General Astronomy Exam Solutions
Course Introduction
General Astronomy provides a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental concepts of astronomy, exploring the structure and dynamics of the universe. Topics include the solar system, stars, galaxies, cosmic phenomena, and the tools and methods used by astronomers to observe and analyze celestial objects. Through lectures, discussions, and observational activities, students gain a foundational understanding of astrophysics, the lifecycle of stars, the principles governing planetary motion, cosmology, and current discoveries in the field. This course is suitable for students seeking a broad overview of our universe and humanitys place within it.
Recommended Textbook
Astronomy Preliminary Edition by Adam Frank
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Getting Started: Science, astronomy, and Being Human
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Q1) Einstein's explanation for gravity has been tested rigorously using several different experimental techniques.Scientists refer to it as a(n): A) theory.
B) hypothesis.
C) truth.
D) approximation.
Answer: A
Q2) (8.0 × 10 )× (3.0 × 10²)= :
A) 2.4 × 10<sup>9</sup>
B) 2.4 × 10<sup>10</sup>
C) 2.4 × 10<sup>11</sup>
D) 1.1 × 10<sup>21</sup>
Answer: B
Q3) (4.72 × 10¹ )- (8.0 × 10¹ )= :
A) 3.92 × 10<sup>1</sup>
B) 4.64 × 10<sup>1</sup>
C) 3.92 × 10<sup>14</sup>
D) 3.92 × 10<sup>15</sup>
Answer: D
Page 3
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Chapter 2: A Universe Made, a Universe Discovered
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Q1) Describe the phenomenon of retrograde motion.What astronomical sources undergo it?
Answer: Retrograde motion occurs when a planet's night-to-night motion relative to the background stars reverses course; planets usually move west to east relative to those stars,but during retrograde motion they reverse and move east to west.Planets undergo retrograde motion.
Q2) An observer on the dwarf planet Pluto sees the Sun pass through a different set of constellations than an observer on Earth over the course of one orbit.Which of the following best explains this?
A) Pluto is farther from the Sun.
B) Pluto has a longer orbital period than Earth.
C) Pluto's orbit is tilted with respect to Earth's orbit.
D) Pluto has a longer rotation period than Earth.
Answer: C
Q3) What is a solar day? Why is it longer than a sidereal day?
Answer: A solar day is the time between consecutive crossings of the same celestial meridian by the Sun.It is longer than a sidereal day because Earth moves around its orbit each day.
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Chapter 3: A Universe of Universal Laws
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Q1) What was the first observation to challenge Aristotle's conception of perfect and unchanging heavens?
A) phases of the Moon
B) craters on the Moon
C) retrograde motion
D) Tycho's supernova
Answer: D
Q2) The astronomer who made the most sophisticated and accurate naked-eye measurements of astronomical objects was:
A) Tycho Brahe.
B) Hipparchus.
C) Galileo Galilee.
D) Johannes Kepler.
Answer: A
Q3) The scientist who explained orbits as an effect of gravity was:
A) Nicolaus Copernicus.
B) Johannes Kepler.
C) Galileo Galilei.
D) Isaac Newton.
Answer: A
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Chapter 4: A Universe of Universal Laws
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Q1) Which of the following varieties of light has the SHORTEST wavelength?
A) ultraviolet
B) infrared
C) microwave
D) visible
Q2) An astronomer obtains two samples of rarefied gas.She heats the first gas and finds that it produces a spectra with a series of bright lines.She places the other gas in front of a hot blackbody and finds a continuous spectrum with a series of dark lines.If the wavelengths of the dark lines are the same as those of the bright lines,she infers that the samples have identical:
A) reflectivity.
B) opacity.
C) compositions.
D) temperatures.
Q3) A reading light contains a dimmer switch that can vary its luminosity from 10 W to 100 W.If the device produces just the right amount of light when set to 10 W and held at a distance of 10 centimeters,to what value should you set the wattage if you hold it 20 centimeters away?
Q4) Which portions of the electromagnetic spectrum must be observed from space?
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Chapter 5: The Architecture and Birth of Planetary Systems
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Q1) Compared to our Solar System,the majority of exoplanets have orbits with:
A) higher eccentricity.
