Astronomy

What were the first man-made objects in space?

V2 rockets from the nazis in WWII

What was the name of the first artificial satellite

sputnik (USSR)

What was the first animal in space

dog named laika (ussr)

Who was the first human in space

Yuri Gagarin (USSR)

What was the name of the first US manned spaceflight program

Mercury

What was the goal of the Gemini program

to learn to live and work in space

How many astronauts did a Gemini capsule hold

2

Which president famously challenged NASA to go to the moon

JFK

What happened to Apollo 1 and its crew

died in a fire during a ground test

How did NASA prevent the crew of apollo 10 from landing on the moon?

the lander didn’t have enough fuel to land and return from the moon’s surface

what year did apollo 11 land on the moon?

1969

who were the first 2 men to walk on the moon?

neil armstrong and buzz aldrin

what happened to apollo 13

an oxygen tank exploded and they had to do emergency repairs and return to earth without landing on the moon

how many people have walked on the moon?

12

What did NASA focus on doing after going to the moon

space stations and the space shuttles

what happened to the challenger space shuttle

exploded during launch, killing the crew

What was initially wrong with the Hubble space telescope

mirror was the wrong shape

what happened to the Colombia space shuttle

broke apart during reentry, killing the crew

What is currently the largest man-made object in space

international space station (ISS)

how old is the universe?

13.8 billion years old

why cant we see back all the way to the bing bang?

CMB blocks us, before then the universe was opaque

what 3 things is the universe comprised of, and what percentage does each makeup?

dark energy 70%

dark matter 25%

regular matter and energy 5%

What is the big crunch

Gravity wins or time reverses and everything collapses back into a singularity

what is the big rip?

dark energy/expansion wins and everything expands apart on faster and smaller scales until even the smallest particles are ripped apart.

what is the big freeze?

entropy/time wins and all useful energy decays until everything just fades away

What is the Lorentz factor and what 3 quantities does it affect?

How relativity dilates time, contracts lengths, and increases inertia (mass)

what powers active galaxies

supermassive black holes

what are the 3 main types of active galaxies

seyfert, radio, and quasar

what 3 raw materials are required for life

liquid water, organic compounds, and an energy source

where on earth is life found?

everywhere with liquid water

what is an extremophile, and how do they change the search for life

an organism that lives in an extreme environment (temperature, salinity, acidity, etc.)

explain the rare earth hypothesis

the earth and its life is unique, the conditions for life are very specific and just being close won’t work

explain the mediocrity principle

the sun, earth, and requirements for life are common so life should be too

give an example of standard candle and explain how it can be used to determine distances

type 1a supernova (any object of known brightness), and by comparing apparent and absolute brightness distance is calculated with the inverse square law

what is Hubble’s law and what insight does it give us about the nature of the universe

universe expands at an increasing rate, shows the universe is expanding and had a beginning

when doesn’t hubble’s law apply

whenever objects are gravitationally bound

explain how galaxies can grow and change both in size and structure

through galactic cannibalization and mergers

spiral galaxy

mix of old and young stars and moderate dust reserves for making new stars

elliptical galaxy

range from spherical to disk shape with mostly old stars and little gas and dust left

irregular

no defined shape, small, but with high gas and dust content

moving a star closer to the earth would cause its ___ magnitude to increase, but its ___ magnitude would stay the same

apparent; absolute

2 factors luminosity depends on

size and temperature

what is a parsec

3.26 light years/ 19 trillion miles

how do astronomers determine surface temperature of a star

color

Hershel’s Garnet Star is a deep red color and has a nearby bluish white companion star. Explain why Hershel’s
Garnet Star is visible with the naked eye, yet its companion can only be seen with a telescope

Hershel is larger

spectral analysis of stars has shown that most stars are made up of 71 %____ and 27% ____

hydrogen; helium

fundamental force responsible for formation of stars

gravity

stars resist the crush of gravity by producing energy through ______ ____

nuclear fusion

stars spend the majority of their time in the ____ _________

main sequence

which type of star is the most common type in the universe

red dawrf

what type of stellar remnant do sun-like stars eventually turn into

white dwarf

when massive stars begin to fuse ____they become unstable and start to collapse

iron

where do all the elements heavier than iron come from

supernova and mergers of neutron stars

the sun’s diameter is about ___ times bigger than earth

109

approximately how much more mass does the sun have than the earth

330,000

how old is the sun?

4.5 billion years old

what is the approximate lifespan of our sun

10 billion years

on average, how long does it take energy produced in the core of the sun to reach the earth

100,000

about how long does it take light to reach the earth from the surface of the sun?

just over 8 mins

what is the name of the small, electrically neutral particles that are produced in the Sun’s core during nucelar fusion and are detected by large arrays burried deep underground

neutrino

space weather is caused by the chaotic changes and interactions of the sun’s ____ ____

magnetic field

what is the diameter of the observable universe

96 billion light years