Basic Astrophysics
Final Exam
Course Introduction
Basic Astrophysics offers an introduction to the fundamental concepts that govern the universe beyond Earth. The course covers core topics such as gravitation, stellar structure and evolution, the properties of galaxies, black holes, cosmic distances, and the nature of light and telescopes. Students will explore the physical laws underpinning astronomical phenomena, analyze observational data, and apply mathematical tools to solve astrophysical problems, building a strong foundation for more advanced studies in astronomy and physics.
Recommended Textbook
Understanding Our Universe 1st Edition by Stacy Palen
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1350 Verified Questions
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Chapter 1: Our Place in the Universe
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Q1) A crucial component of a scientific theory is that it is able to be tested by observations and thus proven true or false.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Write 3,800,000,000 in scientific notation.
A) 3.8 × 10<sup>8</sup>
B) 3.8 × 10<sup>9</sup>
C) 3.8 × 10<sup>-8</sup>
D) 3.8 × 10<sup>-9</sup>
Answer: B
Q3) Describe two important reasons why the ability to put telescopes in space dramatically affected the science of astronomy.
Answer: Images taken from telescopes in space do not suffer the blurring that is due to light's passage through the Earth's atmosphere,and thus the images are much sharper.Also some wavelengths of radiation do not penetrate through the Earth's atmosphere,such as ultraviolet light or X-rays,and thus they can only be observed from space.
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Chapter 2: Patterns in the Skymotions of Earth
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you went out tonight and looked at the sky at midnight,at what time would you have to observe 6 months from now in order to find the stars in exactly the same position in the sky? Assume that you could see the stars at any time,day or night.
A) 6 A.M.
B) Noon
C) 6 P.M.
D) Midnight
Answer: B
Q2) If there is a full Moon out tonight,approximately how long from now will it be in the third quarter phase?
A) Three to four days
B) One week
C) Two weeks
D) One month Answer: B
Q3) On what place(s)on Earth can you stand and have the great circle of the celestial equator be at the same height relative to your horizon for all 360° of its circumference?
Answer: You can stand at either the North Pole or the South Pole.
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Chapter 3: Laws of Motion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Name the two ways in which an object's motion (meaning its velocity)can experience a nonzero acceleration.
Answer: The object can have a nonzero acceleration if the speed of its velocity changes or if the direction of the velocity changes.
Q2) Explain the difference between being weightless and being in free fall.
Answer: The only way to be truly weightless is to have no mass; feeling weightless comes from being on a moon or planet that weighs much less than Earth.Free fall occurs when you are in orbit around something.As long as you don't land on the object but simply continue to "fall" around it,you never experience the force of gravity,so you are unaware of your own weight.
Q3) What type of orbit results when a satellite has a velocity greater than the escape velocity?
A) Unbound
B) Bound
C) Circular
D) Linear
Answer: A
Q4) What is required to change an object's motion?
Answer: An unbalanced force.
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Chapter 4: Light and Telescopes
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Sample Questions
Q1) The speed of light was first determined by which scientist?
A) Galileo
B) Rømer
C) Kepler
D) Newton
E) Einstein
Q2) The major advantage CCDs have over other imaging techniques is that:
A) they have a higher quantum efficiency
B) they have a linear response to light
C) they yield output in digital format
D) they operate at visible and near-infrared wavelengths
E) All of the above are true
Q3) How does the resolution of a telescope depend on its focal length?
A) The longer the focal length,the better the resolution.
B) The longer the focal length,the worse the resolution.
C) There is no relation between resolution and focal length.
Q4) In the past,astronomers have placed telescopes in highflying aircraft in an effort to rise above the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: The Formation of Stars and Planets
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Q1) The primordial atmosphere of the Earth consisted of what type of chemical elements and from where did it originate? What chemical elements did the secondary atmosphere of the Earth consist of and from where did it originate?
Q2) Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the early Solar System,based on current observations?
A) The early Solar System must have been flat.
B) The material from which the planets formed must have been swirling about the Sun in the same direction.
C) The first fragments started out small and grew in size over time.
D) The composition of gases varied between the inner Solar System and the outer Solar System.
Q3) In the smaller nebulae,as smaller particles collide and stick together,forming larger particles,their self-gravity prevents them from breaking apart,regardless of the strength of the collision.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Explain how astronomers use the Doppler effect to detect the presence of extra-solar planets.
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Chapter 6: Terrestrial Worlds in the Inner Solar System
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Q1) Permanent magnetism in the Earth's solid iron core is the source of Earth's magnetic field.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Mars has a diameter that is approximately half that of Earth's.If the interiors of these planets are heated by radioactive decays,how does the heating rate of Mars' interior compare to that of Earth's?
A) Mars' heating rate is 0.12 times that of Earth's.
B) Mars' heating rate is 8 times that of Earth's.
C) Mars' heating rate is 0.5 times that of Earth's.
D) Mars' heating rate is 4 times that of Earth's.
