Quiz 1 Flashcards
In astronomical units, how far is the Earth from the sun?
1
A light year is
The distance light travels in a year
What do we call the imaginary sphere of heavenly objects that seems to center on the observer?
Celestial Sphere
Thirty arcminutes is how many degrees?
.5
What do we call the orbiting of one object around another?
revolution
We live in this galaxy
The milky way
Kepler’s first law states that
a planet’s path around the sun is an ellipse with varying speeds.
What do we call the spinning of an object about an axis that passes through it?
Rotation
If the moon was new last Saturday, what phase will it be this Saturday?
first quarter
Which of the following is the largest planet in the solar system?
Jupiter
The apparent shifting of nearby objects with respect to distant ones as the position of the observer changes is called
parallax
In what year did Galileo build his first telescope?
1609
What do we call an eclipse in which light from the Sun is blocked by the moon when the moon, inits new phase, passes directly between the sun and the earth?
Solar
The smallest planet in our solar system is
Mercury
Which of the following choices is not a criterion for a good scientific theory?
A theory should be agreed on by all knowledgeable scientists
According to a general theory of relativity, massive objects warp not only space around them but also time?
True
If the mass of the Earth magically decreased with no change in its size, your weigh (as you stand on the surface) would
Decrease
An area of the sky containing a pattern of stars named for a particular object, animal or person is called
constellation
What do we call an eclipse which the moon passes into the shadow of the Earth
Lunar
In his model of the solar system copernicus
Included epicycles because he assumed that the planets move at constant speeds
Who created the general theory of relativity
Einstein
What do we call the gravitational force between an object and the planetary/stellar body where the object is located?
Weight
The official name for the constellation that many people call the Big Dipper is
Ursa Major
According to Newton what not only makes objects fall to Earth but keeps the moon in orbit around the Earth and keeps the planets in orbit around the Sun
Gravity
How many moons does the Earth have?
1
