Survey of Astronomy
Mock Exam
Course Introduction
Survey of Astronomy offers a broad exploration of the universe, introducing students to fundamental concepts such as the nature and life cycles of stars, the properties and movements of planets, the structure of galaxies, and the origins of the universe itself. The course covers key astronomical phenomena, the tools and techniques astronomers use for observation, and recent discoveries in the field. Emphasis is placed on understanding the scientific methods used to investigate celestial objects and on developing an appreciation for the vastness and complexity of the cosmos. This course is suitable for students of all backgrounds and requires no prior knowledge of physics or astronomy.
Recommended Textbook
Discovering the Essential Universe 6th Edition by Neil F. Comins
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15 Chapters
4447 Verified Questions
4447 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: Discovering the Night Sky
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370 Verified Questions
370 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How would the Sun appear to move in the sky if you were at the South Pole on a midsummer day?
A) It would appear halfway above the horizon and maintain this position for a full 24 hours.
B) It would appear to move parallel to the horizon at an elevation angle of about 23.5° for a full 24 hours.
C) It would appear never to reach above the horizon-the South Pole is always in darkness.
D) It would appear rise in the east, reach an elevation angle of about 23.5° at midday, and set in the west 12 hours later.
Answer: B
Q2) If you were standing on the equator,which of the following positions in the sky would pass through your zenith at some time in one 24-hour period?
A) the north celestial pole, which is the perpendicular to the celestial equator
B) the position of the Sun at summer solstice
C) the vernal equinox, or 0 hours right ascension, 0° declination
D) the ecliptic pole, or perpendicular to the ecliptic plane
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Gravitation and the Waltz of the Planets
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344 Verified Questions
344 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Not counting Earth,the number of planets known to the ancients was:
A) four.
B) five.
C) seven.
D) eight.
Answer: B
Q2) One of the major contributions of Galileo Galilei to the development of modern astronomy was:
A) use of parallax to prove that Earth moves around the Sun.
B) proof that planetary orbits are ellipses.
C) development of the first mathematical heliocentric model of the solar system.
D) discovery of the satellites (moons) of Jupiter.
Answer: D
Q3) The acceleration of an object is defined as the rate of change of its:
A) speed.
B) velocity.
C) direction of travel.
D) position.
Answer: B
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Light and Telescopes
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Sample Questions
Q1) What changes would you expect to see in the resulting spectrum of emitted light from a piece of metal when it is heated slowly in an intense flame from 500 K to 1500 K?
A) The intensity of radiation would increase greatly, while the color would change from blue through white to red.
B) The intensity of radiation would increase greatly, and the color would change from red through white to blue.
C) The intensity of radiation would increase greatly, while the color would remain a dull red.
D) The intensity of radiation would increase only slightly, while the color would change from red through white to blue.
Answer: B
Q2) How is spherical aberration eliminated in a reflecting telescope?
A) by using the Cassegrain focus of the telescope
B) by making the primary mirror very thin
C) by grinding the primary mirror surface to a parabolic shape
D) by bending the photographic film into a concave shape
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Formation of the Solar System and Other
Planetary Systems
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115 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which object might be classified as a small solar system body?
A) a small planet
B) a small asteroid
C) a particle in a ring system
D) a moon of a planet
Q2) An object in the solar system orbits the Sun and has enough mass that its gravity has pulled it into a spherical shape,but it does not have enough gravity to clear its neighborhood of orbiting debris.This object is classified as a(n):
A) comet nucleus.
B) asteroid.
C) meteoroid.
D) dwarf planet.
Q3) In our solar system,which planet is a member of the terrestrial group?
A) Neptune
B) Saturn
C) Jupiter
D) Mars
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Exoplanets
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the microlensing technique?
A) A small telescope is placed in orbit around Earth to observe extrasolar planets.
B) A planet that passes between Earth and some distant star focuses the starlight and causes an increase in its apparent brightness.
C) Refracting telescopes for use in the search for extrasolar planets are constructed with very small lenses to avoid the problems of large refraction telescopes.
