This Danish nobleman made improved observations of the positions of the planets.
Who was Tycho Brahe?
100
This collection of stars is 10 million times larger than our solar system.
What is the Milky Way galaxy?
100
This law describes a force that varies inversely with the square of distance.
What is the law of gravitation?
100
Sky point directly overhead.
What is zenith?
100
What astronomical criterion defines the regions on Earth that we call the "tropics"?
The Sun will be directly overhead at some time during the year.
200
Phases of this planet, observed by Galileo, are strong evidence in favor of a heliocentric solar system,
What is Venus?
200
We use this unit of distance to measure the sizes of orbits in the Solar System.
What is an astronomical unit?
200
This property of matter helps to balance planets in their orbits versus gravity.
What is inertia?
200
Light is bent.
What is refraction?
200
Where on Earth do each day and night have equal duration?
What is the equator?
300
This generalization, based on Tycho's observations, stated that the planets orbit in ellipses.
What is Kepler's first law?
300
This unit of distance is based on the speed of light.
What is a light year?
300
This law relates change in velocity to force.
What is Newton's 2nd Law?
300
Equal day and night
What is equinox?
300
The formation of the solar system involved the processes of accretion, collapse, disk clearing and gas capture. List these processes in the correct temporal order.
Collapse, accretion, gas capture, disk clearing.
400
This phenomenon, not observed until 1838, is a geometric effect caused by the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
What is stellar parallax?
400
This analogy is used to relate the history of the Universe to a span of time equal to one year.
What is the Cosmic Calendar?
400
This orbital shape occurs for an object that is not bound to the Solar System.
What is a hyperbola?
400
Star that never sets.
What is circumpolar?
400
Give two reasons why the Greeks did not accept the heliocentric view.
They did not serve stellar parallax
The Earth did not seem to be moving
500
This English scientist was the first to calculate the shapes of planetary orbits, based on an inverse law of gravitation.
Who was Isaac Newton?
500
On the cosmic calendar, in which the history of the Universe is compressed into one year, when did the dinosaurs become extinct?
Late december.
500
These two laws together predict that light objects should fall at the same rate as heavy objects
What are Newton's 2nd Law and the law of gravitation?
500
Equal day and night.
What is solstice?
500
What were two major contributions of Isaac Newton toward understanding the orbits of the planets?
The law of gravitation
The laws of motion
Invention of calculus