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173 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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"Naked eye" astronomy observing means
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using only your eyes or spectacles
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If you use a full circle star map, the overhead point can be found
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at the center of the map
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the imaginary line in the sky over earth's equator is called the
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celestial equator
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The angular distance between the stars Castor and Pollux is 4.5. If the resolving power of a typical human being is 1 arc minute before eye adaptation to the dark, which of the following is TRUE? The typical human being
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should see Castor and Pollux as two separate stars
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The part of a telescope that lets you preview a bigger sky area before viewing the magnified image is the
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finder
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The largest reflector telescope in the world is located in
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Hawaii
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The full moon subtends 1/2 degree. This statement gives a measure of the moon's
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angular size
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The Hubble Space Telescope has a mirror as the objective with a version of a Cassegraine design. What is it classified as?
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a reflector
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The refracting telescope we saw in class was described as a "2.4-inch refractor." Which feature of it is 2.4 inches?
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diameter of the objective
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The radiotelescope being used for SETI research is located in
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Japan
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The time it takes to see a star rise to the next time that star rises is called a
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sidereal day
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The five naked eye points of light that do not twinkle and "wandered" in the sky were called this by the Greeks:
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planets
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Aristotle believed that the Earth was stationary at the center of the solar system. This model is
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geocentric
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In order for Aristarchus to prove that the Earth moves around the Sun, he tried to measure the
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angle of parallax of nearby stars
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Hipparchus' method for ranking star brightness, still used today, is that the brighter a star is
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the smaller the magnitude number
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He calculated the relative distance of the planets from the Sun in astronomical units
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Copernicus
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Because Galileo was the first to use a telescope on the sky, he was able to discover
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moons around Jupiter
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His three laws of planetary motion apply to any objects in orbit
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Kepler
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"A planet sweeps out equal areas in equal time" means that a planet travels faster in its orbit when it
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is closest to the sun
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Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation says that if the masses of the objects increase, the force of gravity between them increases. This relationship is
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inverse
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The number of waves in a given time is the
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frequency
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The speed of light in a vacuum, symbolized by c, is
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186,000 mi/sec
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X-rays, visible, and radio are what?
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light waves from the highest to lowest energy
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The bending of light due to interaction with edges is
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diffraction
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Which of the following devices causes dispersion of light waves?
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grating
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The blue giant star Rigel is 540 light years away. What does this mean?
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it takes light from Rigel 540 years to reach us
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Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity says that
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every observer measures the same speed for light
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The shape and peak of a star's blackbody spectrum identifies
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its temperature
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A gas will produce a line spectrum because
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the atoms are far apart so energy levels are undistorted
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If a light source like a star is moving towards us, its spectrum will be
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blue-shifted
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This indicates how many degrees north or south of the celestial equator a sky object is
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declination
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The "first point of Aries" is the name for the reference position for
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right ascension
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The star Betelgeuse has a Dec of 7 24 North and an RA of 5 hr 55 min. The star Rigel has Dec of 8 12 South and an RA of 5 hr 14 min. What does this mean?
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Rigel is below the celestial equator
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If you are located at 30 North Latitude
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Polaris' latitude is 30
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The period of Earth's revolution is
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1 year
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Earth moves slowest in its orbit when it is farthest from the Sun. This point is
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aphelion
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What does precession mean?
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Polaris will not always be the north star. Earth's precession cycle takes 26,000 years, and precession means the perihelion point comes later every year.
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Planets that are closer to the sun than the Earth is
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never appear at midnight
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Currently, when we have summer in the northern hemisphere, Earth is
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near aphelion
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The first moment of spring is defined to be when the sun crosses the celestial equator which occurs on the
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vernal equinox
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What is true about Luna?
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It has no overall magnetic field. It is receding from the Earth, and it has no atmosphere
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The large dark area on the moon were named by Galileo as "seas", these are the
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maria
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When craters are formed on the moon, the material scattered around the crater is called
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ejecta
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Our moon's rotation
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has the same direction and time period as its revolution
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The moon physically subtends a bigger angle when it is
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at perigee
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We would see a waxing crescent moon between
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new and 1st quarter
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We don't see two eclipses every month because
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the moon's orbital plane is tilted with respect to the plane of the ecliptic
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Earth experiences the highest high tides and the lowest low tides
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when the sun, moon, and Earth are all in a line
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During a lunar eclipse, the moon passes into this part of the Earth's shadow first
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penumbra
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The first human being to walk on the moon was
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Neil Armstrong
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The group of planets that are large and low density has been designated
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Jovian
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The planet with the biggest temperature range is also the planet with
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a ringed basin and "weird terrain"
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Venus' rotation is retrograde. This means that, seen from above Earth's North pole, Venus
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spins clockwise
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Earth reflects 40 % of the sunlight it receives so
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Earth's albedo is 40
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How many planets in our solar system have only one moon
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2, Earth and Pluto
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Who discovered Pluto
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Tombaugh
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If a moon is being held together only by gravity and it crosses its planet's Roche Limit,
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tidal forces can break it apart and result in a ring
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The planet with the four Galilean moons is also the planet
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with the Great Red Spot
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This planet was predicted by Bode's Law before it was discovered
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Neptune
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The Huygens probe landed on this moon in January of 2005 and sent back the first ever pictures of its surface
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Titan
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Where did the elements in the sun that are heavier than helium come from?
