescopes
hubble
kepler
wmap
Hubble: outside of the atmosphere to avoid light pollution from the Earth
Kepler: looks for exoplanets
WMAP: measured temperature differences across the sky in the cosmic microwave background – the radiant heat remaining from the Big Bang
polaris
Brightest star in the night sky
In the little dipper
seasons
key to life?
Having seasons means a planet is rotating at an angle
photoperiod
How long there is light
phases of moon
New moon -> waxing cresent -> first quarter -> waxing gibbous -> full moon -> waning gibbous -> third quarter ->waning cresent
eclipse lunar and solar
Lunar eclipse: When the earth is between the sun a moon causing the moon to turn dark but the light is red shifted causing the moon to seem red
Solar eclipse: the moon goes infront of the sun causing it to go completely dark
comets
Chunks of frozen matter that orbit the Sun in a very long elliptical path
age of
earth
solar system
universe
Earth: 5.6 billion
Solar system 5.6 billion
Universe 13.7 billion
KM
AU
LY
Km: Solar system
Au: Longer distances still in our solar system
Ly: Anywhere outside our solar system
Tidal cycles
Neap tides: low tides
Spring tides: high tides
gravity waves
travel at the speed of causality
baseline + paralllax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight which can help figure out how far away it is (ie looking at something at a distance from one eye then another and then changing positions)
Baseline is an imaginary line from which the distance to an object: This can help with making parallax more exact
prominences
flares
auroras
sunspots
Flares are bursts from the sun
Prominences are circles
Auroras are caused by flares
Sunspots are slightly cooler magnetic fields on the sun that appear very very dark
nebulas bright and dark
Dark nebulae are dark clouds of gas and dust that obscure the objects behind it
Bright nebulae: Planetary nebula, any of a class of bright nebulae that are expanding shells of luminous gas expelled by dying stars
galaxies
spiral
elliptical
irregular
Elliptical: old, rarely form new stars
Spiral: interstellar matter, full of new and young stars
Irregular: have no definite outline, likely formed as the result of a collision of 2 or more galaxies
how do refracting and optical telescopes work
Refracting: lens
Opticial: mirror
what should a space elevator be made of
carbon nanotube
exoplanets - how to find them
Wink (photometric)
Wobble (radial velocity)
