Chapters 9-12 Flashcards
Why are Red Giants so luminous?
Because they are very large
One difference between a star and a planet is that the star ___ heat and light, while the planet ___ light.
produces (emails); reflects
The big dipper is not a constellation, but an ___.
asterism
Name the Danish astronomer who made the most careful record of star locations after Ptolemy.
Tycho Brahe
Name the astronomer who described the shape of a planet’s orbint with his first law.
Kepler
Which stars can be used as an optical yardstick to measure distance?
cepheid variables
What scientific instrument can determine chemical composition from light patterns?
spectroscope
Most of the stars in the Big Dipper are ___ magnitude.
2nd
Which is brighter, -3.0 magnitude or 4.0 magnitude?
-3.0
The Milky Way galaxy has a ___ shape.
spiral
Name the astronomer who traveled to St. Helena to plot the position of stars in the southern sky.
Edmund Halley
The Little Dipper is part of the constellation ___ ___.
Ursa Minor
What are astronomers able to determine when they measure stellar parallax?
The distance to the star
Isaac Newton combined the work of Kepler (on planetary motion) and the work of Galileo (motion of objects on earth) and developed what important law?
The Law of Universal Gravitation
What is the shape of a planet’s orbit?
elliptical
Albert Michelson devised a way to measure the size of stars using interference of ___ ___.
light waves
The “zone of life” is the region around a star known as the “Goldilocks zone” because it is neither too ___ nor too ___. On planets in this region, water can be found in ___ state.
hot; cold; liquid
What methods are used to find an extra solar planet?
infrared, radial velocity, wobble
During Edmund Halley’s time, the most mysterious objects in the solar system were ___.
comets
What type of star is our sun?
main-sequence G
Other than the sun, the star closes to the earth is Proxima ___.
Centauri
Which element was identified in the sun before being discovered on earth?
helium
If a star is moving away from earth, its spectral lines are shifted toward the ___ end of the specturm.
red