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nuclear fusion in another star
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The sun's equator spins faster than the poles. This is called
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differential rotation
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The proton-proton chain reaction in the core of the sun causes hydrogen nuclei to become
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helium
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The expected total lifetime of the sun is approximately
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10 billion years
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Gamma rays produced in the sun's core lose their energy in this zone
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radiative
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The pink color of the chromosphere is due to this wavelength
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H
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When the solar wind particles spiral along the magnetic lines of force around Earth and collide with Earth's atmosphere, the visible result is
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aurora
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Of the following combinations, the one most likely to produce a total solar eclipse for an Earth observer would be when the moon is
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new, in the plane of the ecliptic, and at perigee
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The plot of sunspot number and location over time is called
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a Butterfly diagram
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Sunspots come in pairs because they are associated with
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the north and south magnetic poles
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The first asteroid ever discovered was
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1 Ceres
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This spacecraft landed on asteroid Eros
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NEAR-Shoemaker
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Short period comets most likely originate from the
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Kuiper Belt
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Meteor showers are named for the constellation that seems to contain their
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radiant point
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The list of 110 objects "to ignore when looking for comets" was begun by and named for:
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Messier
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M,K,B,O
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star names from coolest to hottest
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When the angle of parallax for a star is measured to be 1 arc second, the distance to the star is called
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1 parsec
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The star Polaris is located at 120 pc from us. If its apparent magnitude is +2, what is a possible value for its absolute magnitude
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-5
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RR Lyrae variable stars in globular clusters and Cepheid variable stars in galaxies have been used to determine distance because the relationship between their luminosities and periods of variability is
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linear
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A Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram is a logarithmic plot of stars'
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luminosity vs. temperature
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When hydrogen atoms in a warm nebula change from parallel to antiparallel spin states, they
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emit 21-cm radio waves
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Star are born in the process of
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gravitational collapse of a nebula
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The newest stars we can see are the Trapezium stars located in this star "nursery":
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Great Nebula in Orion
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Of the following star masses, which is most likeyl to have the longest lifetime:
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0.5 M
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The oldest type of star cluster with no dust and only red stars left is this type
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globular
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The Hipparcos spacecraft recorded stars' actual motion through space. This motion is called
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proper motion
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The first stage of a star's death is the formation of a
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red giant
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Chandrasekhar developed the theory for how a star will die based on its
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mass
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The sun is most likely to end its life as a
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white dwarf within a planetary nebula
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What makes the existence of a black hole?
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strong x-ray source, accretion disk near a large star, and gravitational lensing
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Cassiopeia
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circumpolar constellation
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Great Square
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asterism
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Northern Cross
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asterism
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Cepheus
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circumpolar constellation
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Pisces
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Zodiac Constellation
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The place where we can observe the artificial sky is called the
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planetarium
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What is the location of our solar system in the Milky Way Galaxy?
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halfway out from the center
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How do we know the Milky Way galaxy is spiral
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maps of 21-cm radiation from objects forming "arms"
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In the northern hemisphere, everything we see naked eye is in the Milky Way galaxy except
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the Andromeda galaxy
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Edwin Hubble classified galaxies by shape and measured the distances to them using the linear period luminosity relationship characteristic of
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Cepheid variables
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When a large galaxy exerts a tidal force on a small galaxy, the result is
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galactic cannibalization
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What are the spiral galaxies?
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Milky Way, Pinwheel, Andromeda
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The local group of about 30 galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs is called the
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Local Group
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her "slice-of-sky" maps of galaxies have shown we have a "frothy" universe
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margaret geller
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The most recent physics theory suggest that quarks and other fundamental particles may be made of
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strings
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What is Hubble's Law?
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the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away
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If our universe has enough matter for gravity to balance expansion, it is said to be
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flat
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The "3 K" cosmic background radiation was first detected by
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radiotelescope detecting the blackbody spectrum peak
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The age of the universe based on the current Hubble constant is about
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14 billion years
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The first person to launch a successful liquid fuel rocket was
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Goddard
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The director of German military rockets was
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Von Braun
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US military test pilot
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Yeager
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Partner w/Goddard
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Lindbergh
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Father of American Rocketry
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Goddard
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This man's v-2 rocket marked the beginning of the space age
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von Braun
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the first US satellite ever put into Earth orbit was
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Explorer I
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The first American ever in Earth orbit was
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John Glenn
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The first woman in space was
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Valentina Tereshkova
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This NASA program had the goal of landing on the moon
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Apollo
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This May (2005), NASA hopes to launch mission STS-114. Based on this name, what is being launched?