D) A planet passing between Earth and its star focuses the light from the star and makes it appear to brighten.
Q2) At the present time,the discoveries of how many extrasolar planets have been confirmed?
A) none
B) one
C) a few thousand
D) millions
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Chapter 6: The Terrestrial Planets and Their Moons
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which planet is the LARGEST in our solar system?
A) Uranus
B) Jupiter
C) Earth
D) Saturn
Q2) Where would the Sun appear to rise on Venus if you could see through the clouds?
A) in the north because Venus has its spin axis parallel to the plane of its orbit
B) in the west
C) in the east
D) The Sun would not rise or set because Venus rotates synchronously, always keeping one side toward the Sun.
Q3) Which place on Earth experiences frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its location? (See Figure 6-9a,Comins,Discovering the Essential Universe,6th ed.)
A) central Canada
B) Australia
C) Brazil
D) Alaska
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Chapter 7: The Outer Planets and Their Moons
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Sample Questions
Q1) What material serves as the main electrical conductor in Jupiter's interior?
A) liquid metallic helium
B) solid metallic hydrogen
C) liquid metallic hydrogen
D) a molten iron-nickel mixture
Q2) The material in the interior of Jupiter that is thought to be responsible for its powerful magnetic field is:
A) solid magnetic and magnetized iron.
B) liquid metallic hydrogen.
C) "ices" of NH (ammonia), CH (methane), and H O (water) that contain frozen-in magnetic fields.
D) molten iron and nickel.
Q3) The spacecraft that photographed Neptune on a 1989 flyby mission was:
A) Viking.
B) Voyager.
C) Magellan.
D) Galileo.
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9
Chapter 8: Vagabonds of the Solar System
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Sample Questions
Q1) The ionized gas tail of a comet is always aligned along the:
A) comet-Sun line.
B) line between the comet and the nearest planet to it in its orbital motion.
C) comet''s direction of motion.
D) celestial equator.
Q2) A stony meteorite would not NOT show evidence of which one of the following propertyies?
A) carbonaceous chondrites
B) fusion crust
C) former deposits of a short-lived radioactive isotope of aluminum
D) Widmanstätten pattern
Q3) Where do the Trojan asteroids orbit the Sun?
A) in circular orbits at the same orbital distance as Jupiter
B) in circular orbits at the same orbital distance as the EarthEarth
C) in the asteroid belt, so-named because they are large
D) in elliptical orbits that cross the orbit of the EarthEarth
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10
Chapter 9: The Sun: Our Extraordinary Ordinary Star
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274 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) The polarity of the Sun's magnetic field reverses during a sunspot cycle.When does this reversal take place?
A) when the sunspot number is minimum, about every 11 years
B) when the sunspot number is minimum, about every 22 years
C) when the sunspot number is maximum, about every 11 years
D) when the sunspot number is maximum, about every 22 years
Q2) What is the Zeeman effect?
A) the generation of magnetic fields by the motion of charged particles
B) the attraction of two areas of opposite magnetic polarity toward each other
C) the inability of charged particles to move perpendicular to magnetic field lines
D) the splitting of spectral lines emitted by atoms within a magnetic field
Q3) What particles are produced by nuclear reactions in the core of the Sun?
A) electron neutrinos
B) muon neutrinos
C) tau neutrinos
D) Cerenkov radiation
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Chapter 10: Characterizing Stars
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261 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) White dwarfs are not included in the luminosity classification because they are:
A) not yet active stars; they have not yet begun nuclear reactions.
B) no longer producing energy by nuclear reactions.
C) no longer radiating energy away.
D) too small.
Q2) The motion that is used to change the position of the observer in the most common parallax measurements of distances to relatively nearby stars is the:
A) motion of the Sun around the galactic center.
B) change in latitude of the observation point on Earth.
C) motion of Earth in its orbit around the Sun.
D) rotation of Earth on its axis.
Q3) Apparent magnitude is a measure of a star's:
A) intrinsic brightness (actual light output).
B) size (diameter).
C) temperature.
D) brightness, as seen from Earth.
