Comparative Planetology
The Sun
Stars
Stellar Classification
Telescopes and Magnitude
100
There are __ moons in the Terrestrial Planets. What planets do they belong to?
What is 3; Mars and Earth
100
How far away is our Sun? How many Earths can fit in its diameter?
What is 8.5 light minutes; 109
100
What is a star?
What is a glowing ball of plasma held together by its own gravity and powered by nuclear fusion at its center
100
Stars are classified by three things. What are they?
What is Color, temperature (how hot 0-9), and size
100
What is the purpose of a telescope?
What is to collect as many photons as possible to form as concentrated beam (image) for analysis
200
All Jovian Planets and the Sun have this "motion". What is it, and define it
What is Differential Rotation- different sections of the atmosphere/ "surface" move independently of one another
200
How many layers does our Sun have? How hot is the core?
What is 7; 15,000,000 K
200
All stars must reach ______ ________ in order to stay "alive"
What is Hydrostatic Equilibrium
200
90% of stars in our universe fall into a pattern. This is called the_________. Name the three distinct sections that do not follow this pattern.
What is Main Sequence. Red Supergiants, Red Giants, and White Dwarfs.
200
What are the two types of visible telescopes and what is their main difference?
What are Refracting and Reflecting. Refracting telescopes use lenses while Reflecting uses mirrors.
300
What is the second largest Kuiper Belt object we have discovered?
What is Pluto
300
Why are sunspots darker than the rest of the surface? What are they?
What is they are cooler, it is where the Suns magnetic fields run through and out of the surface
300
The amount of energy that leaves a stars surface is called...
What is Luminosity
300
Our Sun is a G2V. What does this mean?
What is Yellow Hot Main Sequence Star
300
What is the difference between absolute and apparent magnitude? How does its scale work? What is the dimmest the naked eye can see?
What is absolute magnitude is the actual brightness of the star if it could be placed 10 pc away from Earth. Apparent magnitude is how we perceive a star brightness from Earth, however far or close it is. The lower the number, the brighter the star. Mag of 6.0
400
What planet rotates clockwise on its axis? Why do we think this is?
What is Venus, it may have collided with another planetesimal large enough to change its rotation
400
How does the sun create its light/energy? Explain the process on a small scale
What is Nuclear Fusion. Two hydrogen atoms overcome their repulsive forces and join to create a helium atom. This process releases an enormous amount of energy.
400
What are the two closest stars to our Solar System?
What are Proxima Centauri and Bernard's Star
400
An H-R diagram doesn't just show a stars stellar classification, but represents this- because the graph has three dimensions.
What is a Star's Life Cycle
400
Name 3 of 4 disadvantages of refracting telescopes.
What is EM Radiation gets absorbed, Chromatic Aberation, settling glass, or cleaning issues
500
Briefly explain Condensation Theory
What is how we believed our Solar System formed. The Sun formed out of the middle of a collapsing disk of rapidly rotating gas. Planets formed out of its accretion disk. Excess gas and small objects were flung to the edges of our solar system creating the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud. Remaining objects were protoplanets that finished forming and rotated the Sun being pulled in by its gravity.
500
What is the major difference between a prominence and a flare?
What is prominences are held down by the suns gravitational field and create loops, while flares are strong enough to escape the Suns gravity and eject material out into space
500
What are the 5 basic qualities of stars?
What are luminosity, temperature, chemical composition, size, and mass
500
A Blue-White Very Hot Supergiant would be classified as....
What is B01b
500
Briefly explain interferometry.
What is using two or more radio telescopes in tandem to create an image with higher angular resolution.
M
e
n
u