Einstein's Relativity
How the Universe Began
Mysterious Space Stuff
Galaxies
What or who is this?
100
According to Einstein, what is the fastest speed in the universe?
Speed of light
100
What do we call the region of the universe consisiting of all matter and energy that can be observed from Earth?
The observable universe.
100
Fill in the blanks:
____ is believed to make up 69% of the universe.
Dark energy
100
Whcih type of galaxy is in the image?
A spiral galaxy
100
What is this?
Cosmic microwave background
200
Fill in the blank:
Einstein's theory of ____ states the "fabric" of spacetime can be bent due to gravity.
general relativity
200
What is the term used for a place in the universe where the laws of physics break down?
A singularity.
200
What did Vera Rubin notice about rotation curves of most large spiral galaxies (including the Milky Way)?
The stars on the outside of the galaxy were moving at a higher speed than the amount of visible matter should have allowed.
200
Which type of galaxy is in the image?
A peculiar galaxy (or peculiar galaxies)
200
Who is this?
Edwin Hubble
300
The more massive an object is, the more it bends spacetime. How does the experience of time change for someone in bent spacetime?
The more space time is bent, the slower time passes.
300
Fill in the blank:
After 10-36 to 10-32 seconds after the Big Bang, _____ caused the universe to expand by a factor of 100 trillion trillion in a fraction of a nanosecond.
cosmic inflation
300
What is the term for the brightest objects in the universe that are caused by an active supermassive black hole at the center of large galaxies?
Quasar
300
Fill in the blank:
The second "rung" of the cosmic distance ladder uses ____ to find the distance to astronomical objects up to 1000 light years away.parallax
300
What is this - labeled D?
Wavelength
400
The Hafele-Keating expeiment (the one with the airplanes) helped provide support for the theory of special relativity.
Describe the Hafele-Keating experiment
The experimenters used precise atomic clocks, one at sea level and the other on a high speed plane that flew around the world. When they compared the times on each clock they found the clock on the airplane showed a slight difference in time.
400
Which piece of evidence supporting the big bang theory is defined as energy left over from the period in time in which the universe became clear enough for light to travel?
The cosmic microwave background.
400
Fill in the blank:
Fritz Zwicky discovered that _____ do not contain enough visible matter to stay gravitational together, but they do.
galaxy clusters
400
According to the top-down theory of galaxy formation, what determines if a protogalaxy will form into an elliptical or spiral galaxy?
If there is gas remining from star formation. If there is, the protogalaxy will spin due to angular momentum, then flatten into a disk forming a spiral. If there is no gas, then the protogalaxy will not spin and an elliptical will form.
400
Who is this?
Fritz Zwicky
500
Which massive object was used to discover gravitational lenses by observing stars behind the object. It was a great piece of evidence to support the theory of general relativity.
The Sun.
500
Hubble's Law states that nearly all galaxies are moving apart at a rate porportional to their distance from Earth. Why?
Spacetime is expanding and the galaxies are moving with the expansion (cosmological redshift).
500
Supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies are black (duh!), but they give off a ton of energy. How?
Gas and dust forms an accretion disk orbiting the black hole at nearly the speed of light, are heating by friction and give off tons of energy.
OR
Magnetic field lines created from the black hole cause matter and energy to shoot hundreds of thousands of lightyears into space.
500
According to the bottom-up theory of galaxy formation, what type of galaxies to all galaxies become?
Giant elliptical (due to mergers)
500
What is this called?
Spectroscope