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Chapter 11: The Lives of the Stars From Birth Through Middle
Age
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322 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The shape of the cross-section of the Roche lobes around a close binary star system,taken through the centers of both stars,is:
A) two unequal ellipses that touch at the center of the lobes.
B) a sphere centered on the center of mass of the star system.
C) an ellipse with a star at each focus.
D) a figure eight.
Q2) The Sun is a member of which stellar group?
A) Cepheid variables
B) Population II
C) horizontal-branch stars
D) Population I
Q3) If the universe is only 14 billion years old,which stars have never moved beyond the main sequence?
A) stars with masses less than 0.08 solar mass
B) stars with masses less than 0.75 solar mass
C) stars with masses greater than 100 solar masses
D) stars with masses greater than 10 solar masses
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Page 13
Chapter 12: The Deaths and Remnants of Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) A white dwarf is at what stage of its evolution?
A) protostar phase, just after formation, beginning to generate energy by nuclear fusion
B) main-sequence phase, "middle-aged," generating energy by fusion of hydrogen to helium
C) post-supernova stage, after the explosion of a star
D) very late phase of evolution, no longer generating energy
Q2) Evidence for the conclusion that the longer-living gamma-ray bursters are very distant comes from the:
A) extreme redshift of emission lines in the visible spectrum detected after a gamma-ray burst.
B) delay in the arrival of the visible pulse behind the gamma-ray pulse, caused by the passage of the light through optically thick intergalactic material.
C) spread in arrival times of different gamma-ray photon energies, indicating a long passage through intergalactic gas.
D) presence of absorption lines from intergalactic gas clouds in the spectrum of remnant visible light following the gamma-ray burst.
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14
Chapter 13: The Galaxies
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Sample Questions
Q1) For which object has the phenomenon of differential rotation NOT been observed?
A) Mars
B) Jupiter
C) the Sun
D) the Milky Way Galaxy
Q2) Quasars have now been detected in which the highest redshifts,if translated to "recession velocities," indicate motion away from the Milky Way Galaxy of:
A) a large fraction of the speed of light.
B) speeds as large as 3 × 10³ km/s, or 1% of the speed of light.
C) about 1/10 of the speed of light.
D) speeds greater than the speed of light, indicating that the interpretation of redshifts in terms of velocity is faulty.
Q3) The idea that some of the "nebulae" that are observed in the sky might be "island universes," immense collections of stars far beyond the Milky Way,was first proposed by:
A) Immanuel Kant in 1755.
B) Albert Einstein in 1909.
C) Heber Curtis in 1920.
D) Lord Rosse in 1845.
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Chapter 14: Cosmology
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205 Verified Questions
205 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How do we know that the fundamental forces become unified as the energy of particle interactions increases?
A) The theory that says that they do is a very elegant one, and it would be nice if it were right.
B) Experiments have actually been done with high-energy particle accelerators where all four forces have been unified.
C) Although it is not possible to see unification in the laboratory, the theory of unification agrees with many of the observed properties of the universe.
D) We have actually seen the start of the unification in high-energy particle accelerators, where the electromagnetic and weak forces become unified.
Q2) How was the cosmic microwave background radiation discovered?
A) using a microwave detector on the Hubble Space Telescope
B) using the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) spacecraft
C) using a horn antenna on Earth's surface
D) using the BOOMERANG balloon circling above Antarctica
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16
Chapter 15: Astrobiology
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73 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) One of the first people to look for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations was:
A) Arno Penzias.
B) Frank Drake.
C) Jocelyn Bell.
D) Martin Schwarzschild.
Q2) In the search for intelligent life,why do scientists tend to assume that its biochemistry is more likely to be based on the element carbon than on any other element?
A) Carbon is the most versatile element, combining with the largest number of other elements in many different ways to produce long-chain molecules.
B) Carbon is the only element that can combine into ring-shaped molecules, which is the shape of life-form molecular structure.
C) Carbon releases far more energy than do other similar atoms when it combines with other elements, a process that is essential for the support of life.
D) Scientists expect that life will mimic that on the surface of Earth, which is carbon-based.
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