Astronomy Flashcards
What do meteorites and asteroids form when they make contact with earth?
Impact craters
Type of high energy ionizing radiation produced by astronomical objects
Gamma rays
What has now been demoted to a dwarf planet after being demoted from the status of planet in 2006?
Pluto
A collection of stars that form a group but not a constellation
Asterism
The first artificial satellite to enter low earth orbit launched by the Soviet Union in 1957
Sputnik
The term ‘dirty snowball’ is often used to describe which space object? Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Halley are examples of this icy solar body.
Comets
Which planet is home to a major storm known as the Great Red Spot, is the fifth planet from the sun and largest planet in the solar system?
Jupiter
A triple star system that is the closest star system to the Sun
Alpha Centauri
This occurs when a celestial body such as the moon, blocks the sun’s light from reaching the earth
Solar Eclipse
An unnamed ring of this planet parallels the orbit of its moon Galatea. Objects in a 1:2
resonance with this planet are known as “twotinos,” and a spinning storm on this planet is
known as the Great Dark Spot. Triton is a moon of, for the point, what planet in the solar
system, located farthest from the Sun?
Neptune
An incredibly dense region in space where gravity is so strong, light cannot escape
Black hole
A US based satellite network used for navigation
GPS
These cells are coated with a myelin sheath, which allows them to quickly transmit
action potentials. These cells are split into “sensory” and “motor” types and separated from
each other by synapses. For the point, name these signal-transmitting nerve cells, the basic
units of the nervous system. When a star runs out of fuel and collapses in on itself, it explodes into what?
Supernova
A planet that is found around stars outside our solar system and thus does not orbit our sun.
Exoplanet
Located between mars and Jupiter and home to ceres, the largest asteroid which is considered a dwarf planet.
Asteroid belt
Lies beyond Neptune and includes the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon
Kuiper belt
Star collections that form fixed patterns, such as Andromeda, Cancer or Orion.
Constellations
The lunar phase during which the moon appears invisible when viewed from Earth
New Moon
Approximately 6 trillion miles, or the distance light travels in one year
Light year
This detects electromagnetic waves from space, Arecibo in Puerto Rico is a former example
Radio telescope
It’s not Aquarius, but a meteor shower named for this constellation is produced by Halley’s comet. A feature in this constellation is formed by the stars Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, and this constellation’s brightest stars are Rigel and Betelgeuse and contains a namesake “belt”. A constellation on the celestial equator that is named for a hunter in Greek mythology.
Orion
This theory suggests that our universe expanded 13.8 billion years ago from a single point
Big Bang Theory
This was a NASA mission that sent two probes to the edge of the solar system. Nasa launched two spacecrafts in 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn, but the mission has since been extended to leave the solar system. This space program sent the first man-made objects to leave the solar system.
Voyager (Spacecrafts were called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2)
Which program was a NASA mission with the goal to explore the Moon?.
Apollo
What is an incredibly dense region in space where gravity is so strong, light cannot escape.
Black Hole
Which planets have rings surrounding them?
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune .
Darker areas on the surface of the Sun where the magnetic field is 2,500 times stronger than Earth
Sunspots, hi Sena!
A hypothetical, invisible form of matter believed to account for nearly 85% of matter in the universe.
Dark matter
Objects in this constellation include the spiral galaxy of the same name. This body was termed the “little cloud” in 905 by Persian astronomer Al-Sufi. This object was the main focus of the Shapley-Curtis (+) debate, which argued whether this object was an “island universe.” This body is designated 31 in the Messier catalog, and it is predicted to collide with the Milky Way in about 4.5 (*) billion years. For the points, name this closest galaxy to the Milky Way, named after the
daughter of Cassiopeia.
Andromeda
Tiny, rocky objects that orbit the Sun.
Asteroids
The star that has been referred to as “the North Star” because it seems to be in a fixed position while the other stars rotate
around it.
