The exam covers Text book (Hartmann & Impey): Pages 1 -
The test is made of 30 Multiple Choice questions. You will get the entire class time (80 min).
1) What is the Big Bang? How long ago did it happen? When/how was Helium created? Carbon?
Inclass Assignment, Sept 23, 200464 60.
Lecture notes: Pages 1-31 28. (through Bode's Rule Through Galileo)
You NEED to bring a #2 pencil. We will provide the scanner answer sheets.
2) What is the Milky Way? How big (light distance) is it? How big is our Solar System?
3) Review Scientific Notation. Which is improperly written: 3.45 x 10-7, 58.1 x 102,
0.1 x 101.2?
4) Why did early people learn astronomy? When were the first calenders? Which cultures?
5) What was an Obelisk? Shadow Clocks? What was the purpose of Stonehenge? How old is it?
6) The Celestial Sphere: Know Zenith, Meridian, North & South Celestial Pole, Celestial Equator
7) Know the Ecliptic (what all travels on it?), What defines your Zodiac? What is an Asterism?
8) What does it mean for a star to be 'circumpolar". Where on Earth are all stars circumpolar?
9) Know the cause of our Seasons, and the Solstices and Equinox. When is daytime=nighttime?
10) Know alignment for Solar and Lunar Eclipses, what is the Umbra? the Penumbra?
11) When is a solar eclipse full? partial? What is an Annular Eclipse? When do they occur?
12) Know photosphere, chromosphere, corona. How long is an eclipse year?
13) Why don't eclipses happen every month? What are nodes? What is intersecting there?
14) Why does the Moon turn Red during Lunar Eclipses? What is a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse?
15) Who can see a Solar Eclipse? Who can see a Lunar Eclipse? Which can more people see? Why?
16) Mesopotamia lies in what modern country? What did the Babylonians know about right triangles?
17) How many arcseconds in a degree? What is the angle of your thumb at arms length? the Moon?
18) What important contributions did the Babylonian Scientists make with regards to astronomy?
19) What about Greek Scientists? When? Hindu Scientists? When? Arabic Scientists? When?
20) Why were Aristotle's astronomical theories so detrimental to the progress of western astronomy?
21) Know Parallax. How did it promote a geocentric (earth-centered) universe? What is heliocentric?
22) Know the Ptolemaic model for Planetary Motions. What are Epicycles? Why did it work well?
23) What is retrograde motion? How was it explained by Ptolemy? How do we explain it today?
24) After the fall of the Roman empire, track how that knowledge came to Europe ~1300 yrs later.
26) Why did Copernicus's heliocentric model 'fail'? What is the significance of 'The Revolution'?
27) What was Tycho Brahe's contribution? What universe did he support? What did he discover?
28) What observations did Kepler use to develop his three Laws? Where'd this data come from?
29) Know Kepler's three laws. Did Kepler understand Why these laws existed? Who would later?
30) Know all FIVE of Galileo's major observational discoveries in Astronomy and their significance.
31) How did Galileo's observations of Venus PROVE the Copernican over the Ptolemaic model?
32) Know the history of Newton's discoveries on Mechanics and Gravitation and his three Laws.
33) What's philosophically different between Newton's Laws and Bode's Law (Rule)? Which is Science?
Inclass Assignment, Sept 28, 2004 (give this a moment to load, as the image is pretty big!)
Inclass Assignment, Sept 30, 2004