Mini Test Flashcards
Kepler’s first law basically just says a planet’s orbit is an ____ with the sun at a ______
ellipse, focal point
what charge was Galileo tried by the Catholic church for?
Hersey
what was Hubble’s big moment of discovery that changed astronomy?
that Andromeda was its own galaxy indicating that there were many more galaxies other than us
why didn’t Einstein like lemaitres big bang theory?
Einstein believed in eternal universe
newton is the “father” of what 2 major academic studies?
physics and calculus
why did ancient man start taking interest in astronomy?
to tell time and season
if the focal points of an ellipse get further from the center, what happens to eccentricity?
it gets closer to 1; more oval/flat
How did Copernicus try to refine Ptolemy’s explanation for the retrograde “loops” of planets?
parallex
Moving from perihelion towards aphelion, would a planet be speeding up or slowing down?
slowing down
Are the eccentricities of the planets generally closer to 0 or closer to 1?
0
Who was the first human to ever see the moon up close and to see the moons of Jupiter?
galileo
Who developed the first working mathematical model for gravity that made good predictions of motion?
newton
Who came up with the solar system view that was accepted for over a millennium even though it was wrong?
ptolemy
Whose personality clashed with Brahe’s to the point that he could not finish his equations until after Brahe had passed away and he was able to “acquire” Brahe’s data?
kepler
Who contributed to this history of astronomy by creating an early catalogue of stars and naming many of the stars (with the names we still use today)?
brahe
Who proposed that matter was able to curve “space-time” to create the orbits that we currently observe for the planets?
einstein
Brahe discovered a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia. What controversial idea was he able to prove through this discovery?
that stars and everything beyond could be made or moved or born
Who was the primary defender of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus?
galileo
Who was the first to seriously purpose that the universe created from a singularity in a “big bang”?
lemaitre
Who was the first to embrace the idea that the planets, stars, etc. all worked together in a “system”?
aristotle
Why was there conflict between Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke?
accused each other of stealing each others work
What experiment by Arthur Edington confirmed that Einstein’s relativity might actually be right?
he witnessed a total solar eclipse and saw stars in front of the moon
What orbiting bodies tend to have the highest eccentriciy in our solar systen
comets
How were the “ancients” able to tell the difference between stars and planets?
only the planets had retrograde motion
how do you use keplers 3rd law to figure out the length of time for a planet to go around the sun?
P^2=a^3
What major breakthrough in the study of astronomy began around the beginning of the 1960’S?
we started sending people and robots to space
Where and what is Stonehenge?
ancient stone calendars in england
What was the first planet to actually be “discovered”?
uranus
Why does Saturn appear to move more slowly across the sky than Mars over a long period of time?
because mars is closer than saturn
Why did humans start looking up and studying the sky in the first place?
to tell time and season
How do Newton’s explanation of gravity and Einstein’s explanation gravity differ from each other?
newton - explained as a force between 2 objects
einstein - explained as a curve in space itself
When using Kepler’s 2nd law to “sweep out” an area over time, why does the wedge shape that is nearer to the sun look different from the wedge shape furthest from the sun?
the time was the same but they were different distances so it gets faster towards time sun
Why did Lemaitre have a hard time finding support for his theory at first?
his religion, he was a priest
What important contribution did the ancient Egyptians and Greeks leave us?
size and shape of earth
At what time of year is the earth at perihelion?
january
The “perihelion” distance plus the “aphelion” distance matches what other measurement?
major axis
Eccentricity equaled “c divided by a”. What is c, and what is a?
c - focal point to center
a - semi major axis
The difference between Aristotle’s model and Ptolemy’s is that Ptolemy accounted for what?
retrograde motion
Other than his planetary model, what other major contribution to Ptolemy contribute to astronomy?
named majority of constellations
The apparent motion of the planets due to our own motion is known as _____
parallex
“the ancients”
- Eratosthenes: determined size/shape of earth
- Learned how to tell time using the sky
- Named the “wandering” stars the “planets”
aristotle
- Developed the first model of a “solar system”
- Consisted of spherical shells for each body
ptolemy
- His model explained the motion of planets
through “epicycles” which stood for 1,500 yrs. - Named the northern constellations
Arabic and Chinese astronomers
- Named the stars and recorded events such as
eclipses, comets, and supernovae - Begun to challenge geocentric models
copernicus
- Developed the first real heliocentric model
- Explained retrograde motion with parallax
brahe
- Compiled a massive amount of data on the
positions of stars and planets over years - Improved parallax measurements
kepler
- Developed three laws of planetary motion
- Proved that planets orbit in ellipses
galileo
- First to use refracting telescope for astronomy
- Discovered moons of Jupiter and rings of Saturn
- Tried by the church for defending Copernicus
newton
- Used the reflecting telescope for astronomy
- Explained gravity mathematically
- Laid down the laws of physics in “The Principia”
einstein
- Explained gravity through “space-time”
- Developed general and special relativity
hubble
- Learned the universe was much bigger than was
originally thought and that it is expanding - Found expansion is accelerating
lamaitre
- Priest who proposed that the universe had a
moment of “creation”; that it is not eternal - Peers referred to his ideas as “The Big Bang”
space exploration
- Launching people, telescopes, probes and rovers
has exponentially increased our knowledge of
the universe
history of astronomy in order
- the ancients
- aristotle
- ptolemy
- Arabic and Chinese astronomers
- copernicus
- brahe
- kepler
- galileo
- newton
- einstein
- hubble
- lamaitre
- space exploration