Polaris
Sixth planet from the Sun, has 82 moons (more than any other planet), has its famous set of rings and is the only planet less dense than water.
Saturn
It is an area that lies beyond the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the Solar System and theorized to be the source of many comets.
Oort Cloud
A dwarf planet and the largest object in the asteroid belt.
Ceres
Which two space shuttles were destroyed, killing the American astronauts onboard.
Columbia and Challenger
An astronomical object whose relationship between its luminosity versus its effective temperature is depicted on the Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram.
Star
Total amount of light energy that is radiated by a star from its surface.
Luminosity
The location on the moon where the astronauts of Apollo 11 landed.
Sea of Tranquility
Jupiter’s innermost moon that is said to be the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, with roughly 400 active
volcanoes.
Io
When a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses, and forms a black hole, it emits an explosion called what?
Gamma ray bursts
An unknown form of energy that is said to account for roughly 70% of the universe’s total matter. Not to be
mistaken for dark matter, which tends to drive the universe together, this type of energy tends to drive the universe apart by speeding up its expansion.
Dark energy
The two moons of Mars
Phobos and Deimos.
Speed that an object needs to be traveling in order to leave the gravitational field of a celestial body.
Escape velocity
Which spiral-shaped galaxy is our solar system located in?
Milky Way
Dwarf planet that has natural satellites include Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and its largest, Charon [pronounced like “Sharon” in honor of its discoverer James Christy’s wife, Charlene].
Pluto
This was a NASA space shuttle which exploded during its launch in 1986.
Challenger
Rapidly rotating neutron stars, whose magnetic poles emit electromagnetic radiation.
Pulsars
The first American woman to go to space as an astronaut.
Sally Ride
Powerful explosion of a star that gives off an enormous amount of light, sometimes resulting in the formation of black holes.
Supernova
An American astrophysicist who has been the director the Hayden Planetarium in New York since 1996.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
This planet which has a runaway greenhouse gas effect, is the hottest planet in the solar system and the second from the Sun.
Venus
An astronomer who co-wrote and hosted the show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
Carl Sagan
Balls of frozen gases and rocks that orbit the Sun.
Comets
A vehicle used to explore and take photographs, typically of the terrain of another planet.
Rover
The first Black woman in space and has worked on the 100 Year Starship project.
Mae Jemison
This layer of earth’s atmosphere acts as a barrier, protecting life on Earth from the Sun’s ultraviolet rays.
Ozone Layer
What powers stars by combining different atomic nuclei in a process also called nucleosynthesis.
Fusion
A modular laboratory orbiting the lower regions of Earth’s atmosphere.
International Space Station
A process that involves an increase in distance between different points in the
universe
Expansion of the universe
This located in the constellation Ursa Major.
Big Dipper
An American astronomer who named a type of radiation that is emitted from black holes.
Stephen Hawking
The brightest star in the night sky
Sirius
Which planet often appears red and has two moons named Phobos and Deimos?
Mars
What sedimentary rock is often burned as a fuel and provides a quarter of the world’s energy
and over 40% of greenhouse gas emissions?
Coal
What is the only force acting on an object in Earth’s orbit?
Gravity
Which of the following molecules is found in a namesake layer in the stratosphere?
Ozone
What was the name of the mission on which people first walked on the moon?
Apollo 11
In which month is the earth’s axis tilted farthest from the sun for the continental USA?
December
Which Dutch scientist is famous for his studies of Saturn, including the
discovery of its largest moon, Titan?
Christiaan Huygens
According to ancient Greek-Egyptian scientist Ptolomy, this object
was the center of the universe. This object’s only moon likely occurred when another
object, Theia, collided with this planet. For the point, name this third planet from the sun,
where we are right now.
Earth
These devices can include a light-blocking component called a coronagraph, and
protesters on Mauna Kea are trying to prevent a Thirty-Meter one of these devices from being
built. NASA administrator James Webb is a namesake of, for the point, what type of devices,
the most famous of which is named for Edwin Hubble?
