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Question 1[B]
What characteristic of Cepheid variables makes them extremely useful to
astronomers?
1. The absolute magnitude of Cepheid variables is related directly to their surface
temperature.
2. The absolute magnitude of Cepheid variables is directly related to their diameter.
3. The absolute magnitude of Cepheid variables is related directly to their period of
pulsation.
4. The absolute magnitude of Cepheid variables is related directly to their metal
content (heavy element abundance).

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1 points
Question 2[B]
What is the most important process that causes a protostar to stop
accreting mass?
1. All of the infalling matter has been used up in the accretion.
2. Radiation and particles from the hot protostar push infalling matter away from
the protostar.
3. Other protostars formed in the vicinity pass randomly through the infalling
material and eventually disperse it.
4. The dense core spins up as it collapses, and eventually the infalling matter is
held away from the protostar by the centrifugal force.

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1 points
Question 3[C]
The definition of a main-sequence star is a star
1. whose age after birth is about 1 million years.
2. with a luminosity precisely equal to that of the Sun.
3. in which nuclear fusion reactions generate sufficient energy to oppose further
condensation of the star.
4. with a surface temperature equal to that of the Sun.

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1 points
Question 4[B]
Which of the following stars would you classify as a Population II star?
1. star with approximately the same abundance of heavy elements that we find in the Sun
2. star with very low abundance of heavy elements
3. star with much higher abundance of heavy elements than we find in the Sun
4. star in an open star cluster

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1 points
Question 5[B]
The light from a distant cloud of gas and dust looks distinctly red to the
unaided eye. When a spectrum is taken, the red color is found to come from
a single, bright spectral line. Thus the red color in this situation is due to
1. interstellar reddening, the Balmer spectrum of hydrogen, or the Doppler effect.
2. interstellar reddening.

3. the Doppler effect.

4. the Balmer spectrum of hydrogen.
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Question 6[D]
New stars are formed from
1. hot supernova remnants.
2. pure energy in free space.
3. activity around black holes in the centers of galaxies.
4. huge, cool dust and gas clouds.

1 points

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1 points
Question 7[B]
If you were to look at 1 kilogram of material taken from the surface of the
Sun and 1 kilogram taken from the center, which of the following
statements would be true of the two kilograms?
1. Both kilograms have the same amount of hydrogen and are in fact mostly hydrogen.
2. The kilogram from the surface contains more hydrogen than the one from the center.
3. Neither kilogram contains any hydrogen.
4. The kilogram from the surface contains less hydrogen than the one from the center.

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1 points
Question 8[B]
How is the length of a star's lifetime related to the mass of the star?
1. Lower-mass stars run through their lives faster and have shorter lifetimes.
2. Higher-mass stars run through their lives faster and have shorter lifetimes.
3. The lifetimes of stars are too long to measure, so it is not known how (or if) their
lifetimes depend on mass.
4. A star's lifetime does not depend on its mass.

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1 points
Question 9[D]
How do the stars in a star cluster change with time?
1. All stars in a cluster evolve at the same rate.
2. The highest-mass stars evolve the most quickly.
3. The stars with the greatest heavy element content evolve the most quickly.
4. The lowest-mass stars evolve the most quickly.

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1 points
Question 10[B]
During helium burning in a star's later life, the chemical element produced
by the combination of helium nuclei is
1. the light isotope of helium, 3He.
2. carbon, 12C.
3. heavy hydrogen, 2H.
4. beryllium, 8Be.
Question 11[A]
What quantum transition occurs inside a hydrogen atom to produce a 21cm radio photon? Answer

1. An electron in the ground atomic state reverses its direction of spin with
respect to that of the proton.
2. An electron falls from the level n = 100 to the level n = 99 in the atom.
3. An electron reverses the direction of its motion in orbit around the proton.
4. The electron combines with the proton in the nucleus to become a neutron,
producing energy.
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1 points
Question 12[A]
What happens when the electron in a hydrogen atom flips its direction of
spin from parallel to antiparallel to that of the proton? Answer
1. The atom emits a photon of 21-cm wavelength in the radio region of the spectrum.
2. The atom emits a photon of 121.5-nm wavelength (L) in the UV region of the spectrum.
3. Nothing. This event is a forbidden transition that never occurs.
4. The atom emits a photon of 656.3-nm wavelength (H) in the red region of the spectrum.

