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1) General Questions

* What is the approximate number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy?

* What is a light year?

* What is arcdegree, arcminute and arcsecond? How are they related.

* Au = ? miles, Km, meter.

* What is the proper way to write 2494x10^9 and 0.0000012x10^-14.

* Use question 6 and divide the first number by the second number.

* Add 2.9x10^15+.009x10^-14+2000

* Add 2.9x10^11-2555+9x10^5

* What is the approximate diameter of our MWG.

* What kind of force is holding you together?

* What is the speed limit in our universe?

* The nearest star to our sun is ____

* If one could travel near this speed limit, how long would it take you to go our nearest stars.

* One LY= ? AU, ? km.

* Suppose I parked my Martian car in a garage on Mars. How long will it take for the garauge door to open if I click the door opener here on Earth?

* The radius of the Sun is 100 times the radius of the Earth. How many Earth would it take to fill out the Sun.

* What is the relation between distance and time?

* What is a light year

* What is an astronomical unit?

* How long does it take for sunlight to reach us?

* What is Latitude and Longitude

* What is the daily motion of the stars?

* What are the apparent daily, monthly and yearly motions of the Sun,Moon, and planets?

* What is the relation between the daily motion of the Sun and that of the stars?

* What cycles do the solar day and sidereal day refer to?

* What cycle does the month represent?

* What does the year signify?

* How far apart do eclipse cycles occur?

* What is the cycle of precession of the north celestial pole?

* What is the Latitude and the Longitude of the North-Pole.

* What is the celestial coordinates of the star "Aldebaran"?

* When is the best time of the year to observe Aldebaran?

* What is the Celestial Sphere?

* Why did Pythagoras think the heavenly bodies to be spherical?

* What did Aristotle deduce about the Earth from eclipses?

* Why did Aristotle think that the Earth was stationary in the center of the cosmos?

* What might have led Aristarchus to put the Sun at the center of the cosmos?

* How did Eratosthenes measure the diameter of the Earth?

* How was Hipparchus able to determine the distance to the Moon, discover the precession of the equinoxes, and compile an accurate star catalogue, all without a telescope?

* What is parallax, and how did Ptolemy use it to measure the distance to the Moon?

* How did Ptolemy construct his geocentric cosmology to model the observed motions of the planets?

* What is the difference between astrology, which was also developed by Ptolemy, and astronomy?

* What happened in astronomy from the Fall of Rome until the Renaissance?

* In what ways was the heliocentric model of Copernicus better or worse than the geocentric model of Ptolemy?

* Why did it take more than 50 years for the Copernican hypothesis to be tested by observation?

* How did Copernicus set the scale of the solar system in his model?

* What was the importance of the observations that Tycho made at his observatory?

* What did Tycho deduce from the observation that the comet of 1577 had no discernable parallax?

* How the stars appear to move for an observer at the North-pole?

* How the stars appear to move for an observer at the Equator?

* How the stars appear to move for an observer at CSULB?

* Is the altitude of an observer the same as his Latitude?

* What is the altitude of the star "Aldebaran" at CSULB? (class-handout)

* What the RA and Dec of "Aldebaran" (see the handout)

* What kind of star is the "Aldebaran"

* In what Constallation is the "Aldebaran" ?

* Explain Kepler's first law, second law and the third law.

* Explain Newton's first law, second law and the third law.

* Why is Kepler important in the history of astronomy?

* What were Kepler's laws based on?

* According to Kepler's laws, what is the shape of the orbit of a planet?

* How does the speed of a planet along its orbit vary?

* How did Kepler explain the retrograde motion of Mars?

* How do the speeds of two planets at different distances from the Sun compare?

* Why do planets that are further from the Sun take longer to complete their orbit?

* Does it follow from Kepler's laws that the orbits of the planets are in the same plane?

* How does a body move if no force is acting on it?

* When two objects of different mass collide, is their motion equally affected?

* When a baseball falls toward the Earth, does the Earth fall toward the baseball?

* Is the weight of a baseball the same kind of force that attacts the Moon to the Earth?

* Is the Sun's motion affected by a gravitational pull from the Earth?

* Does the gravitational force between two bodies depend on their distance?

* What is the shape of the orbit of an object under the influence of the Sun's gravity?

* Can an object feel the Sun's gravitational pull but not orbit in an ellipse around it?

* To what situations would you apply Newton's law of gravitation?

* What does the term escape velocity mean?

* What is the Doppler effect?

* If a source of light moves toward you, how do you perceive the light?

* If a source of light moves sideways, maintaining its distance from you, is there any change in the light you receive from it?

* What is a constellation?

* If we moved to another part of our galaxy, would we see the same constellations?