Telescope
These objects from from precursor stars that exceed the Tolman-Oppenheimer
Volkoff limit. The Reissner-Nordstrom variety of these objects are non-rotating, and one of
these objects is predicted to vanish, as described by Hawking radiation. For the point, name
these regions of supermassive gravity from which light cannot escape
Black hole
This planet’s atmosphere is composed of extremely thick clouds primarily made of
sulfuric acid. That thick atmosphere traps greenhouse gases, giving this planet the hottest surface temperature in the solar system. For the point, identify this second planet from the sun, sometimes called “Earth’s Twin.”
Venus
Half of this object was first directly seen by Jim Lovell and two other crewmembers.
This site of the Sea of Tranquility was first visited when Michael Collins stayed in orbit while his two colleagues used a module known as The Eagle. In 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong became the first two people to reach, for the point, what heavenly body?
Moon
This object can be “grazed” by Krachts [[KRAHKTS]] and Marsdens. Prominences
and spicules arise from this body. Objects on this body follow an 11-year cycle, experience the Dalton minimum, and have lower temperatures than the surrounding
surface. The chromosphere lies outside the photosphere of this body. The corona is part of, for the point, what star around which the Earth revolves?
Sun
This planet’s gravity induces tidal forces that cause volcanism on some of its moons. This planet is orbited by the largest moon in the Solar System, which is larger than the planet Mercury. This planet’s moons include Callisto, Io , Ganymede, and Europa. This planet is home to a massive anti-cyclone storm called the Great Red Spot. For the point,
name this largest planet in the Solar System.
Jupiter
A poem written after one of these events states “one thing at least is certain, light
has weight.” That poem was written by Arthur Eddington, who tested the theory of general relativity during one of these events. Jules Janssen and Norman Lockyer discovered helium in a spectral line during one of these events. For the point, “solar” and “lunar” are types of what celestial events in which light from the sun is blocked?
Eclipses
The area of the sky obscured by this object is dubbed the zone of avoidance. Harlow
Shapley believed this object was the only one of its kind to exist, a theory overturned in debates with Heber Doust Curtis using Hubbles evidence of this galaxys neighbor, Andromeda. This galaxy is home to a black hole at its center called Sagittarius A* [A star]. For the point, name this galaxy which contains our solar system.
Milky Way
This objects Reiner Gamma exempli es its namesake swirls. Studies of this object by George Darwin led him to propose the Giant-impact hypothesis of its formation. Hot lava regions that cooled into
at dark spots created the mares on this object, such as the Sea of Tranquility. This object has waxing and waning gibbous phases. For the point, name this object which orbits the Earth in approximately 27
days.
Moon
James Challis blundered the chance to find this object using John Couch Adams’s
calculations. Johann Gottfried Galle discovered this planet based on calculations done by Urbain Le
Verrier VARE-ee AY]. This planet is orbited by the largest retrograde moon in the Solar System,
Triton. Methane in this planets atmosphere reflects gives it its namesake blue color. For the point, name
farthest planet in our Solar System, the eighth from the Sun
Neptune
These objects are the subject of the no-hair theorem which holds that they can be characterized by only their mass, charge, and angular momentum. The mass of one of these objects determines its
Schwarzschild radius and thus its event horizon or point of no return. For the point, name these astronomical objects with singularities at their centers that let nothing, even light, escape.
Black hole
Bailys beads are a visual phenomenon seen during one of these events. An alternating pattern of dark and light lines called shadow bands are produced immediately before and after one of
these events. A variation of one of these events is called total and results in the darkening of a daytime sky. For the point, name these astronomical events in which the Sun is at least partially blocked by the
Moon.
Solar eclipse
The Cassini probe was sent to study this planet and its storms are often called Great White Spots. Its moons include Enceladus, Iapetus, and one that has liquid on its surface and a nitrogen
atmosphere. That moon named Titan orbits this second largest gas giant. For the point, name this sixth planet from the sun that is surrounded by a large icy ring system.
