ASTR 1010 Fall 2019:
Study Guide for Quiz #4
READING: Chapters 5 and 6; Sections 15.1 and 15.2.
Topics you should know and
understand for Quiz #4
(not necessarily a complete list)
1) DEFINITIONS:
Diffraction; Diffraction Grating;
Light Gathering Power;
Refraction;
Reflection; Chromatic Aberration;
Concave Mirror; Convex Mirror; Focus; Focal length;
Interferometer;
Terrestrial Planets; Jovian Planets;
Kuiper Belt Objects;
Oort Cloud;
planet; dwarf planet;
Ceres;
brown dwarf;
angular momentum;
planetesimals;
differentiation.
2) Laws and Equations:
The Law of Reflection;
The relationship between resolution, wavelength, and the telescope
size;
the relationship between the diameter of
a telescope and its light-gathering power;
angular momentum
is proportion to mass X velocity X radius,
where
the velocity is the
spin or orbital velocity of the object,
and the radius is the radius of the
object (for spin motion) or the distance
from the object to the center of orbit (for
orbital motion);
conservation of angular momentum.
3) OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
In the diffraction of waves, the relationship between the amount
that the wave bends, the size of the door, and the wavelength;
the basic designs of telescopes (i.e,. refracting, Newtonian,
Prime Focus, Cassegrain, or Coude).
Which wavelengths of light get through the Earth's atmosphere;
Special requirements for infrared, X-ray, and Gamma-ray telescopes;
the advantages of using interferometers;
the standard model for
how the solar system formed, and the evidence for
this scenario;
the relative sizes of the larger moons
and the planets; which planets and moons have
unusual spins or orbits; the relative spin rates
of the planets and why they are different;
how a planet and a dwarf planet differ, according to the IAU
definitions;
the
approximate number of spacecraft that visited each
planet; the primary target(s) of the Messenger, Magellan,
Viking, Voyager 1, Voyager 2,
Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons spacecraft;
why the terrestrial planets have different densities
than the Jovian planets;
the order of the Galilean moons from Jupiter and ideas on
why their densities are different.