Astronomy Spring Semester Exam Review

1. What phase of the Moon is pictured

below? Waxing crescent

7. True/False: All terrestrial planets have

moons. False
8. Which planet by itself contains the
majority of mass of all the planets?
Jupiter
9. What are the jovian planets?
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

2. What phase is the Moon in at B?

10. What is the order of the planets from

smallest to largest?
Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Uranus,
Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter

11. What are Saturns rings?

Small icy particles moving in orbit
around Saturn

Waxing gibbous
3. True/False: If you have the astrological
sign of Cancer, then your parents could
have seen the constellation Cancer on
the day you were born.
False
4. Neap tides occur during which phases of
the Moon?
1st and 3rd quarters
5. What causes the Earth to have seasons?
The tilt of the Earths axis
6. True/False: The solar system contains
the Sun, eight major bodies called
planets, and at least thousands of
smaller bodies. True

12. True/False: Solar activity cannot

disrupt communications on Earth.
False
13. The luminosity of the Sun is a measure
of the energy of the Sun received on the
Earths surface .
14. How long does the sunspot cycle last, on
average?
about 11 years
15. True/False: We know the Sun rotates
differentially by observing sunspots; the
solar equator rotates the fastest. True
16. True/False: The vast majority of stars
near us would fall to the bottom right on
the H-R diagram. True

17. The absolute magnitude of a star is its

brightness as seen from a distance of 10
parsecs.

27. What is stellar nucleosynthesis?

The formation of heavier elements
inside stars.

18. Star A and star B both have an

apparent magnitude of 4.0, but star A
has an absolute magnitude of 1.0 and
star B has an absolute magnitude of 7.0.
Which star is actually brighter?
Star A

28. In a neutron star, what is the

composition of the core?
compressed neutrons in contact with
each other

19. The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram plots

luminosity against the spectral type or
temperature.
20. True/False: Brown dwarfs are failed
stars, never igniting their hydrogen
fusion. True

29. What can actually escape from inside

the event horizon of a black hole?
nothing
30. Detailed measurements of the disk and
central bulge region of our Galaxy
suggest our Milky Way is a barred
spiral galaxy.

21. True/False: Modern astronomers have

observed the complete life cycle for
many stars, making stellar evolution
one of the best-tested astronomical
theories. False

31. What does the redshift of the galaxies

mean?
Space itself is expanding with time, so
the photons are stretched while they
travel through space.

22. What spectral type is the Sun? (O, B, A,

F, G, K, or M) G

32. What does Hubble's law imply about the

history of the universe?
The universe had a beginning and has
expanded ever since, giving it a finite
age.

23. What inevitably forces a star like the

Sun to evolve away from being a main
sequence star?
Helium builds up in the core, while the
hydrogen burning shell expands.
24. True/False: Except for hydrogen and
most of the helium, all the elements
have been formed through stellar
nucleosynthesis.
True
25. How often can a star be a supernova?
Once
26. When was the supernova that formed
M-1, the Crab Nebula, observed?
1054 AD