Saturn
A 1999 mission to study the climate of this body was lost due to a miscommunication
regarding Imperial and metric units. Extensive soil tests were performed on this body by the Viking landers. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers transmitted extensive data from, for the point, what fourth planet from the sun?
Mars
Instabilities in these objects can become swing-amplified, and these objects may be
formed via Lindblad resonances. One type of these objects has a flattened rotation curve and appears in the upper part of the Hubble tuning fork. Spiral, elliptical, and irregular are major types of, for the point, what type of galactic objects exemplified by Andromeda and the Milky Way?
Galaxy
This man’s namesake transformation converts between coordinate systems that
differ only by relative motion. This scientist was the first to formalize the concept of inertia, and he is famous for making discoveries that supported Copernicus’s heliocentric theory. For the point, name this Italian polymath who improved the telescope.
Galileo Galilei
The Cassini-Huygens [[HOY-genz]] space-research mission discovered many of its
physical features, including the String of Pearls and Great White Spot. The second-largest moon of this planet is called Rhea, and other moons of this planet include Enceladus. Titan is the largest moon of, for the point, what sixth planet from the Sun, located between Jupiter and Uranus?
Saturn
One of these animals orbited the Earth aboard Sputnik 2, becoming the first animal in space. These animals were the subject of an experiment in which they developed an association between meat powder and a ringing bell that resulted in their salivation. Ivan Pavlov studied, for the point, what domestic animals that belong to the canine family?
Dog
This planet’s orbit marks the outer limit of the asteroid belt. An Italian scientist
discovered four moons of this planet in the 17th century, including Ganymede and Europa. Galileo built a telescope to observe this planet, which is known for its Great Red Spot. For the point, name this fifth planet from the sun, the largest in the solar system.
Jupiter
A form of this process on the planet Venus resulted in an atmosphere of 96% carbon
dioxide. The opposite of this process has been observed on Titan, where the moon’s surface temperature is reduced by 9 degrees Kelvin. For the point, name this effect by which atmospheric radiation warms the surface of the planet by trapping the sun’s heat.
Greenhouse Effect
An object known as SN 1604 is named after this man, who described it in his De Stella Nova. Astronomiae Pars Optica is a work by this scientist who wrote an essay to Ferdinand II in which he proposed a force-based theory of lunar motion. For the point, name this polymath
who published three laws of planetary motion.
Johannes Kepler
A spot found in a crater on Mars was dedicated to this figure during the Mars
Exploration Rover mission in 2005. It was revealed in 2002 that this explorer died
from overheating due to the failure of her (+) spacecraft’s central R-7 sustainer,
although it was first reported that this cosmonaut’s death was caused by oxygen
depletion. Flying into space aboard (*) Sputnik 2, this is, for the points, what Soviet cosmonaut who became the first animal (Soviet Space Dog) to orbit Earth, also referred to as “Muttnik”?
Laika
A value named for this scientist is the time derivative of the scale factor
divided by the scale factor. An instrument named for this scientist captured high
resolution images of (+) Shoemaker-Levy 9’s collision with Jupiter. This man found
that an object’s distance and redshift are directly proportional to each other. An
astronomical (*) constant is named for, for the points, what namesake of a space
telescope?
Hubble (namesake for Hubble Space Telescope)
The discovery that this entity is a supermassive compact object was the
subject of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. The non-alphanumeric (+) character in
this entity’s name was attached because it was “exciting.” This entity is near the
constellations Scorpius and another constellation it shares a name with, which is named for an (*) archer. For the points, name this supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Sagittarius A*
According to Andrei Linde, this process in part occurs due to a “slow roll” (+)
parameter. This process, which was proposed by Alan Guth, explains the horizon, flatness, and magnetic monopole problems. This process took place 10-to-the negative-36 seconds after the Big (*) Bang. For the points, name this theory that proposes a brief period of rapid expansion of the early universe.