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Space Shuttle
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Who was the first American woman in space?
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Sally Ride
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There have been two space shuttle accidents. These were
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Challenger and Columbia
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This first UWRF graduate to fly in space flew the Challenger in 1983
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Dan Brandenstein
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Looking just to the side of a star when doing naked-eye night sky viewing helps to see the object better. This technique is called
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averted vision
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When an object like a star appears to have moved only because youi have changed your observing position, the effect is called
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parallax
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A telescope is described as a 5-inch refractor. From this you know that
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the objective is a lens
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According to Newton's Universal law of Gravitation, the force of gravity between a star and a planet should increase if this decreases
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the distance between them
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When observing a total lunar eclipse, sunlight bends at the edges of Earth and makes Earth's shadow fuzzy against the moon. This process of light bending at edges is called
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diffraction
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When the distribution of wavelengths coming from a dense object has no colors missing but the wavelength with the highest intensity depends on the temperature of the object, the spectrum is
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a blackbody spectrum
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The speed of light in a vacuum
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is the same for all light waves
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Of the following, which type of light wave has the shortest wavelength?
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ultraviolet
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If you measure Polaris as being 30 degrees up from horizon,
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its altitude is 30 degrees
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The sun is highest in the sky for observers in Earth's northern hemisphere on this day
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summer solstice
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For observers in the northern hemisphere, sunrise seems to move from northeast toward souteast and back again over the course of a year. This is caused by
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tilt of the Earth
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Which of these is the first day of spring for us in northern WI?
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vernal equinox
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The first manned moon landing occurred on this kind of lunar surface feature
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mare
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Every month during full moon, there will be
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spring tides
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Which of the following phases occurs between new moon and 1st quarter?
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waxing crescent
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The moon rotates in about the same period as it revolves. This means that we see
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only the near side of the moon
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If a moon is held together only by gravity and somehow its orbit crosses the Roche Limit for its planet, what happens to it?
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it breaks apart and forms a ring around the planet
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The planet will all but one of its surface features named for women is also the planet with
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the hottest surface
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In 2004, the planet Saturn is going to be visited by this spacecraft, named for the guy who notes the large apparently empty space in the ring system
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Cassini
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The first planet discovered by telescope was
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Uranus
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This layer of the sun emits H-alpha light and shows a characteristic pink color
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chromosphere
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The graph of position and number of sunspots over time is called the
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Butterfly diagram
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If the moon passes in fron tof the sun but is too far away from Earth to completely block it, we see a ring of sunlight around the moon's shadow. This kind of eclipse is called
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annular solar
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When this interacts with Earth's magnetic field we see the aurora
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solar wind
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The spacecraft NEAR-Shoemaker landed on
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an asteroid
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When cometary debris enters Earth's atmosphere, we see
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a meteor shower
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In our solar system, comets originate from
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the Oort Cloud and Kuiper belt
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Messier's List is a list of
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some objects that might look like comets through a telescope
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When stars are described by naked-eye color, the most important contribution to that appearance is
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the peak blackbody spectrum wavelength
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Henrietta Leavitt discovered a linear period-luminosity relationship for these variable stars; later Hubble used these to measure distances to other galaxies
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Cepheids
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If a star's angle of parallax is 1 arc-second
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its distance is 1 parsec
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A logarithmic plot of luminosity vs. temperature for stars is called
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a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
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When hydrogen atoms change from a parallel to an antiparallel spin state, they emit
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21-cm radio waves
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When the sun dies it will end up as a white dwarf surrounded by
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a planetary nebula
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The most important factor that determines how a star will die is its
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mass
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A pulsar is
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a spinning neutron star
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What is a circumpolar constellation?
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Ursa Major
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What is a zodiac constellation?
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Pisces
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What is an asterism?
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Northern Cross
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Constellations that lie on or near the ecliptic line are
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zodiac
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The closest known galaxy to the Milky Way is
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Canis Major Dwarf
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Who measured the distances to globular cluster?
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Shapley
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The globular clusters in our galaxy are located
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around the center of the galaxy
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Who mapped galaxies and showed that our universe looks like "frothy soap suds"?
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Geller
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If our expanding universe stops expanding and just stays as is, we would call the universe
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flat
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Who was the first human being in space?
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John Glenn
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Space Transport System is the official name for
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the space shuttle
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Objects that remain in orbit have horizontal velocity and
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are in free fall
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Which spacecraft are carrying pictures and sounds of Earth out of the solar system?
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Voyager
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What famous telescope is being used to detect signals for the seti@home project?
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Arecibo Observatory
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