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1 points
Question 13[A]
Why are we on Earth able to see only a relatively small part of the Milky
Way Galaxy? Answer
1. Distant stars are obscured by dust in interstellar space.
2. Expansion of the universe has carried the more distant stars out of our view.
3. Distant stars are obscured by gas in interstellar space.
4. There are so many stars in the Milky Way that the more distant ones are hidden
behind the nearer ones.

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Question 14[B]
The stars in the Milky Way Galaxy Answer
1. number between 8 and 10 million.
2. move generally around the galactic center.
3. are all receding from the galactic center.
4. obey Hubble's law of recession.

1 points

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1 points
Question 15[B]
Which of the following components of the Milky Way Galaxy outlines the
spiral arms of the Galaxy? Answer
1. white dwarf stars
2. young O and B stars, dust, and gas
3. predominantly solar-type stars
4. globular clusters
1 points
Question 16[D]
What fraction of the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy appears to be in the
form of dark matter, which we cannot see but can detect through its
gravitational influence?Answer
1. 0%who ever heard of matter that can't be seen?
2. about 10%

3. about 50%
4. about 90%
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1 points
Question 17[C]
Where is the Sun located in the Milky Way Galaxy? (That is, what is the
address of the Sun in the universe?) (See Figure 15-9 of Comins and
Kaufmann, Discovering the Universe, 8th ed.)Answer
1. in the Sagittarius arm, between the Centaurus and Orion arms
2. in the Centaurus arm, between the galactic center and the Orion arm
3. in or close to the Orion arm, between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms.
4. in the Perseus arm, between the Orion and Cygnus arms

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1 points
Question 18[D]
The first suggestion that there were collections of stars beyond the Milky
Way in the universe was made by Answer
1. Edwin Hubble in 1923.
2. Sir Isaac Newton in 1690.
3. William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, in 1845.
4. Immanuel Kant in 1755.
1 points
Question 19[C]
Where in space would you look for a globular cluster? Answer
1. in the asteroid belt
2. in elliptical galaxies since they are composed of old stars and do not exist in
young systems like spiral galaxies
3. in the Milky Way galactic halo, orbiting the galactic center in a long elliptical
orbit around the galactic center
4. in the Milky Way disk, moving in a circular orbit around the galactic center

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1 points
Question 20[D]
Interstellar matter obscures our view of the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy
Answer
1. most at radio wavelengths, where hydrogen absorbs radio waves efficiently, and
least at optical wavelengths.
2. very little at any wavelength.
3. more or less equally at all wavelengths, from radio waves to light waves.
4. more at optical wavelengths and less or not at all at infrared and radio wavelengths.

Question 21[A]
Even though cosmic microwave background photons outnumber hydrogen
atoms by about 1 billion to 1 in the universe, the universe is still considered
to be matter-dominated because the
1. photon energies are extremely small.
2. photons have no rest mass and hence can generate no gravity.
3. nature of the photons is such that they interact with nothing as they pass

through the universe.

4. photons, while collectively carrying a large amount of energy, do not carry an
equivalent amount of momentum and hence play little role in collisions with matter.
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1 points
Question 22[B]
What appears to be the relationship between the distribution of dark
matter and the distribution of luminous matter?
1. There seems to be no correlation at all.
2. The distribution of dark matter seems to coincide with the distribution of luminous
matter.
3. There seems to be a separate distribution of dark matterdark-matter galaxy
clusters, voids in the dark matter, and so on. But these formations all occur in
regions of space far from luminous matter.
4. The distribution of dark matter seems to be just the reverse of the distribution of
luminous matter: Dark-matter galaxy clusters occur in the voids of luminous matter;
luminous galaxy clusters occur in the voids of dark matter.

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1 points
Question 23[C]
How does the observed total amount of matter in the universe, including
dark matter, compare with the amount of matter required to just close the
universe?
1. The observed total amount of matter is about twice the amount needed.
2. The observed total amount of matter equals the amount needed, to within
observational uncertainty.
3. The observed total amount of matter is about 1/200 of the amount needed.
4. The observed total amount of matter is about 1/3 of the amount needed.

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1 points
Question 24[D]
Which of the following cosmological problems is dark energy believed to
solve?
1. Why did the universe suddenly inflate during the Big Bang?
2. Why is the temperature of the cosmic background radiation so smooth (isotropic)
around the sky?
3. Why is the night sky dark?
4. Why is the universe flat?