Cosmic inflation
The approximate distance to this location can be found by adding one to the
object’s orbital eccentricity and multiplying the solution by its (+) semi-major axis.
The date when this location is reached by the Earth is approximately fourteen days
after the June solstice when solar (*) radiation is at its lowest. For the points, name this point in a satellite’s orbit where the body is furthest from the Sun.
Apogee
In 2020, scientists witnessed a star undergoing this phenomenon, in what
some astronomers call a tidal disruption event. The difference in acceleration
between the head and feet of a human (+) causes this effect, although it is theorized
that humans may not experience this phenomenon in supermassive black holes since its tidal force is less than what is experienced on (*) Earth. For the points, name this phenomenon that is caused by vertical stretching and horizontal compression, also called the noodle effect?
Spaghettification
The first of these objects discovered by the Keck Observatory was the Gliese
876b, and Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019 for
discovering one of these objects named 51 (+) Pegasi b. These objects can be detected
with the radial-velocity method, while other methods for detecting these objects
include Doppler spectroscopy and transit photometry. Gas (*) Giants, Neptunian, and Super-Earth are types of, for the points, what planetary bodies that orbit a star outside of the solar system?
Exoplanet
The organizers of the KEO, one of these objects in space, said, “All the
messages received, without undergoing any censorship, will be embarked aboard,”
when it launched in 2003. Another one of these objects launched aboard the (+)
Voyager spacecraft in 1977 exists as two phonograph records containing 115 images as well as audio samples of greetings spoken in 55 languages. The Voyager (*) Golden Record is an example of, for the points, what memory box that contains present-day objects to be opened in the future?
Time Capsule
This term is used to refer to a hypothetical situation where technological development becomes uncontrollable or irreversible. A misapplication of general (+)
relativity to an infinite time in the past would predict the formation of an object
described by this term that contained all of the mass in the universe. (*) For the points, give this term that refers to the infinitely dense center of a black hole.
singularity
This asterism is surrounded by stars like Rigel, Castor, and Pollux. This
asterism encompasses much of the faint constellation (+) Monoceros. Its three
component stars form an equilateral triangle when drawn on the celestial sphere. This asterism contains the brightest stars from Orion, Canis Major, and Canis (*) Minor. For the points, name this asterism which contains three of the brightest stars in the winter sky.
Winter Triangle
One of these places called Sudbury Basin was formed after the Nuna
supercontinent was hit by a bolide. These places, the largest of which is the (+)
Vredefort in South Africa, include one underneath Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula called Chicxulub [[chik-ZHOO-loob]]. These places typically have raised rims and floors
lower in elevation than the surrounding (*) terrain. For the points, name these places
created when meteorites hit the Earth’s surface.
crater
In H Two regions, Bok globules are extremely cold locations where this
process may occur. This process, which occurs at high rates in starburst galaxies,
leads to the formation of a protoplanetary (+) disk. The photograph The Pillars of
Creation shows this process, which starts after the collapse of a giant (*) molecular
cloud. For the points, name this process that occurs in stellar nurseries, forming objects like
the Sun.
Star formation
Though not known as an economist, this scientist conducted a study on the value of
money in which he discovered an early form of Gresham’s law and established quantity theory. This man’s seminal work, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, was not published until a year after his death in Poland. For the point, name this polymath who formulated the heliocentric model of the solar system
Nicolaus Copernicus
This stage of a star’s life precedes the white and black dwarf stages. Low and
intermediate-mass stars will become this type, and our Sun is expected to engulf Venus and possibly Earth when it becomes this type of star in five billion years. For the point, name these large, highly luminous stars.
Red Giants
The largest of these structures in the Western hemisphere is named for Jennifer
Chalsty and can be found in Jersey City. Other notable American examples of these
structures include the Hayden in New York and the Adler in Chicago. Archimedes is
crediting with creating, for the point, what usually dome-shaped structures in which
viewers can watch the projected movement of the solar system?
