Solar System 1
What is the most distant planet in our Solar System?
Neptune
What was the Ptolemaic model of the Solar System?
Geocentric
How do we determine the distance to near stars?
parallax
What is the final stage of an average size star (like our Sun)?
white dwarf
How many kids does Mr. B have?
5
What causes the phases of the Moon?
The position of the Moon around the Earth with regards to the Sun
What was the Copernican model of the Solar System?
Heliocentric
How do we determine the distance to distant stars?
How bright a star looks can be compared to how much light it produces and how far away it is (AB~L/d2)
What is the final stage of a high mass star?
black hole or neutron star
What is Dark Matter?
a large portion of the mass of the universe that does not interact with light
What causes seasons?
The tilt of Earth's axis
What was some evidence that Galileo found for the Copernican model?
Venus had phases; Saturn had rings; Jupiter had Moons
Average stars, like our Sun fuse ____ into ____.
Hydrogen; Helium
What type of star is very hot, but not very luminous (use the HR Diagram in your review)?
White Dwarfs
What is Dark Energy?
Energy that is responsible for the increasing expansion of the universe
What causes the Northern Lights?
High energy, charged, particles from the Sun are captured by Earth's magnetic field and drawn to the poles where they interact with atoms in the atmosphere
Comets have very elliptical orbits. What happens to their speed as they approach the Sun?
it increases
How are stars formed?
gravitational collapse of a dust cloud until it is hot and dense enough to do nuclear fusion
What element cannot be fused, no matter the temperature of the star's core?
iron
What is the Big Bang Theory?
The idea that the universe used to be very hot and dense before expanding outward
What is the best explanation for the formation of the Moon?
Impact Theory - a smaller planetoid crashed into the Earth and what was left was the Earth and the Moon
What happens to the period of objects that are increasingly distant from the Sun?
their period increases
What must a star do in its core to be considered a star?
nuclear fusion
What causes a star to "die?"
When gravitational collapse can no longer cause the core to get hot enough to fuse the next higher element (usually carbon or iron)
What are the two best pieces of evidence for the Big Bang Theory?
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and the red shifting of galaxies (observed expansion of the universe)