P7 revision questions

P7.1 Observing the sky with the naked eye

1. Which direction does the sun appear to travel in?
2. Which direction do the stars appear to travel?
3. How long does it take for the stars to appear to travel?
4. Which direction does the moon appear to travel, and how long does
that seem to take?
5. Which planets can you see with the naked eye?
6. Do the planets seem to stay in fixed patterns as they seem to move
with the stars?
7. Explain the above in terms of the rotation and orbit of the Earth,
moon and planets.
8. Explain the phases of the moon in terms of the relative positions of
the sun, Moon and Earth.
9. Explain eclipses in terms of the Sun and Moon.
10. Explain why eclipses don’t occur very frequently.
11. How are the positions of astronomical objects measured?
12. Explain why a sidereal day (rotation of 360O) of the Earth is different
from a solar day due to the orbital movement of the Earth. What is
the difference in time between the 2?
13. Explain why different stars are seen in the night sky at different
times of the year in terms of movement of the Earth and sun.

P7.2 How does a telescope work?

1. How does a convex/converging lens work?
2. How would you make a more powerful lens out of the same material?
3. How do you calculate the power of a lens? (give the formula)
4. Draw and label a diagram that shows the formation of a real image of
a distant point source and a distant extended source.
5. Why is the light from astronomical objects effectively parallel?
6. How are the lens arranged in a telescope?
7. Give the equation to calculate the angular magnification of a telescope
from the powers of the 2 lenses.
8. What type of mirrors do astronomical telescopes have?
9. How do concave mirrors bring parallel light to a focus?

P7.3 What are the objects that we see in the night sky and how far away are
they?
 1. How does parallax make some stars seem to move relative to others
over the course of a year?
2. What is the definition of the parallax angle of a star?
3. How does the parallax angel relate to the distance of the stars?
4. What term is give to the distance to a star with a parallax angle of
one second of arc?
5. How does parsecs relate to light years?
6. How many parsecs are typical interstellar distances (e.g. 1, 10, 100,
1000)?
7. What does the brightness of a star depend on?
8. Why does the brightness as it appears to us depend on its distance
from us?
9. What are Cepheid variable stars and how does this allow astronomers
to estimate the distance to Cepheid variable stars?
10. How has the observations of Cepheid variable stars helped establish
the scale of the Universe and the nature of most nebulas?
11. What is the milky way and how do we know this?
12. What did astronomers originally think the fuzzy objects that they
could see in the night sky were?
13. What were the main issues in the Curtis-Shapley debate?
14. How did Hubble’s observations of Cepheid variables help resolve this
debate?
15. What units are used to measure intergalactic distances?
16. How has the Cepheid variable data in distance galaxies given accurate
values of the Hubble constant?
17. Give the equation to calculate the speed of recession and the units.

P7.4 What are stars?

1. How does the electromagnetic radiation of hot objects vary with
temperature?
2. What is the removal of the outermost electron of an atom called?
3. What is formed when electrons move within an atom?
4. How does the spectrum of a star provide evidence for the elements
present in it?
5. What happens to the pressure of a gas when the volume is decreased?
6. Why does pressure or volume of a gas vary with temperature? How
can this be used to explain absolute zero?
7. What is the temperature of absolute zero in degrees Celsius and in
Kelvin?
8. How is a protostar formed?
9. How doe the nuclear processes that were discovered at the beginning
of the 20th century provide a possible answer to the mystery of the
Sun’s energy source?
10. What effect does compressing the gas on a protostar have on the
temperature?
11. What did the results of Rutherford-Geiger-Marsden alpha particle
scattering experiment prove?
12. What are the particles in a nucleus?
13. What holds the nucleus together?
14. How can you make Helium from Hydrogen?
15. What happens in the hot core of a star? The convective zone? The
photosphere?
16. Why do stars change?
17. Why will our Sun become a red star (and why not a red supergiant?)
18. How do red giants and red supergiants liberate energy?
19. What do red giants turn into at the end of the Helium fusion?
20. Why can the fusion in red super giants continue?
21. What is a supernova and what is formed afterwards?

P7.5 how do astronomers work together?

1. Give 2 examples of the location of major astronomical observations.
2. Why are large telescopes needed to collect weak radiation from faint
or distant sources?
3. What happens to radiation at the aperture of a telescope?
4. Why must the aperture of a telescope be larger than the wavelength
to produce sharp images?
5. Describe 2 ways in which astronomers work with local or remote
telescopes.
6. What is the advantage in computer control in remote telescopes?
7. What are the main advantages and disadvantages of using telescopes
outside the Earth’s atmosphere?
8. Why is international collaboration needed?
9. Describe one example of how international cooperation is essential for
progress in expensive ‘big science’ projects such as astronomy.
10. Describe 2 astronomical factors that influence the choice of site for
major astronomical observations.
11. What other factors are important to consider when planning, building,
operating and closing down an observatory?
Useful websites
http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/sidereal.html
(Sidereal month)

http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/moonphase.htm
l
(Phases of the moon)

http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/astronomy.html
(other animations including black body and nearest stars)

http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/Phys/Class/refrn/u14l5b.html
(Physics classroom, lens tutorial)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax
(simple explanation of parallax)

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/java/parallax/parallax.htm
l
(animation showing how stars seem to move)

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/mysteries_l1/cepheid.html
(explanation of Cepheid Variable stars)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/1920/cs_why.html
(quick overview of the Curtis-Shapley debate)

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/hubble.html
(Hubbles constant and expanding universe)

http://aspire.cosmic-ray.org/labs/star_life/starlife_proto.html
(Protostar)