Planetarium
This body’s 1600-mile Aitken basin is one of the largest craters in the solar system.
This body was likely formed in the “Big Splash,” a collision with a Mars-sized object. This object contains a favorable landing spot called the Sea of Tranquility, and the gravitational pull of this object is responsible for tides. For the point, name this celestial body that waxes and wanes as it orbits the Earth.
Earth’s Moon (or Moon)
One surface feature of a satellite orbiting this body was described by NASA as a
“mountain sitting in a moat.” This body has not made a full orbit around the Sun since its discovery due to its orbital period being over 200 years. This object was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh and it is named after the Roman god of the underworld. For the point, name this body which, in 2006, was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
Pluto
Objects from this region are disrupted by a dwarf star every 27 million years,
according to the Nemesis hypothesis. The inner part of this location is sometimes called the Hills cloud, and the dwarf planet Sedna is located in this region beyond the Kuiper [[KYper]] Belt. For the point, name this proposed location for the source of long-period comets, named for a Dutch astronomer.
Oort Cloud
The Dongfanghong I was the first of this kind of object launched by China as part of
its “Two Bombs, One [this object]” campaign. Celestial bodies like Europa and Ganymede are considered the “natural” kind of this object and surround Jupiter. Artificial examples of these objects include the Soviet Sputnik 1. For the point, name these objects that orbit larger bodies.
Satellite
A system on this planet found between two jet streams was found to move in an
anticyclonic manner in time-lapse photos from Voyager 1. A massive storm called the Great Red Spot is found on this planet, whose moons include Ganymede and Europa. Most asteroids are found between Mars and, for the point, what largest planet in the Solar System?
Jupiter
The Leviathan Patera is a large cryovolcanic system on this celestial body, which was discovered in 1846 by William Lassell. This moon has the lowest average temperature of all known objects in the Solar System. Due to its retrograde orbit, it is believed this moon may have once been a Pluto-like dwarf planet made of mostly frozen nitrogen. For the point, name this largest moon of Neptune.
Triton
The Late Heavy Bombardment was marked by a large number of collisions involving planets and these objects. In 2014, water vapor was detected on one of these objects named Ceres, while other examples in the same location include Vesta. For the point, name these bodies that exist between Mars and Jupiter in a namesake “belt.”
Asteroid
Mergez is a third magnitude star in this entity, and in Malaysia and Indonesia, this
constellation is identified as a boat or canoe. A technique involving drawing an imaginary line through this entity’s stars of Merak and Dubne is used to find Polaris. For the point, name this pattern of stars that look like a bowl with a handle, comprising seven bright stars
of the Ursa Major constellation.
Big Dipper
That ring surrounding this galaxy is the Monoceros Ring, which may have been torn off nearby Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy. This galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are the two main constituents of the Local Group. The Orion Arm is a component of, for the point, what galaxy that contains the solar system?
Milky Way
Fritz Zwicky proposed an entity named for this adjective after observing the Coma
Cluster. Phantom energy, a type of one quantity named for this adjective, may explain the Big Rip hypothesis. About 68 percent of the universe may be made of an “energy” described by this word. For the point, name this word that describes an unobservable form of matter.
Dark matter (accept Dark)
Examples of these objects include the North America type and the Westerhout Five, the latter of which is often paired with the neighboring Heart type of these objects as the “Heart and Soul.” Subclasses of these objects include the emission and reflection types, and
the Crab type found in Taurus is an example of the supernova remnant subclass of these objects. For the point, name these massive cosmic clouds primarily made of gas and dust.
Nebulae
NASA’s Pioneer program engineered the first satellites for long-term observation of this object, which caused a geomagnetic storm during the Carrington Event. This entity, which is classified as G-type main-sequence, contains an outermost layer made of plasma
known as the corona. For the point, name this star at the center of our solar system.
