Review Sheet FINAL EXAM: [Return to Syllabus]

Review Sheet for FINAL EXAM, 8am March 13th 2007

Light & Matter
1) Know the forms of light in the order of energy. How are energy and frequency (or wavelength) related.
2) What are atmospheric windows? Doppler Shift: what causes it and how is it used?
3) Know parts of an atom. What is excitation, de-excitation. When is a photon created or absorbed?
4) What is a continuous versus absorption or emission line spectrum? Which does the Sun produce?

The Sun
5) Know relative diameter and density (core and average) temperature (surface and core) of the Sun.
6) Name the three parts of the Sun's atmosphere and wavelengths they are seen.
7) How does the Sun's magnetic field create the Solar Cycle and prominences, spots and flares?
8) What is hydrostatic equilibrium. How does the Sun create its fuel?

Stars
9) What is parallax and why didn't the Greeks see it? Why doesn't it work for very far distances?
10) Remember difference between ABSOLUTE and APPARENT magnitudes. Which is intrinsic to the star?
11) Know two ways to get a star's temperature. What is the spectral sequence?

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagrams & Binary stars
12) What is the main sequence and what do these stars have in common?
13) What is fusion, how do the elements fused change with stellar age and mass?
14) What stellar characteristic is uniquely determined with binary stars?

ISM/Star Formation
15) What are 4 types of nebula and know 4 evidences for the interstellar medium.
16) Where and how do stars form? What is the energy source for proto stars?

Stellar Evolution and Clusters
17) All stars in a clusters have what in common? How is a cluster's age & distance determined with an HRD?
18) How might a cluster be used to tell us about the evolution of stars?
19) Know the sun's evolution, the stages, what it ultimately becomes.
20) Know the evolution and stages of a high mass star and what it ultimately becomes.

Stellar Death and Remnants
21) What are the three final remnants from stellar evolution? How do they form and which is densest?
22) Understand the pulsar 'light house' model and why pulsars 'spin down' as they age.
23) What is required to make a Black Hole? Are such things observed? Know examples.

Ours and Other Galaxies
24) Know the characteristics, size and components to the Disk, Bulge, Halo and galactic center
25) What is a rotation curve and what can it be used for? What creates the spiral arms we see?
26) Know the different Galaxy types (E, SO, Sa,b,c, SBa,b,c) and what the Milky Way is
27) Understand the structure (groups, clusters and super clusters) and size of these.
28) How are galaxies distributed? How do we get distances to galaxies?

Quasars and AGN
29) If quasar redshifts are cosmological, what does this say about their distance and luminosity?
30) Know the unification model and how it explains active galaxies (quasars, radio and Seyfert galaxies).

Cosmology & Relativity
31) What are the three curvatures of space and which is our Universe?
32) How can we estimate the age of the Universe? How do we measure its acceleration?
33) What is 'space-time' and how does it relate to: mass and the curvature of space?

ESSAY QUESTIONS The 5 point essay question will be one of the following:

1) Explain why the Sun develops increasing numbers of active regions with time, peaking every 11 years. Draw an active region on the sun, labeling the Sunspots, prominences and the location of the magnetic field in the diagram.

2) What was so special about 1987A? (two reasons). Why are supernovae important for increasing the amount of heavy elements in the universe? (two reasons). How might a low mass star go Supernova?

3) Describe the Milky Way galaxy with a diagram with both 'face-on' and 'edge-on' projections. Label at least five important components (not including the Sun) and then describe WHAT they are made of.