Define It!
The scientific study of objects beyond Earth and the processes that govern them.
What is astronomy?
The structure that includes the Sun and all objects gravitationally bound to it.
What is the solar system?
The average distance between the Earth and the Sun is an astronomical unit. An AU is equal to this many light minutes.
What is 8?
A proposed explanation that can be tested by observation or experiment.
What is a hypothesis?
4,500,000,000 m in scientific notation.
What is 4.5 x 109 m?
The distance light travels in one year; used to measure vast distances in space.
What is a light-year?
The smallest structure that contains billions of stars, including the Sun.
What is a galaxy?
The approximate speed of light.
What is 3.0 x 108 m/s
Astronomy is considered this type of science because astronomers cannot manipulate celestial objects directly in a lab.
What is an observational science?
The number of significant figures in the measurement 0.03040 km?
What is four?
The number of known, certain digits in a measurement that reflects its precision.
What are significant figures?
A group of galaxies bound together by gravity.
What is a galaxy cluster?
What is 13.7 billion?
An approximation of reality that can be tested and revised as new evidence is collected.
What is a scientific model?
The accepted value of a quantity is 120 units, but a student measures 126 units. Calculate the resulting percentage error.
What is 5%?
Fundamental rules that describe how physical processes behave everywhere in the universe.
What are the laws of nature?
A very large collection of galaxy clusters forming the largest known structures in the universe.
What is a supercluster?
The moon glows bright at night as a result of this
What is sunlight reflecting off its surface?
The feature of science that allows ideas to change over time.
What is testing against evidence (or self-correction)?
Two measurements of the same object read 8.0m and 8.4m. Calculate the percentage difference.
What is 4.9%?
A distant, spherical region surrounding the solar system that is the source of many long-period comets.
What is the Oort Cloud?
The element that makes up the smallest portion of the abundant elements in the universe.
What is iron?
Light emitted from the Sun at this moment will reach the edge of the Oort Cloud in this month and year.
What is June 2027?
Scientific models work because we assume that our understanding of these forces apply equally to the entire universe.
What are the laws of nature?
A distant object has a diameter of 10 km and an angular size of 1°.
Using the tangent relationship, calculate the distance to the object.
tan(1o) = 0.017
What is approximately 600km?