Sun
One quantity introduced by this scientist is symbolized lambda and represents the
expansion of the universe, though he later deemed it his “biggest blunder.” Gravitational lensing is explained by a “general” form of a theory proposed by this scientist. For the point, name this German-born physicist who originated two theories of relativity.
Albert Einstein
The very low Bond albedo of this planet’s rings explain why they are so dark in
color. This planet was originally called the “Georgian Star” by its discoverer, who also was the first to spy its moons Titania and Oberon. This planet’s extreme seasonal variance has been explained by its almost ninety degree sideways tilt. William Herschel discovered, for the point, what seventh planet from the Sun that lies between Saturn and Neptune?
Uranus
Other examples of these objects were named after Hawaiian, Inuit, and Rapa Nui deities. The term for these objects was coined by Alan Stern, though the International Astronomical Union rejects the implication that the objects qualify as certain larger bodies. For the point, name this type of object, whose most famous member was demoted to its ranks in 2006.
Dwarf Planet
Objects that are in 1:2 orbital resonance with this planet are called “twotinos.” A
triangular patch of clouds on this planet is known as the “Scooter,” and a former series of storms on it was called the Great Dark Spot. A moon of this planet is the largest in the solar system to exhibit retrograde orbit, Triton. For the point, name this farthest planet from the sun.
Neptune
This quantity was shown to be the same in both directions in the Michelson-Morley
experiment, disproving the existence of “aether wind.” According to special relativity, this quantity is the same in all inertial reference frames. For the point, name this quantity symbolized c, the maximum speed at which matter in the universe can travel.
Speed of Light
This author of The Assayer utilized the telescope to discover that the moon had
craters and mountains, which was contrary to contemporary belief that the moon’s surface was smooth. For the point, name this Italian astronomer that was put under house arrest by the Catholic Church for his belief in heliocentricism.
Galileo Galilei
The density of this region renders it invisible to the naked eye, except in times of a solar eclipse. This region features dynamic jets of plasma called spicules, which emerge from its homogenous layer. For the point, name this middle layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, sitting between the solar transition region and the photosphere.
Chromosphere
This object was called Stella Maris in the medieval period, and this object was
preceded in its role by Kochab and Pherkad. This object’s southern counterpart is called Sigma Octantis, and in Lakota this celestial object is known as “The Star that Sits Still.” For the point, name this brightest star of Ursa Minor, or the “Little Dipper,” often called the “North Star.”
Polaris
KGB intervention may have caused the death of this man and instructor Vladimir
Seryogin during a routine flight in 1968. Nazi occupation forced this man and his family to live in a three-meter by three-meter mud hut for years, and this man shouted “Poyekhali!” or, “Off we go,” shortly before departing from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Vostok One. For
the point, name this Soviet Cosmonaut, the first man in space.
Yuri Gagarin
Features of this celestial body include depressions known as “tiger stripes” and
periodic storms like the Great White Spot. The Cassini division can be found within a feature of this planet, which is orbited by the moons Rhea and Titan. An extensive ring system belongs to, for the point, what sixth planet from the Sun?
Saturn
These objects are bound by the Schwarzschild radius, and thermal radiation can be emitted by these entities in a mechanism proposed by Steven Hawking. The surface boundary of these objects is their event horizon, past which nothing can be observed. For the point, name these regions of spacetime with gravity so strong, even light cannot escape
it.
Black hole
One of these objects is the entity behind the Einstein cross, which arises due to
gravitational lensing. The distinction between these entities and blazars is the direction of emission of a relativistic jet, and these objects are often categorized as radio-loud or radio quiet. For the point, name these active galactic nuclei, the most luminous objects in the universe.
Quasar
Pyrex mirrors and is supported by a “horseshoe” mount. These devices, which can be classified into reflecting and refracting varieties, were used to capture images of the Double Helix Nebula and the Pillars of Creation. For the point, name these optical devices used to observe stars, examples of which include the James Webb and Hubble.