Q3) The lithosphere of a planet is:
A) the molten layer under the crust
B) the layer of the atmosphere in which clouds form
C) the upper layer of its atmosphere
D) its solid surface
Q4) Describe one form of tectonic disruption on Mercury,Venus,and Mars,respectively,and how they formed.
Q5) Why are impact craters rare on the surface of Earth,but plentiful on the Moon?
Q6) Which is denser,the mantle of Earth or its crust? Explain why.
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Chapter 7: Atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why did the terrestrial planets lose their primary atmospheres?
A) Their low gravities couldn't hold them.
B) The solar wind blew them away.
C) Their high surface temperatures made them chemically react with rock.
D) The centrifugal force from their fast rotation rates made them fly off.
Q2) The fraction of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has always remained about the same as it is today.
A)True
B)False
Q3) If sunlight cannot penetrate Venus's cloud layer efficiently,why does the temperature remain so high?
Q4) Given the thickness and composition of Venus's atmosphere,by how much would you expect its average surface temperature to change between day and night?
A) Almost no change at all
B) By tens of K (like Earth)
C) By hundreds of K (like Mercury)
D) The answer depends on where Venus is in its orbit (closer to or farther from the Sun).
Q5) Where is most of Earth's supply of carbon dioxide today?
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Chapter 8: The Giant Planets
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Sample Questions
Q1) Ring material:
A) is made mostly of fine dust
B) has always orbited the giant planets
C) must constantly be renewed
D) is made of only house-sized rocks
Q2) Neptune and Uranus probably took longer to form than Jupiter and Saturn,because the solar nebula was __________ at the radius of Neptune and Uranus.
A) rotating faster
B) composed of rockier planetesimals
C) not as dense
D) hotter
Q3) Uranus and Neptune are less massive than Jupiter and Saturn,probably because they formed earlier than Jupiter or Saturn.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The strong magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune arise from magnetic dynamos in their liquid rocky cores.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Small Bodies of the Solar System
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Sample Questions
Q1) How do particles from Enceladus wind up in Saturn's E ring?
A) Volcanoes erupt and expel silicates into space.
B) Water geysers erupt from the surface and expel them into space.
C) Cosmic rays bombard the surface rock on Enceladus and expel them into space.
D) A collision with a co-orbiting moon knocked rocky debris into orbit around Saturn.
Q2) The one orbital characteristic both short- and long-period comets share is:
A) mostly prograde orbits
B) orbits with completely random tilts
C) orbital periods longer than any planet
D) highly eccentric orbits
Q3) Which of the following is NOT geologically active?
A) Callisto
B) Triton
C) Enceladus
D) Io
Q4) All meteorites are remnants of planetesimals that never coalesced to form a planet.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Measuring the Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) Main-sequence stars range in mass from approximately:
A) 0.5 to 10 M<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
B) 0.08 to 140 M<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
C) 1 to 100 M<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
D) 0.1 to 75 M<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
Q2) Parallax is used to measure:
A) distance
B) velocity
C) luminosity
D) mass
Q3) Among main-sequence stars,the most massive stars are more luminous,redder,cooler,and have larger radii than less massive stars.
A)True
B)False
Q4) B stars are cooler than M stars.
A)True
B)False
Q5) An emission line is produced when an atom absorbs a photon of a specific energy.
A)True
B)False
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Our Star: The Sun
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Sample Questions
Q1) Sunspots generally occur in pairs with opposite polarity.
A)True
B)False
Q2) If the Sun stopped nuclear fusion in its core,it would take 100 years for its luminosity to change.
A)True
B)False
Q3) We can determine how the density changes with radius in the Sun using:
A) radar observations
B) neutrino detections
C) high-energy (gamma ray)observations
D) helioseismology
Q4) If the Sun converts 5 × 10<sup>11</sup> kg of H to He per second and 10 percent of the Sun's total mass is available for nuclear burning,how long might we expect the Sun to live?
A) 10<sup>4</sup> years
B) 10<sup>8</sup> years
C) 10<sup>10</sup> years
D) 10<sup>14</sup> years
Q5) How do periods of strong solar activity affect near-Earth orbiting spacecraft?
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Chapter 12: Evolution of Low-Mass Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) When a G2 star leaves the main sequence:
A) its luminosity and surface temperature both stay the same
B) its luminosity and surface temperature both decrease
C) its luminosity increases and its surface temperature decreases
D) its luminosity and surface temperature both increase
Q2) Why does helium burning in the core of a giant star not cause the star to become more luminous?
Q3) What is a planetary nebula?
A) A planet surrounded by a glowing shell of gas
B) The disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star that will soon form a star system
C) The ejected envelope of a giant star surrounding the remains of a star
D) A type of young,medium-mass star
Q4) Degenerate refers to a state of matter at:
A) high temperature
B) high density
C) high luminosity
D) high mass
Q5) What types of chemical elements can low-mass stars contribute to the enrichment of the interstellar medium and how are they produced?
