Exam Flashcards
Rocky Planets
- Distance from sun
- Size
- Mass
- Composition
- Density
- Close
- Small
- Small
- Rocky
- High
Gas Planets
- Distance from sun
- Size
- Mass
- Composition
- Density
- Far
- Large
- Large
- Solar-like
- Low
What is a simple rule that gives the distance of the planets to the Sun?
Bode’s Law
What does Bode’s Law tell us?
Predicted that there should be a planet between Mars and Jupiter, but it turned out to be the asteroid belt.
What is the order of the planets?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
What are the 4 challenges about the formation of the solar system?
- Patterns of Motion
- Categorizing Planets
- Asteroids and Comets
- Exceptions to the Rules
look at 4 challenges sg
do it before test
How was our solar system formed?
it was formed from a cloud of gas and dust
What is a pre-star which emits energy by light and infrared rays?
Protosun
What is it when gas and dust come together to form our solar system?
Accretion
Why is our sun a second generation star?
Another star erupted and the remains came together to form our sun
What are impact craters evidence of?
Collisions of planetsimals
What are the shapes of the moons in our solar system?
Some are spherical and some are potato shaped
What are asteroids and comets?
Asteroids are rocks and comets are dirty snowballs
What causes shooting stars?
Meteoroids falling into the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up
What is the trail of light the burning meteoroid produces?
Meteor
What are tiny bits of dust and rock?
Meteorites
What are energy-carry waves emitted by vibrating electrons?
Electromagnetic Waves
What are two models of light?
- Electromagnetic Waves
2. Photons
What is the distance between two successive peaks in a wave?
Wavelength
What is the maximum departure of a wave from the undisturbed state?
Amplitude
What is the amount of time for a wave to repeat itself at a specific point in space?
Wave Period
What is the number of wave crests passing a given point per unit time?
Frequency
What makes up the Electromagnetic Spectrum?
Wavelength and amplitude
What is a range of light waves extending in wavelength from radio waves to gamma rays?
Visible Spectrum
What are examples of things that create a spectra?
- Prism
- Raindrops
- CD’s
- Diffraction Grating
What is another way to produce a spectra
break “white light” into individual colors
Draw an atom
check sg
How do like and opposite charges react to each other?
Like charges repel and opposites attract
What are particles that transmit light?
Photons
What is the change in wavelength of light due to motion of the source of light?
The Doppler Effect
What is it called when objects move faster than the waves they produce?
Sonic Boom
How does the Doppler Effect help us measure a star’s motion?
It causes red shifts and blue shifts. The red shifts are objects moving away from Earth and the blue shifts are the objects moving towards the Earth.
What happens as an object is heated?
Their color and brightness changes
What can we learn from a stars spectrum?
It tells us if a star is moving towards or away form Earth
What are the colors of the coolest to the hottest stars?
The hottest color is blue and the coolest is red/orange
What is the bending of light rays upon passing from one transparent medium to another?
Refraction
What is the place where light rays converge to a point?
Focal Point
What is the distance from a curved mirror or lens to its focus?
Focal Length
Draw a label the lens image
See SG
What are the two lens called in a refracting telescope?
- Objective lens
2. Eyepiece
List and describe the reasons we use a telescope
- Brighten - To make things brighter
- Magnify - To make things bigger
- Resolve - To make things clearer
How does a focal length and diameter affect brightness, magnification, and resolve?
Telescopes with a larger diameter are able to resolve smaller objects. The larger the diameter, the more details you can see.
What do stars twinkle?
They twinkle due to turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere
What is meant by invisible astronomy?
Things we can’t see from the naked eye
What does light pollution do?
It makes it difficult to see stars in the city
What are stars that are formed out of enormous volumes of dust and gas?
Nebula
How does a supernova affect the birth of a star?
Their explosions in cold, dark nebulae trigger the birth of a star
What is the importance of a star’s color?
It tells us how hot the star is
What does the HR diagram identify?
