Here are sections of the "Astronomy Today" textbook you can skip while
reading and studying:
Ch 17.6 Extending the Cosmic Distance Scale
Ch 18.4 21-Centimeter Radiation
Ch 18.5 Interstellar Molecules
Ch 22.3 Neutron Star Binaries
Ch 22.4 Gamma-Ray Bursts
Ch 22.6 Einstein's Theories of Relativity
Ch 23.3 Galactic Structure
Ch 23.4 Formation of the Milky Way
Ch 24.2 (skip the paragraph on p 609 about the Tully-Fisher relation up
to Clusters of Galaxies on p 610)
Ch 25.3 Galaxy Formation and Evolution
Ch 26.3 The Fate of the Cosmos
Ch 26.5 Will The Universe Expand Forever?
Ch 27.2 The Evolution of the Universe
Ch 27.4 The Inflationary Universe
Ch 28 (entire chapter)
Also, please skip the following since we did not cover these topics this
semester:
Cepheid variable stars
Open star clusters
Interacting binary stars
Type II supernova
Accretion power
Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei
Inflation during the big bang
Olbers' paradox
Examples of things you should (already) know from earlier in the course:
- What causes the seasons?
- Can you explain the reason we have seasons without using the word "tilt"?
- Can you explain the reason we have seasons without using the word "axis"?
- Why are there phases of the Moon?
- Why do stars twinkle?
- What is the difference between a galaxy and the solar system?
- What is the ecliptic? What is the zodiac?
- What is the zenith?
- What is a solstice? What is an equinox?
- What is a magnitude?
- What is parallax?
- What did Copernicus/Galileo/Newton do that was so important?
- What are Kepler's Laws? What can you use Kepler's 3rd Law to learn?
- What is the Principle of Occam's Razor?
- How does a Newtonian telescope differ from a refractor?
- Why do astronomers put telescopes in space?
- What is refraction?
- What is resolution?
- What is astronomical "seeing"?
- What is light? What is a photon?
- Why is the color of the Sun white?
- What is the speed of light?
- What is a light year?
- What is the electromagnetic spectrum?
- What is the relationship between frequency and wavelength?
- What is the amount energy in a photon of light?
- What is spectroscopy?
- What are Kirchhoff's 3 laws?
- What are spectral lines?
- What is a proton?
- What is an atomic number?
- What is a ion? What is an isotope?
- What is a blackbody spectrum?
- What is thermal radiation?
- What is Planck's law? Wien's law?
- What can color tell us about temperature, if the object is emitting
thermal radiation?
- How do we know the temperatures of stars?
- How do we know what stars are made of?
- How do we know how fast stars are moving?
- What is angular momentum?
- What is Stefan-Boltzmann's law, and what does it tell us?
- What is Doppler's law?
- Assuming we get enough light into our spectrograph, does the distance to
a star have any effect on its radial velocity?
- How does the distance to a galaxy affect its radial velocity?
- What does it mean that spectral lines can be Doppler shifted?
- What are the differences between terrestrial and Jovian planets?
- What is "regolith"?
- What is the lunar mare?
- What is a comet?
- Why are craters always round?
- What are planetary rings?
- What makes Titan unique?
- What causes/creates craters?
- Why is there no life on the Moon?
- Why is Venus much hotter than Mercury?
- What are asteroids?
- What is the Kuiper belt? The asteroid belt? The Oort cloud?
- Why is Pluto not considered a planet?
- What makes us think there was once a lot of water on Mars?
- Exactly what causes the greenhouse effect?
- What is a runaway greenhouse effect?
- How old is the solar system?
- How do stars and planets form?
- What is "51 Pegasus"?
- What makes the moon Io interesting?
- What makes the moon Europa interesting?
- What makes the moon Ganymede interesting? (hint: consider its size)
- What makes the moon Titan interesting?
- Why is Venus hot and Mars cold if they both have atmospheres that are
mostly carbon dioxide?
- What is a meteor? A meteorite?
- What causes a meteor shower?
- Why does the Moon have no atmosphere?
- Why are the icy moons of the Jovian planets interesting for those searching
for extraterrestial life?
- What is an extrasolar planet? What is an exoplanet?
- What is the "habitable zone"?
- How are extrasolar planets discovered?
- How technique has yielded the most exoplanet discoveries?
- How are exoplanets different from planets in our solar system?
- What was the Kepler Mission?
