Astronomical Stuff

Question 1

Name the planets in the solar system and where they are located. Where is the asteroid belt?

Answer 1

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus 
Neptune
(Pluto)
-*between Mars and Jupiter

Question 2

What is a light year?

Answer 2

Distances outside our solar system. Distance light travels in one year.
Nearly 10 trillion km.

Question 3

Describe the life cycle of a star. Be sure to describe the different parts. (red giant pulsar, black hole, etc).

Answer 3

idk

Question 4

What is a solar eclipse? a lunar eclipse? How are they formed?

Answer 4

Solar eclipse: Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. The moon’s shadow goes on the Earth.
-New Moon
Lunar Eclipse: Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon and Earth’s shadow passes on the moon.
-Full moon.

Question 5

What is an umbra? a preumbra?

Answer 5

Umbra: complete, dark shadow
Preumbra: the outer shadow the moon casts.

Question 6

Define rotation and revolution. What do they cause on Earth?

Answer 6

Rotation: Around an axis
Revolution: Around another body.

Question 7

What causes tides? what are neap tides? Spring tides?

Answer 7

Spring tides: Occur when we have higher than usual tides and lower than usual tides.
Sun and moon alligned/parallel.
-New moon/Full mon

Neap Tides: Occur when Sun and Moon are about 90 degrees apart. Lower high tides, higher lower tides.
-Quarter moons. 2 times a month.

Question 8

What causes the seasons? What are they and what is the Earth’s position in relation to the Sun?

Answer 8

Tilt of our axis causes seasons. Opposite seasons in northern/southern hemisphere.

• Summer: tilted toward sun—direct rays.
• Winter: tilted away—slanted rays.
• Spring/autumn: not tilted towards or away.

Question 9

Describe our Sun. What is it made of? How old is it? What process goes on in its core?

Answer 9

• Made of hydrogen, helium, heavy elements.
• 4.6 billion years old.
  core: nuclear fusion

Question 10

Describe the 3 different types of galaxies. What type is our galaxy?

Answer 10

• Elliptical galaxies: most common, dim, difficult to see, stars crowded toward center, little gas and dust, yellow in color, small, M87
• Irregular galaxies: small and giant, contain large clouds of gas and dust, both young (blue) and old (yellow), aftermath of galactic collisions, Magellan clouds
• Spiral galaxies: bright newly formed stars, seen from great distances, spiral arms- blue stars clouds of dust, black holes, Milky way.

Question 11

Describe the different phases of the moon.

Answer 11

1. New Moon (invis)
2. Waxing crescent- getting bigger
3. First quarter- halt- 1/4th of the moon
4. Waxing gibbous
5. Full moon
6. Waning gibbous
7. Last (third) quarter
   8 Waning crescent

Question 12

What does E=mc^2 mean?

Answer 12

Mass and energy can change forms and are the same thing in different forms.

Question 13

Describe the theory of relativity.

Answer 13

New theory of gravitation where gravity causes space to curve and time to slow down.
It means there’s no support force.

Question 14

What is time dilation? length contraction? When do they occur?

Answer 14

Time dilation: time as a result of speed, stretching of time, negligible in everyday life because we don’t travel that fast.
Length contraction: Makes moving objects length shorter. Also negligible in everyday life.
–Length/time is affected more as we get closer to the speed of light.

Question 15

What is the Big Bang Theory? What did it create? When did it occur?

Answer 15

Blah

Question 16

What is the nebular theory? What does it form?

Answer 16

It is the modern theory to explain the formation of the solar system.

• Sun and planets formed from a cloud of gas and dust called a nebula.
• it began to condense and collapse due to gravity.
• it heated up, spun and became flattened into a disk shape.
• large clump became our sun, the smaller clumps became the planets, even smaller is the moon.

Question 17

What is dark matter? dark energy? How do they influence the expansion rate of the universe?

Answer 17

Dark Matter:

Dark Energy:

Question 18

Describe what occurs as you travel through space at speeds near the speed of light.

Answer 18

Length Contraction and Time dialation