P7 Flashcards
What direction to stars and sun appear to move?
East to west so the Earth moves from west to east
What is a sidereal day?
It’s the time taken for a star to return to the same position in the sky - 23 hours 56 minutes
What is a solar day?
Time taken for the sun to return to the same position in the sky - 24 hours.
Why does a solar day longer than a sidereal day?
Because the Earth orbits the sun in the same direction as it spins so it needs to make an extra rotation for it to appear in the same place
How long does it take for the Moon to appear in the same position in the sky?
25 hours because the moon is orbiting the Earth in the same direction the Earth is rotating
What is a lunar eclipse?
When the moon passes into the Earths shadow so the Earth blocks light coming from the sun so almost no light is reflected from the moon
What is a solar eclipse?
It’s when the moon is directly between the Sun and the Earth so the moon blocks the light from the sun
Why are eclipses rare?
Because the moons orbit is at a different plane so the Earth, Sun and Moon rarely line up
What is the celestial equator?
It’s an imaginary plane extended out from the Earths equator
What is right ascension?
This shows which direction to look across and is measured in degrees and time
What is declination?
Shows how high or below to look from the celestial equator and is measured in degrees
What is retrograde motion?
A planet appears to change direction and go the other way for a bit in relation to fixed stars making a loop in its track
How does retrograde motion work with Mars and Earth?
From Earth Mars appears to move left compared to fixed stars but then Earth overtakes Mars so it appears to change direction but as Earth moves vertically down Mars continues to appear going left
What is refraction?
When a wave hits a boundary between two materials, a part of the wave hits the boundary first so it slows while the other part carries on at normal speed an then hits the boundary which causes the wave to change direction
What happens if the speed changes?
As the frequency remains the same, the wavelength must change. If the speed decreases then wavelength gets shorter
What do converging/convex lenses do?
They use refraction to focus light waves and form an image. Firstly when it hits the light deviates towards to normal and when it leaves it deviates away from the normal
How does light disperse in in a triangular prism?
White light disperses into different colours that have different wavelengths and as the boundaries aren’t parallel the different lights form a spectrum that refracts different amounts, red refracts least
Where is the focal point?
Where Ray’s initially parallel to the the principle axis meet
How is a lens more powerful?
If it has a strongly curved surface so it strongly converges the rays of light so the focal length is shorter
What are extended objects?
They are stars far away they form a point image that are larger than a point