Study Guide Essay

Study Guide: Astronomy Test 2 (Chapters 6–9)

Astronomy Study Guide: Quiz 6 (Chapter 6 and 7)

Chapter 6: Optics and Telescopes (pp. 129–153)

keywords: (p. 154) CCD, light-collecting area, angular resolution, imaging, timing, light curves, spectroscopy, spectrograph, diffraction grating light pollution, twinkling adaptive optics, interferometry, optical window, radio window, radio telescope, infrared telescope, ultraviolet telescope,
X-ray telescope, gamma ray telescope.

key ideas: 1.What is a CCD?
2.What are the three basic categories of things that Astronomers use telescopes for? (Answer: imaging, spectroscopy, and timing.)
3.What is a spectrograph?
4.What are the three major ways that Earth's atmosphere negatively affects ground based astronomy. (Answer: it absorbs all but light with frequencies near the visible and radio portions of the spectrum, light pollution, and twinkling.)
5.What is the process that is used to correct atmospheric disturbance (twinkling) called?
6.What are the two regions in the spectrum of light for which the Earth's atmosphere is transparent?
7.Why are telescopes placed in space?
8.What is the process called in which two or more telescopes separated by a baseline distance are combined to reduce the diffraction limit?
9.What type of measurements are made in each of the 7 ranges in the spectrum of light (from gamma rays to radio waves)?
10.What ranges of the full spectrum of light needs space based telescopes and why?

Chapter 7: Comparative Planetology I: Our Solar System (pp. 159–180)

keywords: (p. 180) Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune terrestrial planet
Jovian planet, icy world, asteroid, asteroid belt, comets Kuiper Belt magnetic field average density impact crater

key ideas: (p. 180–2) 1.What are the two major planet types and what distinguishes them apart?
2.What are the main characteristics of a Jovian Planet? of a terrestrial planet?
3.Which planets are terrestrial and which Jovian?
4.What are the categories of other small vagabond stuff that orbits our Sun?
5.What are the eight planets and their order from the Sun out?
6.What are the names of the seven 'planet sized' moons (sattelites) in our Solar System (the Moon, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, Triton)?
7.Which planets do each of the above seven large satellites orbit. (Moon orbits Earth. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto orbit Jupiter. Titan orbits Saturn. Triton orbits Neptune.
8.What is meant by average density and what does the average density tell us about a world?
9.How does the average density of the Jovian worlds show that they cannot have significant percentages of iron/rock?
10.How are magnetic fields generated in planets? (By movement of a electrically conducting fluid.)
11.What causes impact craters and what does it tell us about the object they are on?
12.What does the existance of a magnetic field reveal about the interior of an object?
13.How do we know that the surface features of the Moon are much older than those of the Earth?

Chapter 7: Comparative Planetology I: Our Solar System (pp. 159–180)

keywords: (p. 180) spectroscopy

key ideas: (p. 180–2) 1.What is spectroscopy and what can it tell us about what the surface and/or atmosphere of a world?

Chapter 8: Comparative Planetology II: The Origin of Our Solar System (pp. 185–204)

keywords: (pp. 204–5) nebular hypothesis, solar nebula, protostar proplanetary disk (proplyd) accretion, protoplanet,

key ideas (pp. 205–6): 1.How was the solar system formed?
2.What is the nebula hypothesis?
3.What 2 elements make up the majority of the universe?
4.T or F: Elements heavier than Helium are produced in stars through fusion and supernovae explosions. (true)
5.What 3 things happen to a nebula as it contracts due to gravity? (heating, spinning, and flattening)
6.Why are the gas giants so much more massive than the terrestrial

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