B) higher inclinations.
C) smaller semimajor axes.
D) all of the above.
Q2) The thinker who advocated the existence of worlds around other planets at the end of the sixteenth century was:
A) Tycho Brahe.
B) Johannes Kepler.
C) Nicolaus Copernicus.
D) Giordano Bruno.
Q3) A planet orbiting a star with a mass one-quarter that of the Sun has an orbital radius of 1/25 AU.If Earth's orbital velocity is 30 km/s,what is the orbital velocity of this planet?
A) 15 km/s
B) 30 km/s
C) 60 km/s
D) 75 km/s
Q4) Explain the differences between meteoroids,meteorites,and meteors.
Q5) How do terrestrial planets form?
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Chapter 6: Home Base: Earth and Moon
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Q1) The refraction of P-waves in the mantle is due to:
A) the semimolten state of the mantle.
B) convection.
C) changes in the density.
D) radioactive decays.
Q2) Why is the Earth-Moon system unique compared to other planet-moon systems in the Solar System?
Q3) What is responsible for heating the stratosphere? What about the ionosphere?
Q4) What kind of magnet does Earth's magnetic field most closely resemble?
Q5) If the Moon's mass were larger,which of the following would be true?
A) Earth's rotation period would be longer.
B) Earth's rotation period would be shorter.
C) Earth's orbital period would be longer.
D) Earth's orbital period would be shorter.
Q6) "Snowball Earth" phases of geologic history were most likely caused by a(n):
A) decrease in the Sun's luminosity.
B) reduced concentration of atmospheric methane.
C) increased solar wind.
D) increase in volcanism.
Q7) Why is the Moon's rotation period equal to its orbital period?
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Chapter 7: Sibling Worlds: Mercury, Venus, and Mars
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Q1) The origin of Mars's moons is:
A) capture of nearby asteroids.
B) ejecta from giant impacts.
C) fragmentation of a larger body.
D) currently an area of active investigation.
Q2) How would Earth change if it were moved to Mercury's orbit? Consider its atmosphere,internal structure,magnetic field,and day-night cycle.
Q3) Why did Mars become significantly less habitable about 500 million years after its formation?
Q4) Which of the following phases occurred earliest in Earth's evolutionary process?
A) magma flooding
B) cratering
C) cooling
D) differentiation
Q5) Name two ways in which Phobos and Deimos differ from Earth's Moon.
Q6) What two reasons are most important in explaining the different atmospheric compositions of Earth and Mars?
Q7) How do the volcanoes on Venus compare to those on Earth?
Q8) What geographic features on Mars provide evidence for water on Mars?
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Chapter 8: Gas, ice, and Stone: the Outer Planets
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Q1) How was the mass of Neptune predicted before it was observed?
Q2) Saturn's atmosphere contains cloud layers composed of all of the following molecules EXCEPT:
A) ammonia.
B) methane.
C) ozone.
D) water.
Q3) The light-colored bands on Jupiter are ________ regions.
A) high-velocity
B) low-velocity
C) high-pressure
D) low-pressure
Q4) The planet with the most powerful magnetic field is:
A) Jupiter.
B) Uranus.
C) Earth.
D) Mercury.
Q5) What aspect of Jupiter's near-space environment poses the biggest problem for satellites orbiting the planet?
Page 10
Q6) How would Jupiter's Galilean moons differ if they had circular orbits?
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Chapter 9: Life and the Search for Habitable Worlds
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Q1) Which of the following is a function of proteins inside cells?
A) structural components
B) enzymes
C) signalers
D) all of the above
Q2) Which of the following provides a potential solution to Fermi's paradox?
A) It is safer for advanced civilizations to hide evidence of their existence.
B) There is insufficient time for advanced civilizations to travel across the Milky Way.
C) The radiation environment of the Milky Way prevents interstellar travel.
D) Dust blocks much of the Milky Way from view.
Q3) At present,conclusions about extraterrestrial life are based on:
A) lunar geology.
B) the chemistry of complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium.
C) the study of life on Earth.
D) telescopic signatures of life on exoplanets.