Examples of new things you should know, since the last exam:
- How old is the Sun?
- What makes the Sun shine?
- What is thermonuclear fusion?
- What is the proton-proton chain? The CNO-cycle?
- How hot is the core of the Sun?
- How hot is the photosphere of the Sun?
- What is the corona? What is the convective zone?
- What is a solar flare?
- What are granules? What causes them?
- What is a sunspot? What causes them?
- What are aurora? What causes them?
- What is a neutrino? What is a positron?
- What is the solar magnetic activity cycle? How long is it?
- What is the solar wind?
- What is "space weather"?
- What is the sunspot cycle?
- What things affect a stars apparent magnitude?
- What is a black hole?
- How old is the Universe? How do we know?
- What is a parsec?
- What is an absolute magnitude?
- How can we measure the distances to stars?
- What do spectral types tell us?
- Which is hotter, an O star or a M star? More massive?
- What spectral type is the Sun?
- Is the Sun unusual in any way for a star?
- What is the H-R diagram?
- What do luminosity classes tell us?
- How do stars age (evolve)?
- How much brighter does a star become if you triple its size and
double the temperature? (answer: 9x16=144 x brighter)
- What is a white dwarf?
- What is a "planetary nebula"?
- What is a supernova?
- What is the "main sequence"?
- What is a nebula?
- Why do stars form out of cold nebulae, not hot nebulae?
- What is "stellar evolution"?
- What is the fate of the Sun?
- What is a neutron star?
- What is a black hole?
- What is the Schwarzchild radius? What is the "event horizon"?
- Why are supernova important for the creation of the element?
- What elements are created in stellar thermonuclear fusion?
- How is the Stefan-Boltzmann law closely linked with the H-R diagram?
(hint: think about radius)
- What is a globular star cluster? What is a galactic star cluster?
- What are the three types of galaxies? How do they differ?
- What are the components of a spiral galaxy?
- Why are spiral arms more blue in color than the bulge?
- How many stars does a typical galaxy have?
- What is the typical size of a galaxy?
- Why are spiral galaxies bluer in color than elliptical galaxies?
- What does the Milky Way look like? What type of galaxy?
- How big is the Milky Way?
- What is a galaxy cluster?
- What does the large-scale structure of the universe look like?
- What is Hubble's Law?
- What is a megaparsec (Mpc)? [not its actual size, what is the idea a Mpc?]
- What does it mean when we say space is stretching?
- How do we measure the expansion of the Universe?
- How old is the Universe?
- How do we extimate the age of the Universe?
- What elements were created in the big bang?
- What is the "big bang" theory?
- What are the key pieces of evidence that support the big bang theory?
- What is the "cosmic microwave background"?
- What is "dark matter" all about? Dark energy?
Please thoroughly review the following:
+ Kepler's 3rd law
+ Newton's law of gravity
+ Wien's law
+ Doppler law
+ Stefan-Boltzmann law for stellar luminosity
+ Hubble's law
+ The H-R diagram
+ Stellar evolution
+ Structure of the Sun and stars
+ Thermonuclear fusion and the proton-proton chain
+ Structure and size of galaxies
+ Hubble's law
+ Big Bang and modern cosmology
+ The Cosmic Microwave Background
Practice Questions:
1. Which of the following is FALSE (not true)?
A) we can use the Doppler effect to discover extrasolar planets
B) we can use the Hubble constant to extimate the age of the universe
C) we can use Kepler's law to estimate the temperature of a star
D) we can use spectroscopy to determine what a star is made of
E) we can use Wien's law and the temperature of a star to estimate
what color the star will appear to be
2. If you look at the night sky with binoculars and see a red star
what spectral type is is most likely to be?
A) M type
B) B type
C) O type
D) A type
E) G type
3. The two most abundant elements in the Universe are:
A) carbon and oxygen
B) hydrogen and helium
C) hydrogen and carbon
D) water and carbon dioxide
E) positrons and electrons
4. One astronomical unit (1 AU) is defined as the
A) distance at which the Earth-Sun separation will subtend 1 arcsecond.
B) distance traveled by light in 1 parsec.
C) distance traveled by the Earth in 1 year.
D) distance between the Sun and the Earth, on average.
E) distance from the Sun to Pluto; the radius of the Solar System.