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Chapter 13: Evolution of High-Mass Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) During the main-sequence evolution of a massive star,increasingly heavier elements are fused in the core,giving the core support for:
A) decreasingly shorter times
B) increasingly longer times
C) an approximately equal amount of time
D) approximately 10,000 years
Q2) As a high-mass main-sequence star evolves off the main sequence,it follows a __________ on the H-R diagram.
A) nearly vertical path
B) path of constant radius
C) roughly horizontal path
D) None of the above answers is correct.
Q3) Photons have no mass,and Einstein's theory of general relativity says:
A) their paths through spacetime are curved in the presence of a massive body
B) their apparent speeds depend on the observer's frame of reference
C) they should not be attracted to a massive object
D) their wavelengths must remain the same as they travel through spacetime
Q4) Why do main-sequence high-mass stars lose so much mass compared to low-mass stars?
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Chapter 14: The Expansion of Space
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Sample Questions
Q1) Astronomers have known that galaxies are separate entities outside of our own for roughly the last:
A) 30 years
B) 90 years
C) 150 years
D) 300 years
Q2) Why are some galaxies' spectra blueshifted rather than redshifted?
A) Some distant galaxies are gravitationally lensed.
B) Some nearby galaxies are attracted to us because of the mass of the Milky Way.
C) Some nearby galaxies have vigorous star formation and are much bluer than others.
D) Some distant galaxies have AGN at their centers.
Q3) To be a standard candle an object must have a constant:
A) lifetime
B) brightness
C) luminosity
D) distance
Q4) How did Edwin Hubble definitively prove that "spiral nebulae" were individual galaxies that were separate from the Milky Way?
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Chapter 15: The Realm of the Galaxies
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Sample Questions
Q1) If a galaxy had no dark matter,how would the velocity (v)of a star that orbited far outside the visible extent of the galaxy depend on its distance (r)from the center of the galaxy?
A) v \(\propto\) r<sup>-1/2</sup>
B) v \(\propto\) r<sup>2</sup>
C) v \(\propto\) r<sup>-1</sup>
D) v \(\propto\) r
Q2) We know AGN are about the size of our Solar System because of imaging done with the Hubble Space Telescope.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What is the most likely candidate for making up the dark matter in galaxies?
Q4) How do the current star formation rates of spiral and elliptical galaxies compare?
Q5) More luminous giant galaxies tend to have __________ supermassive black holes at their centers.
A) more massive
B) radio quiet
C) more luminous
D) slower rotating
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Chapter 16: Our Galaxy: The Milky Way
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Sample Questions
Q1) The chemical composition of a star's atmosphere tells us:
A) how much nuclear burning has gone on in the star
B) the star's evolutionary stage
C) the chemical composition of the cloud from which the star formed
D) all of the above
Q2) The AVERAGE density of the interstellar medium is:
A) 1 atom/cm<sup>3</sup>
B) 1,000 atoms/cm<sup>3</sup>
C) 10<sup>6</sup> atoms/cm<sup>3</sup>
D) 10<sup>12</sup> atoms/cm<sup>3</sup>
Q3) Molecular clouds are best observed at __________ wavelengths.
A) ultraviolet
B) optical
C) infrared
D) radio
Q4) Open star clusters primarily inhabit which part of spiral galaxies?
A) Disk
B) Halo
C) Bulge
D) Nucleus
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Chapter 17: Modern Cosmology and the Origin of Structure
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Q1) Describe the four fundamental forces of nature by listing their names and describing what effect each force has on objects in the universe.
Q2) The concept of inflation helps solve both the problems of the flatness of the universe and smoothness of the cosmic background radiation.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Current numerical models suggest that most of the universe is composed of hot dark matter.
A)True
B)False
Q4) If dark energy is currently causing the expansion rate of the universe to increase with time,does this mean that you should worry that the Sun,the Earth,and your body itself are expanding? Why or why not?
Q5) Structure formation in the universe proceeds hierarchically,meaning that:
A) large objects collapse then fragment to form smaller objects
B) large objects form at the same times as smaller objects
C) small objects collapse then merge to form larger objects
D) only small objects form and are stable over time
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Chapter 18: Life in the Universe
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Sample Questions
Q1) The habitable zone for a 1 M<sub>\(\odot\) </sub>star ranges from 0.9 to 1.4 AU from the star.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In 1952,chemists Harold Urey and Stanley Miller mixed ammonia,methane,and hydrogen in a closed container,zapped it with electrical sparks and found that: A) they could induce cold fusion to occur B) they could not induce any amino acids to form C) single-celled microorganisms had been spontaneously created D) they had created about half the amino acids contained in DNA
Q3) Name three main dangers (one human and two astrophysical)that threaten the continued existence of human life on Earth.
Q4) What is SETI,what is its main objective,and how does it plan to achieve its objective?
Q5) Calculate the maximum likelihood that any technically advanced civilization that arose still exists in our galaxy today.
Q6) If you wanted to find intelligent life in the universe,what spectral types of stars would you study and why?
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