Q4) A colleague explains to you that the origin of life seems implausible given that producing the 192-nucleotide self-replicating RNA in our bodies would require longer than the age of the universe if created from scratch in random chemical reactions.How could you answer this objection?
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Chapter 10: The Sun As a Star
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Q1) What can astronomers learn by measuring the regular oscillations of material on the Sun's surface?
Q2) Sunspots are dark because:
A) dust particles congregate around magnetic fields.
B) magnetic fields decrease the gas temperature.
C) light is deflected by magnetic fields.
D) magnetic fields trigger line emission from the Sun's plasma.
Q3) How would the Sun change if it rotated as a solid body,like the planets do,rather than differentially?
A) It would have more sunspots.
B) It would have fewer field reversals.
C) It would have more flares.
D) It would be tidally locked.
Q4) Which of the following properties decreases from the Sun's core to its outermost layer?
A) temperature
B) density
C) helium fraction
D) hydrogen line opacity
Q5) Name three aspects of sunspots that depend strongly on the solar magnetic cycle.
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Chapter 11: Measuring the Stars: the Main Sequence and Its Meaning
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Q1) Why does the nature of a star's energy source require a star to change over time?
Q2) A stellar evolutionary track is the sequence of:
A) spatial locations occupied by a star over its lifetime.
B) luminosities and surface temperatures of a star over its lifetime.
C) fuel supplies of a star over its lifetime.
D) star formation and supernovae in a galaxy.
Q3) What will happen when the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel for fusion?
A) It will explode in a supernova.
B) Its internal structure will change.
C) It will begin fusing helium.
D) It will become a white dwarf.
Q4) A star 10 times more massive than the Sun fuses hydrogen to helium 3,000 times faster than the Sun.If the Sun spends 10 billion years on the main sequence,how long will the more massive star remain there?
A) 10<sup>11</sup> years
B) 10<sup>9</sup> years
C) 3 × 10<sup>7</sup> years
D) 3 × 10<sup>6</sup> years
Q5) How are globular clusters used to test stellar models?
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Chapter 12: Nursery of the Stars: the Interstellar Medium and
Star Formation
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Q1) Why is carbon important to the energy-generation process in a massive star?
Q2) Which of the following is most strongly affected by interstellar dust?
A) infrared light
B) visible light
C) microwaves
D) radio waves
Q3) Two molecular clouds have identical densities,but cloud A has a radius four times larger than cloud B.How much longer will it take cloud A to collapse than cloud B?
A) They collapse on the same timescale.
B) twice as long
C) 4 times as long
D) 16 times as long
Q4) How might an astronomer measure the initial mass function?
A) catalog the masses of all the stars in the Milky Way
B) catalog the masses of all nearby galaxies
C) catalog the masses of all the molecular clouds in the Milky Way
D) catalog the masses of all the stars in a young open cluster
Q5) According to most astronomers,what two factors are necessary to launch a protostellar jet?
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Chapter 13: To the Graveyard of Stars: the End Points of
Stellar Evolution
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Q1) An isolated star's eventual fate is ultimately determined by its: A) environment.
B) composition.
C) mass.
D) distance.
Q2) A star begins its time on the main sequence with 10 solar masses.As it enters the red giant phase,it transfers 5 solar masses to a binary companion.How will the star end its life?
Q3) Suppose that the binding energy per nucleon of oxygen was larger than the binding energy per nucleon of silicon.How would this change stellar evolution?
Q4) The Sun will end its life as a:
A) neutron star.
B) white dwarf.
C) black hole.
D) red giant.
Q5) How does a red giant's structure change as it becomes more luminous?
Q6) How will the Sun generate its energy when it eventually passes up the asymptotic giant branch?
Q7) Why can massive stars fuse heavier elements than less massive stars?
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Chapter 14: Down the Rabbit Hole: Relativity and Black Holes
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Q1) If the speed of light were infinite,how would black holes change?
A) They would have to be more massive.
B) They would have to be denser.
C) They would be easier to observe.
D) They would not exist.
Q2) A laser falls into a black hole,but it continues to emit light directly away from the black hole as it does so.How does the light appear to a distant observer as the laser gets closer to the black hole?
