Science Bowl Astronomy Set 1
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Created by:
KarenHammond on April 19, 2011
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101 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 A solar eclipse can only occur at this phase of the moon | New Moon |
| Constellation that cannot be seen in the summer sky of the northern hemisphere | Orion |
| Percent of stars in the sky that appear to be single stars are actually binary stars | about 50% |
| The apparent speed of the Sun along the ecliptic | is constant |
| In the Australian winter night sky | the constellation Orion can be seen,in the northern sky |
| The 29 ½ days it takes the Moon to complete an orbit around the Earth is called a | synodic month |
| What is NOT true about meteorites | on rare occasions, acid-etched iron meteorites display a pattern called the Widmanstatten pattern |
| According to Kepler's Third Law | plotting the squares of the periods of the planet against the cubes of the semi- major axes of their orbits will result in what sort of graph,a straight line |
| The time between two successive meridian transits of the Sun as observed from a stationary spot on the Earth's surface is called | an apparent solar day |
| The hydrogen envelope that surrounds the comet's nucleus derives its hydrogen most directly from | breakdown of water by ultraviolet light |
| At a location half-way from the Equator to the North Pole | what correctly describes the stars apparent motion,they rise and set at an angle to the horizon |
| Light from distant galaxies comes mostly from what | high mass stars |
| What is NOT a superior planet | Venus or Mercury |
| Which planet has the highest escape velocity | Jupiter |
| The term for the amount of energy released from each square meter of an object's surface each second | energy flux |
| Astronomers usually detect the electromagnetic emissions of a single neutron star in this single form | radio waves |
| An emission or bright line spectrum consists of | a series of bright lines superimposed on a black or continuous background. |
| Maria on the moon are | darker and smoother parts of the moon's surface |
| Another name for the Pleiades | M45 or The Seven Sisters or The False Dipper |
| A pulsating variable star whose brightness varies in a very regular time period of about 1-50 days | Cepheid |
| The part of the Sun that we can see without any instruments | photosphere |
| All of Saturn's moons are composed predominantly of this substance | ice |
| Rounded off to the nearest trillion | how many miles in a light year?,six |
| Most common type of meterorite to fall to Earth in recorded history | stony |
| Scientific names for the two regions of a sunspot | umbra and penumbra |
| The Kappa Cygnids and the Northern Delta Aquarids are names for what phenomena? | meteor showers |
| Substance responsible for Neptune's blue-green color | methane gas |
| Common name for the phenomenon which is the result of sunlight reflecting off the Earth and faintly illuminating the darkened portion of the moon | Earthshine |
| Author of book titled "Concerning the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres" that marks the birth of modern astronomy | Copernicus |
| The celestial coordinate analogous to latitude | Declination |
| The point in the sky that is directly overhead | Zenith |
| A meteor that reaches the surface of the Earth | meteorite |
| Planet in our solar system with the most circular orbit | Venus |
| Mars has a thin atmosphere composed mainly of what gas | Carbon Dioxide |
| Which moon is the only other body in our solar system besides the Earth that has an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen | Titan |
| When a superior planet is at quadrature in reference to the Earth what is its elongation in degrees? | 90o |
| Moon of Neptune that orbits in a retrograde direction | Triton |
| Name for the celestial body of interstellar gas and dust where stars are sometimes born | Nebula |
| In "best altitude conditions" what month in the northern hemisphere is the best time to observe the full moon | December |
| The work of this Harvard College Observatory scientist made possible the first accurate determination of extragalactic distances by what is often called Henrietta's Law | Henrietta Leavitt |
| Term most commonly used to refer to the actual motion that stars have in relation to each other and over many years will lead to changes in the shapes of constellations | Proper Motion |
| The constant that is the average flux of the Sun's energy arriving at the Earth | Solar Constant |
| Celestial body found after astronomers had searched for an orbital disturbance of the planet Uranus | Pluto |
| Sam Langley invented this instrument which allows astronomers to measure the energy output of the Sun and other stars | Bolometer |