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1 points
Question 25[D]
What is the range of the strong nuclear force compared with the size of
the nucleus, 1014 m?
1. infinite; it has no limit
2. 10 times larger than the size of an atomic nucleus
3. 10 times smaller than the size of an atomic nucleus
4. same since it is the strong force that holds the nucleus together

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1 points
Question 26[B]
Einstein introduced a cosmological constant into his formulation of the
structure of the universe as described by his general theory of relativity.
How did he envision that this cosmological constant would manifest itself?
1. as antimatter that, by annihilating real matter, would translate matter into energy,
thereby maintaining a constant mass density in a condensing universe
2. as a form of energy that, on its own, would make the universe expanda form of
antigravity
3. as many white holes that would contribute matter to an expanding universe to
maintain constant density, as required by the cosmological principlea continuous
creation universe
4. as an extra gravity that would hold the universe against continuous expansion

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1 points
Question 27[C]
At what time did the universe cool to a temperature of about 3 K?
1. end of the Planck time
2. end of the inflationary era
3. very recently
4. era of recombination
1 points
Question 28[D]
What is the period of quark confinement?
1. Because of the very large pressure in early times, all the quarks were confined
to a small volume. After the inflationary, epoch the pressure dropped and the
quarks were able to spread out to assume the distribution we find today.
2. During the period of quark confinement, the energy of the photons was sufficiently
high that conglomerations of quarks, such as neutrons and protons, could not
exist and quarks were free.
3. to the period of quark confinement was the very early period in the universe when
all matter and energy were confined to a region the size of a single quark.
4. During the period of quark confinement, the energy of the photons was sufficiently
low that conglomerations of quarks, such as neutrons and protons, could exist
without being blasted apart as soon as they were formed.

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1 points
Question 29[B]
During the first one-ten-thousandth of a second (10 4 s) of the life of the
universe, antiprotons were very common. For every billion antiprotons, how
many protons were there?
1. exactly 1 billion since protons and antiprotons were created in equal numbers
2. slightly more than 1 billion, thus producing the matter we see today
3. 10 billion, thus producing the dark matter we see today

4. totally unknown number since the early universe was opaque and we cannot see
what conditions were like then
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1 points
Question 30[B]
How does the cosmological constant differ from quintessence?
1. There is essentially no difference; basically, quintessence is the modern name for
the cosmological constant.
2. The cosmological constant provides a constant accelerating force in the universal
expansion, whereas quintessence can change as the expansion proceeds.
3. The cosmological constant provides an accelerating force in the universal expansion,
whereas quintessence provides a decelerating term; it is the balance between the
cosmological constant and quintessence that determines whether the expansion
accelerates or decelerates.
4. The cosmological constant is a specific physical effect that can be described
mathematically, whereas quintessence is the total of all indefinable properties
that make the universe what it is at any given time.

Question 31[A]
There is very little hydrogen or helium in the inner part of the solar
system today. We believe the reason for this is that Answer
1. the intense radiation from the early Sun drove the light elements out of the
inner solar system.
2. all the light elements went into the formation of the Sun itself and little were
left over for the rest of the solar system.
3. heavier elements were attracted in from the outer part of the solar system,
displacing the light elements originally in the inner part.
4. the light elements underwent chemical reactions and were locked up in
chemicals in the inner solar system.

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1 points
Question 32[D]
Moons have been discovered around Answer
1. just the terrestrial planets.
2. just the Jovian planets.
3. all the planets.
4. all the planets except those nearer to the Sun than Earth is.
1 points
Question 33[D]
Each of the following descriptions except one is believed to be a possible
mechanism that can trigger the collapse of a cloud of gas and dust to form
a star. Which is the exception? Answer
1. Stellar winds may compress nearby gas and dust clouds.
2. A nearby supernova can compress nearby gas and dust clouds.
3. Clouds can collide and compress each other.

4. Radiation pressure from the Cosmic Microwave Background can compress

clouds of gas and dust.
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1 points
Question 34[A]
The planet whose average density is less than that of water is Answer
1. Saturn.
2. Jupiter.
3. Neptune.
4. Earth.

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1 points
Question 35[C]
Which planet in our solar system has the lowest average density? Answer
1. Uranus
2. Earth
3. Saturn
4. Jupiter

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1 points
Question 36[C]
How do we measure the mass of an extrasolar planet? Answer
1. We cannot make any firm estimate of the mass of an extrasolar planet
with present technology.
2. We measure the planet's angular diameter and hence its size and then use
spectra to find its composition and hence density.
3. We use Newton's law of gravity, using the measured distance of the planet
from its star and the planet's gravitational pull on the star
4. We use spectra to measure the planet's temperature and photometry to
measure its brightness.