A) The light appears to slow down.
B) The light becomes redder.
C) The light begins to orbit the black hole.
D) The light becomes brighter.
Q3) A stellar-mass black hole is accreting gas from a nearby O star in an X-ray binary.How does the peak wavelength of the system's X-ray emission change over time as this mass is transferred?
A) It decreases, because the star loses mass.
B) It decreases, because the black hole gains mass.
C) It increases, because the star loses mass.
D) It increases, because the black hole gains mass.
Q4) What kind of objects exhibit the strongest frame-dragging effects?
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Chapter
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Q1) How thick is the Milky Way's disk as a percentage of its radius?
A) 0.02 percent
B) 2 percent
C) 20 percent
D) It varies from 0.02 percent to 20 percent, depending on radius.
Q2) What is a WIMP?
Q3) How did Harlow Shapley avoid the bias of dust when measuring the size and shape of the Milky Way?
A) by observing in the infrared
B) by observing in the radio
C) with star counts
D) using globular clusters
Q4) How many stars does an "average" galaxy like the Milky Way have?
A) 10<sup>6</sup>
B) 10<sup>9</sup>
C) 10<sup>11</sup>
D) 10<sup>13</sup>
Q5) What is the "conundrum of old age" to an astronomer?
Q6) How does the fraction of heavy elements inside gas clouds vary with location in the Milky Way's disk?
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Chapter 16: A Universe of Galaxies
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Q1) An astronomer measures the rotation speed of a spiral galaxy.How can she use this to estimate the galaxy's distance?
Q2) Which cosmic distance measurement techniques rely on the observation of standard candles?
Q3) Why is rapid variability (over the course of weeks)a strong argument that quasars are powered by supermassive black holes?
A) Variability shows that black holes grow rapidly.
B) Variability shows that black holes are unstable.
C) Variability allows astronomers to estimate the size of the emitting region.
D) Variability rules out accretion disks as the source.
Q4) Two elliptical galaxies have identical radii and luminosities,but stars in galaxy A have a maximum orbital speed three times that of galaxy B.How much more massive is galaxy A than galaxy B?
A) nine times more
B) three times more
C) 1.7 times more
D) 1.3 times more
Q5) How can the velocity dispersion and radius of an elliptical galaxy determine its mass?
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Chapter 17: The Cosmic Web: the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe
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Q1) Why are quasars rare today?
A) The Universe's expansion has spread out the quasars.
B) The black holes are too massive to be classified as quasars.
C) There is so much dust today that it obscures quasar emission.
D) Little gas is left to accrete onto supermassive black holes.
Q2) What does it mean when astronomers say that dark matter is "cold"?
A) It moves slowly.
B) It clumps.
C) It cannot undergo nuclear reactions.
D) It does not emit visible light.
Q3) Why are most galaxies inside clusters ellipticals or lenticular galaxies?
Q4) Which of the following discoveries would prove that the Universe is NOT isotropic,assuming all are made on very large scales?
A) a higher cosmic microwave background toward the South Celestial Pole than elsewhere
B) that most galaxies have a peculiar motion toward the Great Attractor
C) a larger galaxy density toward the North Celestial Pole than toward the South Celestial Pole
D) all of the above
Page 19
Q5) In what sense is the Universe homogeneous?
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Chapter 18: Cosmology
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Q1) Why is baryogenesis NOT a key observational pillar of the classic Big Bang model?
A) Baryogenesis occurred too early to be directly observable.
B) Baryogenesis would have occurred in the same way in a steady-state universe.
C) Baryogenesis occurs too rapidly to depend upon the expansion of the Universe.
D) Cosmologists do not fully understand baryogenesis.
Q2) An astronomer images the most distant source of light observable in the Big Bang model.What kind of telescope did he or she use?
Q3) What process produced the initial density perturbations that would later grow into galaxies and galaxy clusters?
A) inflation
B) recombination
C) fragmentation
D) phase transitions
Q4) In the early history of the Universe,an unstable quantum field decayed to its ground state.How did this affect the Universe?
Q5) What is goal of cosmology?
Q6) What process is thought by most astronomers to be responsible for making the Universe flat?
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