Sample-exam-1

NAME: __________________________
Spring 2014 – ASTR-1020: Stellar Astronomy
Exam 1 – Chapters 1, 2, 3, & 4
Circle your answer clearly AND print the CAPITAL LETTER to the left of the question.
There are 30 multiple choice (3 pts. each) and 1 discussion (10 pts. each) question. Good luck.
Multiple Choice (3 pts. Each)
____
1. According to the figure below, the Earth is located approximately:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
at the center of the Milky Way
near the center of the Milky Way
about halfway out from the center of the Milky Way
at the farthest outskirts of the Milky Way
outside the Milky Way, which is why we can see it as a band across the night sky
____
2. What is the approximate number of stars in the Milky Way?
a. 10 million
b. 300 million
c. 10 billion
d. 300 billion
e. 1 trillion
____
3. The majority of the mass in our universe is made up of:
a. planets
b. stars
c. galaxies
d. dust
e. dark matter
____
4. The majority of the energy in our universe is:
a. radiated by stars from the nuclear fusion going on in their cores
b. the kinetic energy found in the collisions of galaxies
c. the gravitational potential energy of superclusters
d. emitted in radioactive decays of unstable elements
e. made up of dark energy that permeates space
____
5. The speed of light is approximately:
a. 3,000 km/s
b. 30,000 km/s
c. 300,000 km/s
d. 3 million km/s
e. 3 billion km/s
____
6. If an event were to take place on the Sun, how long would it take for the light it generates to reach
us?
a. 8 minutes
b. 11 hours
c. 1 second
d. 1 day
e. It would reach us instantaneously.
____
7. After the Sun, the next nearest star to us is approximately _________ away.
a. 8 light-seconds
b. 80 light-minutes
c. 40 light-hours
d. 4 light-years
e. 200 light-years
____
8. A light-year is a unit commonly used in astronomy as a measure of:
a. time
b. speed
c. mass
d. distance
e. acceleration
____
9. The early universe was composed mainly of which two elements?
a. hydrogen and helium
b. carbon and oxygen
c. hydrogen and oxygen
d. carbon and iron
e. nitrogen and oxygen
____ 10. Which is an important element in the composition of your body that was produced by nuclear fusion
inside a star or an explosion of a star?
a. iron
b. calcium
c. oxygen
d. carbon
e. all of the above
____ 11. The scientific method is a process by which scientists:
a. prove theories to be known facts
b. gain confidence in theories by failing to prove them wrong
c. show all theories to be wrong
d. test the ideas of Aristotle
e. survey what the majority of people think about a theory
____ 12. _________ is the idea that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually the correct one.
a. Newton’s hypothesis
b. Occam’s razor
c. Aristotle’s test
d. Einstein’s excuse
e. The Copernican principle
____ 13. The cosmological principle states that:
a. the universe is expanding in all directions at the same rate
b. a unique center of the universe exists
c. the universe looks the same everywhere and in all directions as long as you look on
large enough spatial scales
d. physical laws change from place to place in the universe
e. the universe is in a “steady state”
____ 14. Scientific notation is used in astronomy primarily because it allows us to:
a. write very large and very small numbers in a convenient way
b. talk about science in an easy way
c. change easy calculations into hard calculations
d. change hard calculations into easy calculations
e. explain science to engineers
____ 15. The study of whether or not life exists elsewhere in the Solar System and beyond is called:
a. origins
b. biochemistry
c. cosmology
d. astrobiology
e. exoplanetology
____ 16. The meridian is defined as an imaginary circle on the sky on which lie the:
a. celestial equator and vernal equinox
b. north and south celestial poles
c. zenith and the north and south celestial poles
d. zenith and east and west directions
e. celestial equator and summer solstice
Figure 1
____ 17. Assume you are observing the night sky from a typical city in the United States with a latitude of
+40°. Using Figure 1, which constellation of the zodiac would be nearest to the meridian at midnight
in mid-September?
a. Scorpius
b. Taurus
c. Pisces
d. Aquarius
e. Leo
____ 18. The direction directly overhead of an observer defines his or her:
a. meridian
b. celestial pole
c. nadir
d. circumpolar plane
e. zenith
____ 19. No matter where you are on Earth, stars appear to rotate about a point called the:
a. zenith
b. celestial pole
c. nadir
d. meridian
e. equinox
____ 20. How far away on average is the Earth from the Sun?
a. 1 light-second
b. 1 light-minute
c. 1 astronomical unit
d. 1 light-hour
e. 1 light-year
____ 21. If you go out at exactly 9 P.M. each evening over the course of one month, the position of a given
star will move westward by tens of degrees. What causes this motion?
