Thursday, April 29, 2010

Sunday, April 18, 2010

April 19

Magnitude.  GO to http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/starcount/science_int.html and find out about the science of magnitude.  Read the information found here to distinguish between apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. Send me this comparison as a tweet.

Tonight, please go out and observe the number of stars you see in the asterism of the big dipper.  This includes the primary asterism, as well as any stars found in the bowl of the dipper.  Bring this information to class tomorrow.  Which is the brightest star in the dipper, anyway, as you look at it?

Read the information on stellar spectra found here

GO to  and run the simulation on stellar spectra.  It will be helpful to call on other student who have some basic chemistry experience, as this is covered in chem 1.  Try to answer the questions found here

Friday, April 16, 2010

Astro Quiz 2

Click here

Review for Unit 2 (will be posted by 2:30)

Assignment: Find out about the Lyrid meteors and look for information on the fireball from last night. What has been confirmed? We'll talk about this on Friday.

Review answers (to be posted at 2:30)

Test Review 2: Planets and Solar System—these are SAMPLE questions.

Covering: plate tectonics, greenhouse effect, solar system objects

1. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
2. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
3. Asteroid belt
4. Rock and ice, including Pluto and the rest of the plutoids
5. The solar system, to Pluto, is 39 AU, with another 30-35 AU for the Kuiper Belt. The Oort cloud takes about another 75 AU beyond that
6. Comets
7. The most popular is that Jupiter pulled a planet that formed there apart because Jupiter has a large gravitational field
8. Planets with an iron core and plate tectonics
9. Coma, tail.
10. A rock that is moving in space but hasn’t hit anything.
11. The tail forms when we get near the sun and the head begins to melt. The tail direction tells us the direction of the solar wind.
12. Asteroid: rock in space; Meteor: in the atmosphere; Meteorite: on the ground
13. All but Mercury (and sometimes Pluto)
14. Too much greenhouse gas (methane or carbon dioxide) can prevent light from radiating to space
15. Mars
16. Two blocks moving apart from each other,and new crust following in betwen
17. Apparent backwards motion of a superior planet.
18. Hurricane, big enough to swallow the earth
19. Never had a mission to it (New Horizons won’t be there for several years) Tombaugh spotted it by comparing photographs
20. Neptune (Pluto is not a plaet)
21. Mercury, so it won’t fall into the sun.
22. Led to heliocentric view of the solar system by Galileo; confirmed Kepler’s laws
23. Because the orbits are ellipses
24. All do, but Venus ROTATES CW,so the sun rises in the West
25. Gas planets
26. ALL the gas planets
27. We think a non-iron core
28. Jupiter, it is most massive
29. Terrestrials
30. 60+, mostly clustered around gas planets
31. Yes…Our moon, as well as Titan and Io
32. Venus
33. How does a rotation(on the planet axis) differ from a revolution (path around the sun)
34. Venus
35. Plate tectonics
36. See PPT….Guaranteed question on this!!!!
37. See first page of PPT
38. Why do we track near earth asteroids?
39. A crater disappearing over time, a rock smoothing in churning water, a hill changing appearance
40. Based on whether they have wind or weather.