The Milky Way And Beyond Flashcards
How did Harlow Shapley determine where the center of the galaxy lies?
He plotted the distribution of globular clusters.
Which distance method is used to determine the distance to the most distant galaxies when only a redshift is measured?
Hubble’s Law
The star Capella is 42.9 light years (13.15 parsecs) away.
What would be the best method to use to determine this star’s distance?
Parallax
Which feature can be used as evidence of a supermassive black hole?
Large jets visa blue in the radio spectrum
Why would a spaceship not be able to travel directly through the center of a large spiral galaxy?
The galaxy contains a black hole at its center
Which type of galaxy is distorted and has tidal tails?
Seyfert
How would an astronaut’s spaceship appear relative to its direction of motion if time dial at ion was occurring?
It would seem shorter.
Which force is best explained by the theory of relativity?
Gravity
Describe the relevance of E=mc^2 to and object’s mass.
Increasing an object’s velocity increases its kinetic energy and, therefore, its mass
Which phenomenon occurs when a moving object is measured to be shorter than a similar object sitting next to an observer?
Length contraction
Which galaxies from Hubble’s classification scheme mainly contain old stars?
Elliptical
What type of planet would be most easily identified using the wobble of the host star?
Gas giant
Which discovery can be made using small dips in observed light from specific stars over regular periods of time?
Exoplanet transit
What is the dominant fusion process in stars like the Sun?
Proton-proton fusion
High temperatures in massive main sequence stars lead to the creation of energy through the CNO (carbon-nitrogen-oxygen) cycle.
What is occurring during the CNO cycle in the center of massive stars?
Carbon and Hydrogen combine and through a series of steps, including the transitional formation of nitrogen and oxygen, ultimately create a helium atom.