a. the Earth’s rotation on its axis
b. the revolution of the Earth around the Sun
c. the revolution of the Moon around the Earth
d. the revolution of the Sun around the Earth
e. the speed of the star through space
____ 22. An empirical science is one that is based on:
a. assumptions
b. calculus
c. computer models
d. observed data
e. hypotheses
____ 23. If the Sun is located at one focus of Earth’s elliptical orbit, what is at the other focus?
a. Earth
b. the Moon
c. another planet
d. nothing
e. Jupiter
____ 24. Kepler’s second law says that if a planet is in an elliptical orbit around a star, then the planet moves
fastest when the planet is:
a. farthest from the star
b. closest to the star
c. exceeding the escape velocity
d. experiencing zero acceleration
e. located at one of the foci
____ 25. Kepler’s third law is a relationship between an orbiting object’s:
a. gravitational force and mass
b. acceleration and mass
c. velocity and period
d. period and semimajor axis
e. semimajor axis and velocity
____ 26. Newton’s first law states that objects in motion:
a. eventually come to rest
b. experience an unbalanced force
c. experience a nonzero acceleration
d. stay in motion
e. must be subject to zero friction
____ 27. According to the scales in the figure, about how many times stronger is gravity on Earth than on the
Moon?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
20
3
2
6
They are the same.
____ 28. If the distance between the Earth and Sun were cut in half, the gravitational force between these two
objects would:
a. decrease by 4
b. decrease by 2
c. increase by 2
d. increase by 4
e. decrease by 8
____ 29. Astronauts orbiting Earth in the space shuttle feel weightless in space because:
a. they are farther away from the Earth
b. they eat less food while in orbit
c. the gravitational pull of the Moon counteracts the Earth’s gravitational pull
d. they are in constant free fall around the Earth
e. they are in space where there is no gravity
____ 30. If you measured the orbital period of the Moon and the distance between the Earth and the Moon
then you could calculate:
a. the mass of the Moon
b. the sum of the masses of the Earth and the Moon
c. the average distance between the Earth and Sun
d. the radius of the Earth
e. the radius of the Moon
Short Answer (10 points)
1. Consider an observer located on the equator. If the observer sees a star directly overhead at 8 P.M.,
where will that star be located in the night sky at midnight? How far above the horizon will it be or
will it have set?
ASTR=1020=Sp-14-Ex-1
Answer Section
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ANS: C
TOP: 1IIiii
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 1.1
2. ANS: D
TOP: 1IIiii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.1
3. ANS: E
TOP: 1IIvii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.1
4. ANS: E
TOP: 1IIvii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Difficult
REF: Section 1.1
5. ANS: C
TOP: 1IIIi
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.1
6. ANS: A
TOP: 1IIIii
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.1
7. ANS: D
TOP: 1IIIii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Difficult
REF: Section 1.1
8. ANS: D
TOP: 1IIIiii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.1
9. ANS: A
TOP: 1IVii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 1.1
10. ANS: E
TOP: 1IViii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 1.1
11. ANS: B
TOP: 3Ii
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.3
12. ANS: B
TOP: 3Iix
PTS: 1
DIF: Difficult
MSC: Conceptual
REF: Section 1.3
13. ANS: C
TOP: 3Ix
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
MSC: Conceptual
REF: Section 1.3
14. ANS: A
TOP: 4IIii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 1.4
15. ANS: D
TOP: 6Ii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 1.6
16. ANS: C
PTS: 1
TOP: 2Iiv | 2Iv | 2Ivi
DIF: Medium
MSC:
REF: Section 2.2
Factual
17. ANS: D
PTS: 1
TOP: 2Iiv | 2IIIi | 2IVi | 3Iii | 3IIiii
DIF: Medium
MSC: Applied
REF: Section 2.3
18. ANS: E
TOP: 2Iv
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 2.2
19. ANS: B
TOP: 2Ivi
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 2.2
20. ANS: C
TOP: 3Ii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 2.3
21. ANS: B
TOP: 3IIi | 3IIii
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 2.3
22. ANS: D
TOP: 3Ii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 3.3
23. ANS: D
TOP: 3IIii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 3.3
24. ANS: B
TOP: 3IIv
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 3.3
25. ANS: D
TOP: 3IIvi
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 3.3
26. ANS: D
TOP: 5Ii
PTS: 1
MSC: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 3.5
27. ANS: D
TOP: 1Iiii
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 4.1
28. ANS: D
TOP: 1Iv
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Section 4.1
29. ANS: D
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 4.2
TOP: 2Iiii | 2Iiv
30. ANS: B
TOP: 2IIv
MSC: Applied
PTS: 1
DIF: Medium
MSC: Conceptual
REF: Section 4.2
SHORT ANSWER
1. ANS:
The star will move westward by an amount that is equal to (12 hr
the star will be 90° 60° 30° above the western horizon.
PTS: 1
MSC: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Section 2.2
8 hr)
360°/24 hr
TOP: 2IVi | 2IViii
60°, and

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