astronomy history test

Question 1

What did Kepler’s first law say?

Answer 1

A planet orbits in an ellipse with the sun at a focus

Question 2

what was Galileo charged for?

Answer 2

Heresy

Question 3

What was Hubble’s big moment of discovery that changed astronomy?

Answer 3

Our galaxy is the not entire universe

Question 4

Why didn’t Einstein like Lemaitre’s big bang theory?

Answer 4

Because Lemaitre had a religious background and didn’t believe he knew about science.

Question 5

What was Newton considered the “father” of?

Answer 5

Calculus and physics

Question 6

Why did the ancient men start taking an interest in astronomy and why did they need it?

Answer 6

They needed it to tell the time to harvest their crops

Question 7

If the focal points of an ellipse get further away from the center, what does that do to eccentricity?

Answer 7

it makes it go further from zero and closer to 1 making it flatter

Question 8

how did Copernicus try to refine Ptolemy’s explanation for the retrograde “loops” of planets?

Answer 8

explained it with parallax instead of epicycles

Question 9

moving from perihelion towards aphelion, would a planet be speeding up or slowing down?

Answer 9

slowing down

Question 10

are the eccentricities of the planets generally closer to 0 or 1?

Answer 10

0, making them more circular

Question 11

who was the first person to see the moon up close and see the moons of Jupiter?

Answer 11

galileo

Question 12

who developed the first working mathematical model for gravity that made good predictions of motion?

Answer 12

newton

Question 13

who came up with the solar system view that was accepted for over a millennium even though it was wrong?

Answer 13

Ptolemy

Question 14

whose personality clashed with Brahe’s to the point that he could not finish his equations till after Brahe died to acquire his data?

Answer 14

Keppler

Question 15

who created an early catalog of stars and named many of the stars?

Answer 15

chinese and Arabic astronomers

Question 16

who proposed that matter was able to curve space-time to create the orbits that we currently observe for the planets?

Answer 16

Einstein

Question 17

Brahe discovered a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia. What controversial idea was he able to prove?

Answer 17

The heavens may change

Question 18

who was the primary defender of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus?

Answer 18

galileo

Question 19

who was the first to seriously propose that the universe was created from a “big bang?”

Answer 19

Lemaitre

Question 20

who was the first to embrace the idea that the planets, stars, etc. all worked together in a “system”?

Answer 20

aristotle

Question 21

why was there conflict between newton and hooke?

Answer 21

they accused each other of stealing each others work

Question 22

what experiment by Edington confirmed that Einstein’s relativity might actually be right?

Answer 22

observed solar eclipse and saw stars behind the sun proving light could bend

Question 23

what orbiting bodies tend to have the highest eccentricity in our solar system?

Answer 23

comets

Question 24

How were the “ancients” able to tell the difference between stars and planets?

Answer 24

because the planets moved in retrograde, while the stars moved in prograde

Question 25

how do you use Kepler's third law to figure out the length of time for a planet to go around the sun?

Answer 25

p^2=a^3

Question 26

what major breakthrough in the study of astronomy began around the beginning of the 1960s?

Answer 26

ability to space travel and put telescopes in space

Question 27

where and what is Stonehedge?

Answer 27

an observatory in England

Question 28

what was the first planet to be discovered?

Answer 28

uranus

Question 29

why does Saturn appear to move more slowly across the sky than Mars over a long period of time?

Answer 29

farther away from the sun

Question 30

nationality of Aristotle

Answer 30

greek

Question 31

nationality of Copernicus?

Answer 31

polish

Question 32

nationality of einstein and keppler?

Answer 32

german

Question 33

nationality of galileo?

Answer 33

italian

Question 34

what did galileo learn from dropping two balls from the leaning tower of pisa?

Answer 34

weight doesn't affect gravity

Question 35

Using kepler's second law, why does the wedge nearer to the sun look different than the one that is on the other side?

Answer 35

objects move faster closer to the sun

Question 36

why did Lemaitre have a hard time finding support for his theory?

Answer 36

he was a catholic priest, and was accused of not being a good scientist

Question 37

what important contribution did the Egyptians and greeks leave for us?

Answer 37

the size and shape

Question 38

what time of year is earth at perihelion?

Answer 38

winter

Question 39

the distance of the perihelion and the aphelion is what?

Answer 39

major axis

Question 40

the difference between Aristotle's model and ptolemy's model?

Answer 40

ptolemy accounted for retrograde motion of planets