* What is the ecliptic?

* What is the Zodiac?

* Why do we see different stars in summer and in winter?

* What is the Sun?

* What is the best way to tell a planet from a star?

* What does it mean to say that two stars have magnitudes 1 and 4?

* Why do stars twinkle?

* What is a galaxy?

* Are we inside a galaxy?

* Why don't we see the stars always in the same position in the sky?

* If a star is seen in the East, will it eventually set in the West like the Sun?

* What is the celestial sphere?

* What is right ascension?

* What is declination?

* What is special about Polaris, the North star?

* What is the declination of Polaris, the North Star?

* What do we mean by the Earth's revolution?

* What is parallax?

* Which objects appear to move more due to parallax, nearby or distant ones?

* How is an astronomical unit defined?

* What is the value of an astronomical unit?

* How old are the earliest astronomical structures known?

* Why did ancient sites have circular stone arrangements?

* What is Stonehenge?

* Why was it important for ancient civilizations to mark the directions where astronomical objects rise and set?

* How can we use astronomy to find out when seasons will change?

* Which astronomical site is the oldest one known?

* What point of view did the ancient Greeks contribute to astronomy?

* Which ancient people first attempted to explain astronomical observations of planet motion?

* In what ways did the ancient Arabs contribute to astronomy?

* How did the ancient Chinese contribute to astronomy?

* Why is Ptolemy important in the history of Astronomy?

* What is the main assumption in a geocentric model?

* [What is the main assumption in a heliocentric model?]

* [Why did Aristotle conclude that the Earth did not revolve around the Sun?]

* Which observed facts seem to support geocentric models?

* As the Earth is moving along its orbit, why don't we "feel" this motion?

* Why don't we feel a "wind" as the Earth moves through space?

* Why don't we see parallax in the stars as the Earth moves?

* What is the retrograde motion of Mars?

* How did geocentric models explain the retrograde motion of Mars?

* [What is a deferent?]

* What is an epicycle?

* Why do we not believe in Ptolemy's model for the solar system today?

* What contribution to astronomy was made by Copernicus?

* What is a heliocentric model of the solar system?

* What is a major difference between Copernicus' model and our present ideas?

* What contribution to astronomy was made by Tycho Brahe?

* Why were Tycho's observations of a supernova and a comet important?

* In what way was stellar parallax relevant to Tycho's ideas about the solar system?

* What contribution to astronomy was made by Galileo?

* What kind of telescope did Galileo use?

* What important fact did Galileo observe about Jupiter with his telescope?

* Why was Galileo's observation of Jupiter important?

* What did Galileo discover about the Sun/the Moon?

* Does Venus have phases like the Moon?

* How would you call the present view we have of the solar system?

* Why is Kepler important in the history of astronomy?

* What was Kepler's relationship with Tycho Brahe?

* What does it mean to say that Kepler's laws are "empirical"?

* How did Kepler arrive at the formulation of his laws?

* According to Kepler's laws, what is the shape of the orbit of a planet?

* Who discovered that the orbits of planets are ellipses?

* Does the speed of a planet along its orbit vary?

* How did Kepler explain the retrograde motion of Mars?

* How do the speeds of two planets at different distances from the Sun compare?

* Why do planets that are further from the Sun take longer to complete their orbit?

* Jupiter is about 5 times as far from the Sun as we are; how long is a Jupiter year?

* Does it follow from Kepler's laws that the orbits of the planets are in the same plane?

* Do Kepler's laws explain the force of gravity between planets?

* What do we mean by the Earth's revolution?

* Is there a difference between a solar and a sidereal day?

* Why is a sidereal day different from a solar day?

* Do stars rise exactly at the same time every day?

* If a star rises at 9:00 pm one day, at what time will it rise the following day?

* What are seasons on Earth due to?

* Why are summer days warmer than winter days?

* What are solstices?

* What are equinoxes?

*[Why is a sidereal year different from a tropical year?]

* What is meant by the precession of the Earth?

* Approximately how large is the Moon?

* How far is the Moon from the Earth?

* How fast does the Moon rotate?

* If you were standing on the Moon, how would you see the Earth?

* Why do we see only part of the Moon during a quarter Moon phase?

* At what time of the day can you see the Moon if it is waxing?

* At what time will a full Moon rise?

* When does a lunar eclipse occur?

* Why is the Moon not totally dark during a lunar eclipse?

* When does a solar eclipse occur?

* When is a solar eclipse annular rather than total?

* What determines whether a solar eclipse is annular or total?

* If a lunar eclipse occurs, from where on Earth can it be seen?

* How long does a total solar eclipse usually last?

* Why aren't there lunar and solar eclipses every month?

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