Telescopes
This celestial body was in the background when Alexei Leonov performed a 12
minute spacewalk outside Voskhod 2, and this celestial body was the subject of an
impromptu image taken by Voyager 1 which was dubbed by Carl Sagan as the Pale Blue Dot. During the Gemini 12 mission, Buzz Aldrin took the first “space selfie” with, for the point, what celestial body that is the third planet from the sun?
Earth
Along with Procyon and Betelgeuse, this star forms one of the angles of the Winter
Triangle. This star is part of a binary system with a white dwarf with a diameter
approximately the same size as Earth, and this star’s apparent magnitude is approximately twice as great as Canopus. For the point, identify this star in Canis Major, the brightest in the night sky.
Sirius A
Features of this constellation include the Barnard’s Loop, which is an emission
nebula located in the constellation’s molecular cloud complex. The horsehead nebula is in this constellation’s most defining feature, and the brightest stars in this constellation include Rigel and Betelgeuse. The stars Alnitak, Alnitam, and Mintaka make up the “belt” of, for the point, what constellation that is named for a hunter in Greek mythology?
Orion
The outer portion of this region is determined by the Kármán line. This region is comprised of several layers, including one which absorbs much of the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide are the four predominant gases
that make up, for the point, what collective term for the layers of gases surrounding a
planet?
(Earth’s) Atmosphere
It’s not luminosity, but this quantity is commonly calculated using the Faber-Jackson relation. Type 1a supernovae lie near the top of a namesake “ladder” that contains methods for determining this quantity. Standard candles are used to compute this quantity. Large
values for this quantity are often expressed in parsecs. For the point, name this quantity, which for the Sun equals one astronomical unit.
Distance (from Earth)
Structures on this entity include the smooth Borealis basin. The largest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is on this planet. A recent expedition to this planet to search for signs of life in 2021 discovered the presence of hidden water in a canyon. The
Opportunity and Curiosity rovers landed on, for the point, what planet named for the Roman god of war, the fourth planet from the sun?
Mars
Long period varieties of these objects come from the Oort Cloud. In1994, one
of these objects named Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the surface of Jupiter.
Solar wind causes the tails of these objects to always point away from the star which they orbit. For the point, name these icy bodies that orbit the Sun and include examples named Halley’s and Hale-Bopp.
comet
As a consequence of its high density, this body’s atmosphere experiences
super-rotation. Unique volcanic features on this body’s surface include pancake
domes and ticks. This body is the only (+) planet to experience retrograde rotation.
Due to its similar size, this body is sometimes called “Earth’s twin.” The hottest surface in the Solar System is found on, for the point, what second planet from the Sun?
Venus
These phenomena were less frequent during the Spörer and Maunder Minima. The position of these phenomena predicts the location of coronal loops and solar flares. The frequency of these phenomena varies on an eleven-year cycle which
corresponds to the reversal of a magnetic field. Found on the surface of the sun, for
the point, what are these temporary darker regions sometimes visible from Earth without a telescope?
Sunspots
When originally discovered, these objects were nicknamed “LGM,” or little
green men.OneofthesebodiesintheCrabNebulaemitsX-rays.Thesebodiesareonly detectable if one of their poles points toward the Earth. Named for periodically emitting bursts of radio waves, for the point, what are these rapidly rotating neutron
stars?
Pulsar
This constellation contains a notable binary system made of Mizar
[[“MY”-zar]] and Alcor. Major stars in this constellation include Dubhe [[DOO-beh]]
and (+) Merak [[MEE-rak]], which can be used to locate Polaris in another
constellation. The “Big Dipper” is found in, for the point, what northern hemisphere constellation?
Ursa Major (Great Bear)
The influence of this quantity causes the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. The
existence of an increasing variety of this quantity, known as its phantom type, would cause the “big rip” end of the (+) universe. Driving the expansion of the universe and making up the bulk of the universe’s mass-energy (*), for the point, what is this unobserved quantity which is more than twice as prevalent as dark matter?
Dark energy
