2. What astronomical "discovery" is attributed to Harlow Shapley? Who developed the technique he used, to find distances and what was that technique?
3. What discovery is attributed to Vera Rubin and what technique does she employ to make measurements (that is, how did she make this discovery)?
4. How did Sir Arthur Eddington verify the prediction of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity?
5. Compare and contrast Brahe and Kepler, briefly.
6. Compare and contrast, in a few sentences, Aristotle and Galileo.
7. Draw the earth-sun diagram shown in class for determining moon phases and use it to answer the following: When does the first quarter moon rise? When does a waxing crescent moon set? When is a third quarter moon on the Meridian? I see the moon in the sky around 9AM. Am I looking East or West?
8. What would our seasons be like if the earth were tipped 45° instead of 23.5°? What would they be like if the earth's axis were perpendicular to its orbit?
9. Star A had a magnitude of 2.5; Star B, 5.5; and Star C 10.5. Which is brightest? Which are visible to the unaided eye? Which pair of stars has an intensity ratio of 100?
10. If the Earth were the size of a B-B (about 0.1 of a centimeter radius), how big would the Sun be? How big would the Milky Way be?
11. If one complete hemisphere of the Moon is always lit by the Sun, why do we see different pleases of the Moon?
(a) You go outside at about 9PM and face south. The moon is up and off to your right, near the horizon. Is it rising or setting and in what phase is it? (b) The next night you go out again at 9PM. Where is the moon? Is it higher or lower or not up at all? Did it move east or west with respect to the stars? Has its phase changed? If so, how?
12. A stick 10 cm high casts a shadow 4.2 cm long at noon. What is the sun's altitude? Hint: Draw a diagram to scale. Or you can divide the height of the stick l by the shadow length s. This ratio is the tangent of the angles of the sun's height h above the horizon. Use the trig relationship below:
13. Jupiter's average distance from the sun is 5.2 AU. What is its orbital period?
14. Why do we say that atoms are mostly empty space?
15. What is meant by adaptive optics?
16. What might we detect with an X-ray telescope that we could not detect with an infrared telescope?
17. How much more energy is carried by a photon of wavelength 1 Angstrom (an X-ray) than by photon of wavelength 5000 Angstrom (visible light)?
18. Why does the useful resolving power of a ground-based telescope with a 2-meter diameter mirror not match its theoretical value?
19. Put a pencil straight down into a glass of water. Notice whether the pencil looks bent. Now tilt the pencil and note how its apparent bending changes. How does this illustrate why light from objects near the horizon is refracted more strongly?
20. What kind of astronomical objects can we best study with radio techniques?
21. How are color and wavelength related?
22. Given that water absorbs microwaves very strongly, can you explain why a Pop-Tart gets very hot inside while it's crust stays cool if you heat it in a microwave oven?
23. In the energy-level model, when an atom absorbs a photon, what generally happens to one of the electrons?
General Science Education Major
Physics Minor