Practise Final Exam Flashcards
When light reflects off an object, what is the relation between the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection?
Angle of incidence = angle of reflection
Suppose that we look at a photograph of many galaxies. Assuming that all galaxies formed at about the same time, which galaxy in the picture is the youngest?
The one that is farthest away
Which of the following statements about comets and asteroids is true?
Comets are balls of ice and dust
Momentum is defined as
Mass times velocity
Why do jovian planets bulge around the equator, that is, have a smashed appearance?
Their rapid rotation flings the mass near the equator outward
The core, mantle, and crust of a planet can be defined by differences in their:
Composition
Which of the following describes a major danger of interstellar travel at near light speed?
Atoms and ions in interstellar space will hit a fast moving spacecraft like a flood of dangerous cosmic rays
What do we mean when we say the universe is expanding?
All galaxies are increasingly moving away from one another
That is the acceleration of gravity on Earth?
9.8m/s2 downward
Under what circumstances can differentiation occur in a planet?
The planet must have a molten interior
The phase of matter in the Sun is
Plasma
What do we mean when we say that the Sun is in gravitational equilibrium?
There is a balance within the Sun between the outward push of pressure and the inward pull of gravity
What is the ecliptic?
The Sun’s apparent path along the celestial sphere
The Jewish calendar is kept roughly synchronized with a solar calendar by:
Adding a thirteenth lunar month to 7 out of every 19 years
What is differentiation in planetary geology?
The process by which gravity separates materials according to density
Which of the following is a principal in advantage of CCDs over photographic film?
CCDs capture a much higher percentage of the incoming photons than does film
An icy leftover planetesimal orbiting the Sun is
A comet
In the late 1800s, Kelvin and Helmholtz suggested that the Sun stayed hot thanks to gravitational contraction. What was the major drawback of this idea?
It predicted that the Sun could last only about 25 million years, which is far less than the age of Earth
Grass appears green because
It reflects green light and absorbs other colours
What two factors are balanced in what we call gravitational equilibrium?
Outward pressure and inward gravity
Which of the following best explains why an interstellar ramjet could, in theory, achieve continuous acceleration?
It collects fuel as it goes, rather than having to carry the weight of fuel along with it
Which of the following is not considered a likely solution to the question of why we are not currently aware of a galactic civilization?
The galactic civilization probably is undetectable to us because it makes use of technologies that do not obey the laws of physics
What do asteroids and comets have in common
Most are unchanged since their formation in the solar nebula
Which of the following has your “address” in the correct order?
You, Earth, solar system, Milky Way, Local Group, Local supercluster