The size of the star
Draw the HR diagram and label where the following are found on the diagram
a. Main Sequence
b. Giant-Super giant
c. White Dwarf
See SG
Where do stars spend most of their time on the HR diagram?
The upper left to the lower right
What is the main sequence of stars where outward thermal pressure is exactly balanced by the inward force of gravity?
Hydrostatic Equilibrium
What are the main sequence of stars in terms of energy production?
Hydrogen fusing into helium
What happens when hydrogen fusion ceases?
The star can no longer support its weight. The weight from the outer layers compresses hydrogen into layers just outside the core enough to initiate shell hydrogen fusion. The extra internal heat causes the outer layers to expand into a giant star.
How does the mass of a star affect how long it “lives”?
The bigger the star, the faster it dies
What type of fusion begins at the center of a giant?
Helium fusion
What is the explosive burning of helium in the case of a star of low mass that occurs when the core is so dense that the matter has become degenerate?
Helium Flash
Describe how low mass stars die. What do they form?
- Their core burns out
2. They form a planetary nebula and a white dwarf
What happens to low mass stars before they become a planetary nebula?
They expand into red giants/ supergiants
What do low mass stars expand into?
Planetary Nebula
What supports stable stars?
Gas pressure, radiation pressure, and electron degeneracy pressure
What happens when a low mass star loses hydrostatic equilibrium?
There is a gravitational contraction of the core. Temporary, nuclear fusion-based stability, surrounding the planetary nebula disperses. Then the remaining core becomes a white dwarf.
What is a relatively gentle explosion of hydrogen gas on the surface of a white dwarf in a binary star system?
A nova
When does a nova occur?
It occurs when the white dwarf steals mass from its companion and the external layers quickly ignite and shine brightly.
What do a series of fusion reactions lead to?
Luminous supergiants
How do high mass stars die?
They die violently by blowing themselves apart in supernova explosions
How long do remnants of supernova explosions last?
They can be detected for millennials afterwards
What happens to white dwarfs in close binary systems?
Type I supernova happens
What happens to the cores of Type II supernova?
They become neutron stars
What are supernova remnant cores that are highly compressed clumps of neutrons?
Neutron Stars
What are rapidly spinning neutron stars?
Pulsars
What did radio waves emitted by pulsars lead scientists to believe at one time?
They thought it was evidence of an alien civilization’s communication system called LGM
How does Einstein’s theory of relativity affect your description of physical reality?
It is the same regardless of the velocity at which you move
How does mass affect space and what does it result in?
Mass warps space and resulting in light traveling in curved paths
How is the speed of light measured regardless of speed or direction?
The speed of light will always be they same
How does the speed of light affect the length of an object?
It decreases as its speed increases
How does the speed of light affect the clocks?
The faster you go, the slower time goes
How does the speed of light affect the mass of an object?
As an object approaches the speed of light, it becomes infinitely massive
What does the theory of relativity do to the space time fabric? What does this predict?
- Mass warps space resulting in light traveling in curved paths
- It predicts black holes
Explain how the theory of relativity is right?
- Light is measurably deflected by the Sun’s gravitational curving of spacetime
- Extremely accurate clocks run more slowly when being flown in airplanes
- Some stars have their spectra shifted due to gravity
- If we apply it to a collapsing stellar core, we find that it can be sufficiently dense to trap light in its gravity
What is located at the center of most galaxies?
A supermassive black hole
Explain how primordial black holes may have formed the universe?
The Big Bang might have been chaotic and powerful enough to have compressed tiny knots of matter into primordial black holes
What is the shell from within light cannot escape?
The Event Horizon
What are ripples in spacetime which carry energy away from black holes?
Gravitational Waves
What are the three properties of a black hole?
- Mass
- Angular Momentum
- Electrical Charge
What would it be like to fall into a black hole?
It is an infinite voyage as gravitational tidal forces pull spacetime in such a way that time becomes infinitely long