5. The temperature of the Sun's "surface" (in Kelvin) is approximately:
A) 5,800 degrees
B) 16,300 degrees
C) 247,000 degrees
D) 15 million degrees
E) 273 billion degrees
6. The spectral-luminosity class of "Star #1" is A2 V, and that of
"Star #2" is K3 III. From this information alone we can tell
A) that Star #1 has a cooler surface than Star #2.
B) that Star #1 has a hotter photosphere than Star #2.
C) that Star #1 is older than Star #2.
D) that Star #1 is closer to the Sun than Star #2.
E) that Star #1 is moving away from the Sun faster than Star #2.
7. Which of the following DOES NOT affect how bright a star appears?
A) the star's surface temperature
B) the star's radius
C) the distance to the star
D) the constellation the star is in
E) the amount of interstellar dust between Earth and the star
8. In the thermonuclear proton-proton chain, what particle is created to
conserve momentum?
A) a neutrino
B) a neutron
C) a Bohron
D) a proton
E) an anti-proton
9. Consider a star with a photospheric temperature of 50,000 K. At what
wavelength is the intensity of its thermal radiation the greatest?
A) 5.8 meters
B) 58 m
C) 58 nm
D) 500 nm
E) 50,000 nm
10. What does the astronomical term "seeing" mean?
A) the combined effects of flaws in the telescope optics and CCD
B) the twinkling and blurring of an image due to turbulent air
currents in the Earth's atmosphere
C) the amount of haze or thin cloud in the atmosphere that affects
the brightness of an image seen through a telescope
D) the effect of Cassegrain nebulosity, that can cause a shepherding
equinox effect in the Cassini division
E) light pollution glare that blinds the prime focus of a telescope
11. Suppose a spiral galaxy is 100 Mpc from the Milky Way. Which of the
following is TRUE?
A) this galaxy has no more dust or nebula
B) this galaxy contains only M stars and giant stars
C) 8 billion years ago this galaxy was closer to the Milky Way
D) this galaxy cannot have any more supernova
E) this galaxy used to be an elliptical galaxy
12. The Sun lies approximately 25,000 light years from the Sagittarius A*
supermassive black hole. If the distance were tripled, how would the force
of gravity change?
A) it would be three times stronger
B) it would be one-third as strong (three times weaker)
C) it would be nine time stronger
D) it would be nine times weaker (one ninth as strong)
E) it would be the same, since the gravity of a black hole is the same
as Newtonian gravity when the objects are much more distant than the
Schwarzchild radius.
13. Where would you find the most active regions of star formation?
A) the nucleus of an elliptical galaxy
B) the halo of a spiral galaxy
C) the arms of a spiral galaxy
D) the nuclear bulge of a spiral galaxy
E) the disk of an elliptical galaxy
14. Which of the following is NOT evidence that supports the Big Bang
theory?
A) the cosmic microwave background
B) the chemical composition of stars and nebulae
C) the ages of the oldest stars
D) the expansion of the universe
E) the blueshift of the Andromeda galaxy
15. The planet Saturn has a magnificent system of rings. Concerning rings,
which of the following is FALSE? The rings:
A) are composed of material similar to what comets are made of, mostly
ice and rock.
B) are very thin.
C) are not unique: all Jovian planets in the Solar System have rings.
D) probably formed from a satellite that orbited within the Roche limit.
E) are made of white dwarf particles
16. Why did NASA put the Chandra X-ray Observatory in space?
A) that way it is closer to the stars it is looking at
B) because the X-rays given off by the telescope are dangerous
C) because the Earth's atmosphere blocks X-rays from reaching the ground
D) because it is colder in space, and that makes the X-rays brighter
E) to avoid clouds and light pollution.
17. The Big Bang was the origin of all of the following EXCEPT
A) hydrogen
B) helium
C) oxygen
D) dark matter
E) space
F) time
General hints for final exam preparation:
- Attend the extra Astronomy Help Room sessions.
- Read the "Chapter Summary" section at the end of each chapter several times.
- Know the definitions of the words in the glossary at the end the book.
Skip the ones that were never mentioned in class.
(For example, we never talked about the "A-ring", "B ring" and "Enke gap"
in Saturn's rings. We never spoke about the "Lagrangian point" or
"relativisitic fireballs" or "whispy terrain". We did cover about 80% of
the terms though.)
- Examine the links on the class webpage to on-line resources to help
reinforce ideas and concepts.
- Attend the extra Astronomy Help Room sessions.
GOOD LUCK!