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1 points
Question 37[A]
What are the three common substances that are believed to be
important in planet formation?Answer
1. rock, ices, and gas
2. electromagnetic radiation, electrical discharges (e.g., lightning), and water
3. solid, liquid, and gaseous hydrogen
4. hydrogen, helium, and neon gases

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1 points
Question 38[B]
In our solar system, which of the following planets is a member of the
terrestrial group? Answer
1. Neptune
2. Mars
3. Saturn
4. Jupiter

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1 points
Question 39[A]
Pluto was originally classified as a planet, but new criteria for the
definition of a planet were adopted, and Pluto failed to meet one of them.
Which one? Answer
1. Pluto does not have enough gravity to clear its orbit.
2. Pluto does not orbit the Sun directly.
3. Pluto does not spin fast enough to produce its own magnetic field.
4. Pluto does not have enough mass to pull itself into a roughly spherical shape.
1 points
Question 40[A]
Which of the following statements is true? Answer
1. Earth is the most massive of the terrestrial planets.
2. Jupiter has the highest average density of the planets.
3. The average mass of terrestrial planets is close to the average mass of the
large, outer planets.
4. Earth is the biggest of the planets.

Question 41[C]
The lunar maria appear smooth because they are Answer
1. regions where craters have been obliterated by crustal deformation caused by
hot spots and volcanic lava flow from the underlying molten mantle.
2. recent lava flows, occurring within the last billion years, that have obliterated
earlier craters.
3. ancient lava flows that occurred soon after the end of an early period of intense
bombardment and that have had relatively few impacts since then.
4. ancient sea beds, now dry, dating back to when the Moon had a denser
atmosphere and rainfall was abundant.

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1 points
Question 42[D]
What is the ratio of nitrogen to oxygen in Earth's atmosphere? Answer
1. equal parts nitrogen and oxygen
2. 1 part nitrogen to 4 parts oxygen
3. 1 part nitrogen to 2 parts oxygen
4. 4 parts nitrogen to 1 part oxygen
1 points
Question 43[C]
Which of the following models of Earth's interior is now considered to be
the most likely description of the actual Earth? Answer
1. totally fluid interior rotating at the same rate as the outer mantle and crust
2. solid core within a molten outer core, the whole system rotating at exactly
the same rate as the outer mantle and crust
3. solid core rotating more rapidly than the rest of Earth within a molten outer core
4. solid core rotating more slowly than the rest of Earth within a molten outer core

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Question 44[C]
What is the origin of the majority of lunar craters? Answer
1. impacts by space probes from Earth
2. surface collapse after loss of groundwater by evaporation
3. impacts by meteoric material
4. volcanic explosions

1 points

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1 points
Question 45[A]
Which scientific approach gives us the most information about the deep
interior of Earth? Answer
1. worldwide measurement of low-frequency seismic waves produced by earthquakes
2. deep drilling of exploratory holes for science and mineral recovery (e.g., oil)
3. measurement of cosmic neutrinos, which pass very easily through Earth
4. study of lava flows from volcanoes
1 points
Question 46[B]
Earth's mantle, the semimolten layer below the crust, is composed largely
of what chemical materials? Answer
1. amost pure iron
2. minerals rich in iron and magnesium
3. solid hydrogen and helium
4. iron-poor rocks and minerals

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Question 47[A]
What are spring tides? Answer
1. high tides that are significantly higher than the average high tide
2. high tides that are significantly lower than the average high tide
3. any low tides
4. any high tides

1 points

1 points
Question 48 [Answer is 55% of earths radius but options A and B are not
clear.]
The core (inner and outer) of Earth extends over what fraction of its
radius? Answer
1. about
2. almost 80%
3. less than 10%
4. roughly

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1 points
Question 49[B]
Which two tectonic plates are slowly separating from each other on
Earth's surface along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the South Atlantic? (See
Figure 6-7, Comins and Kaufmann, Discovering the Universe, 8th ed.)Answer
1. Pacific and Australia-India plates

2. South American and African plates

3. African and Eurasian plates
4. Nazca and Pacific plates
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1 points
Question 50[D]
What is the diameter of the Moon compared with the diameter of Earth?
Answer
1. about 1/10 of the diameter of Earth
2. less than 1/100 of the diameter of Earth
3. just over 1/2 the diameter of Earth
4. about 1/4 of the diameter of Earth