| How many half- moons in a lunar cycle | two |
| The Persied's Meteor Showers are viewed in the State of Maine during what month? | August |
| Telescope that weighs about 11 tons | has a primary mirror 7.9 feet in diameter, and orbits about 380 miles above the earth,Hubble |
| In the Doppler effect the correct term for the change in the color of light when an object that is emitting light is moving toward the observer | Blue-Shift |
| The thinnest layer of the Sun's atmosphere | Corona |
| The only two planets to rotate from East to West | Venus and Uranus |
| The Magellan clouds are actually this type of celestial body | Galaxies |
| If the temperature of a star increases from 10 | 000K to 30,000K, by what factor will the rate of energy radiated per second increase?,81 |
| Celestial bodies at the center of quasars and which are the main reason for their large energy emissions | Black Holes |
| Doughnut shaped zones of atomic particles consists of electrons and protons captured by the Earth's magnetic field from the solar winds | Van Allen Belts |
| The largest circular storm in our solar system is on the surface of which planet? | Jupiter |
| Rapidly moving stream of charged particles that is being driven away from the sun | Solar Wind |
| The biggest known asteroid | Ceres |
| The Mercurian year is equal to this many days | 88 |
| One of the largest volcanos in our solar system is named Olympus Mons and is on | Mars |
| One Jupiter day is equal to what | 9 hours 50 minutes |
| Time interval between two successie occurrences of a planet (or the moon) with the sun and the earth | a synodic period |
| During the period between 1979 and 1998 the farthest planet from the sun | Neptune |
| Time it takes energy generated in the core of the sun and be radiated | One million years |
| The sunspot cycle is this many years | 11 years |
| The Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram of stars DIRECTLY compares these TWO of the properties of stars | temperature and luminosity |
| The Andromeda Galaxy is this type of galaxy | spiral |
| About how many light years across is the Milky Way? | one hundred thousand |
| The unlucky Apollo lunar landing that was canceled after an oxygen tank exploded | Apollo 13 |
| Device that first proved that Earth rotates on its axis | Foucault Pendulum |
| The smallest planet in our solar system | Mercury |
| The "planet" that has a moon almost as big as the planet itself | Pluto |
| What Sally K. Ride is known for | first woman in space |
| The year that Neil Armstrong made his historic walk on the Moon | 1969 |
| The only planet in the solar system has a day which lasts longer than its year | Venus |
| What is the heavenly body Charon? | Plutos moon |
| Where in space is Cassini's division? | between two rings of Saturn |
| The first black American astronaut in space | Guion Bluford |
| What is the Vostok 1? | the first manned spacecraft |
| Heliocentric means around what? | the Sun |
| Triton Neptune's moon has an ocean made of | Nitrogen |
| The first man to classify stars according to their brightness | Hipparchus |
| Reason the Schmidt telescope was specially built | sky camera |
| The star nearest to the sun | Alpha Centauri or Proxima Centauri |
| The greatest distance of a planet from the sun | aphelion |
| The name given to very bright meteors or bolides | fireballs |
| Atmospheric pressure of Mars compared to the earth is | about 1/200th of Earth |
| Gas that is the main component of the atmosphere of Mars | Carbon Dioxide |
| The planet Jupiter has a mass that is greater than all the combined masses of all the other planets | all the other planets put together |
| The moon feature that is named Copernicus | crater |
| Day of the year on which the summer solstice usually occurs | June 21 |
| When the earth is farthest from the sun it is this season in the Northern Hemisphere | summer |
| The only two moonless planets | Venus and Mercury |
| The English nickname for this constellation is "The Chained Maiden" and what isthe astronomer's name? | Andromeda |
| In which season is the constellation "Pegasus" normally viewed? | autumn |
| The constellation in which Vega can be found | Lyra |
| The constellation in which Aldebaran can be found | Taurus |
| The two observables in a binary star system that must be measured to make the total mass determination | separation of the two stars and the stars period of revolution |
| The Orion Nebula is a good example of this kind of nebula | emission nebula |
| A major component of the interstellar media consists of charged particles which have speeds close to that of light that are called | cosmic rays |
| A typical galaxy such as our Milky Way galaxy contains how many billion stars | 200 billion |
| The path in the sky that the sun appears to traverse over the course of a year | ecliptic |
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