Name:
Student
Number:
Please
read and sign the following honor pledge:
“I
pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance
on this quiz.”
signed
Instructions
for this quiz:
1.
Answer all questions.
2.
No electronic calculators of any kind are to be used
3.
This is a closed-book quiz: no notes are allowed.
4.
Please write your answers directly on this paper in the gaps after each
question. Do not feel that you have to
use all of the available space.
5.
If you need more space than provided, write the continuation of your
answer on a separate sheet of paper. Be
sure to write your name and the question number on every additional sheet you
use.
1. Neutrinos and visible light are basically the same phenomenon, differing only in the wavelength of the radiation.
a. True
b. False
2. Merging galaxies often look blue due to star formation that is triggered by the merger
a. True
b. False
3. We believe that pulsars are
a. black holes that are spinning,
b. normal stars that oscillate (or “breath”) in and out very fast
c. neutron stars that are spinning,
d. scientists haven’t got a clue.
4. Which of these places would be a very poor choice in which to site an X-ray telescope
a. On top of a Mountain in Hawaii,
b. On the Moon,
c. In close around the Earth (i.e. just above the atmosphere),
d. In high orbit around the Earth.
5. Messier made his catalogue of nebulae because
a. he was hunting for other galaxies,
b. he was studying star formation, and needed to find potential star forming clouds,
c. he wanted to find comets and needed to catalog objects that might confuse him,
d. he built telescopes, and nebulae were good objects to test them on.
6. It is our current belief that elliptical galaxies are
a. formed when two large spiral galaxies merge together,
b. formed when a spiral galaxy merges with a small dwarf galaxy,
c. formed directly from the collapse of giant gas clouds,
d. the small fragments of a major galaxy merger.
7. [2 points] Draw a diagram of the Milky Way Galaxy. Be sure to mark and label the disk of the Galaxy, the bulge of the Galaxy, the supermassive black hole, the position of the Sun, and the Magellanic Clouds.
8. [3 points] Describe how you can use Cepheid variable stars to measure the distance to nearby galaxies. As part of your description, you should explain how the basic properties of Cepheid variable stars are “calibrated” using parallax measurements.