Astronomy 1 / Section 3 (S. Myers)

Topic Review for Final Exam

We have covered a lot of ground in the past semester! Here is a list of topics that are likely to appear as short-answer questions on the exam. You should have some idea of what they are. This is basically a more categorized version of the review sheets. I have included the Seeds chapters in which the general material is found, plus links to the Lecture Notes. I hope this is of some use in studying.

• The Basics: scale of the Universe, orders of magnitude (powers of ten), speed of light, distance=time (light-years), models, observations, other fields, scientific notation, logarithms and powers, units, precision (significant digits), dimensional analysis (CH 1, L1,L2)
• The Sky: the night sky, stars, asterisms, constellations, star names, brightness of stars, apparent visual magnitude, intesity ratio (CH 2, L2,L3)
• The Celestial Sphere: rotation of Earth, angles on sky, latitude and longitude, right ascension and declination, celestial equator, north and south celestial poles, azimuth and elevation, elevation of north celestial pole (CH 2, L3, L4)
• The Earth: rotation, orbital revolution, year, ecliptic, ecliptic coordinates, orbital tilt, seasons, equinoxes, solstices, sidereal and solar day, mean solar time and sidereal time, precession, nutation (CH 3, L4, L5)
• The Moon: angular size, motion across sky, orbital period, orbital inclination, line of nodes, synodic period, tides, tidal friction, widening of orbit (CH 3, L6,L7)
• Eclipses: ecliptic, shadows, umbra, penumbra, lunar eclipses, solar eclipses, total and partial eclipses, penumbral eclipse, annular eclipse, transit, occultation (CH 3, L7,L8)
• Greek Astronomy: Pythagoras, Aristotle, Aristotlean cosmology, Library at Alexandria, Aristarchus, heliocentric model, sizes of Sun, Moon, and Earth, Eratosthenes, radius of the Earth, Hipparchus, star positions, magnitude system, eccentric, Ptolemy, Ptolemaic model, epicycle, deferent, equant, Almagest, geocentric hypothesis (CH 4, L8, L9,L10)
• Scale of the Solar System: retrograde motion, inferior planets, superior planets, elongation, greatest elongation, conjunction, opposition, quadrature, sidereal and synodic period (CH 4, L10,L11)
• Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler and Galileo: the Copernican hypothesis, heliocentrism, ,De Revolutionibus, the scientific method (hypothesis, theory, law, paradigm), Tycho's observations, orbit of mars, ellipse (conic sections), Kepler's Laws, Astronomia Nova, Galileo's mechanics, telescope, Jupiter's moons, Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems, the trial of Galileo, Galileo's discoveries (sunspots, nebulae, moon craters, etc) (CH 4, L10,L11, L12,L13)
• Gravity: Newton, Newton's Three Laws, inertia and momentum, universal gravitation, force, action and reaction, velocity and acceleration, centripetal force, Kepler's Third Law, center of mass (barycenter), weight vs. mass, force from sphere (CH 4, L15,L16)
• Light: electromagnetic waves, photons, particle-wave duality, electromagnetic spectrum, optics, reflection, refraction, dispersion, index of refraction (CH 5, L16, L17)
• Telescopes: lenses, mirrors, images, refractors and reflectors, resolution, light-gathering, magnification, HST, Keck telescope, VLA, interferometry, spectroscopes, detectors (CH 5, L18, L19)
• Atoms: electrons, protons, neutrons, nucleus, Coulomb force, electron orbits, Bohr model, waves and interference, quantum mechanics, energy levels, hydrogen line series, ionization, quantum numbers, electron orbitals (CH 6, L19, L20)
• Spectra of Stars and Gas: emission lines, absorption lines, continuous spectra, thermal blackbody radiation, doppler effect, spectral classes, Balmer series (CH 6, L20, L21)
• The Sun: physical properties (L,M,R,T), photosphere, convection, chromosphere, corona, sunspots, solar activity (CH 7, L22)
• Stars: parallax, distance modulus, absolute magnitude, luminosity, mass, radius, temperature, H-R diagram, binary stars (CH 8, L23)
• The Interstallar Medium: nebulae, dust, atomic hydrogen, 21cm line, molecular clouds, ideal gas law, pressure equilibrium (CH 9, L24, L25)
• Protostars: gravitational collapse, gravitational heating, angular momentum, magnetic fields, bipolar outflow (CH 9, L25, L26)
• Stellar Nuclear Fusion: proton-proton chain, CNO reaction, helium fusion, carbon and silicon fusion, iron barrier (CH 9, L26,L27)
• Main Sequence Stars: brown dwarfs, red dwarfs, mass-luminosity, lifetimes (CH 9,10, L27, L29)
• Giants and Supergiants: shell burning, core contraction, extended envelope, helium flash, carbon detonation (CH 10, L29,L30)
• White Dwarfs: planetary nebulae, electron degeneracy, masses and radii, Chandrasekhar mass (CH 10, L29)
• Supernovae: iron core, core collapse, neutrinos, SN1987A, neutron stars (CH 10, L30)
• Neutron Stars: masses and radii, neutron degeneracy, pulsars, accretion disk (CH 11, L31)
• Black Holes: escapce velocity, Schwarzschild radius, event horizon, general relativity (space-time curvature, time dilation, gravitational redshift, bending of light) (CH 11, L32)
• The Milky Way: disk, bulge, halo, galactic center, mass and luminosity, Cepheid and RR Lyrae variable stars, spiral arms (CH 12, L33, L34)
• Stellar Populations: Population I and II, "metals", open and globular star clusters, cluster H-R diagrams, turn-off ages, kinematics, formation of the galaxy (CH 12, L34, L35)
• Dark Matter in Galaxies: rotation curve, velocity dispersion, mass-to-light ratio, halo dark matter, microlensing, MACHOS and WIMPS (CH 12,13, L34)
• Galaxies: spiral, elliptical, irregular, lenticular, Hubble sequence, distance indicators, Hubble Law, masses and luminosities, collisions and mergers, galaxy formation (CH 13, L36)
• Active Galactic Nuclei: radio galaxies, relativistic jets, quasars, QSOs, supermassive black holes, gravitational lenses (CH 14, L37)
• Large Scale Structure: Local group, Virgo cluster, Coma cluster, groups, clusters, superclusters, filaments, walls, voids, hierarchical clustering (CH 13,15, L38)
• Expansion of the Universe: Hubble Law, Hubble constant, uniform expansion, homogeneous, isotropic, cosmological principle, Olber's paradox (CH 15, L38)
• Cosmology: space-time curvature, the energy equation, critical density, open/flat/closed universes, scale factor,density and temperature vs. redshift (CH 15, L39)
• Early Universe: cosmic nucleosynthesis, microwave background, recombination, radiation domination, particle-antiparticle creation (CH 15, L40)
• Very Early Universe: electroweak unification, grand unification, causal contact, inflation, quantum gravity (CH 15, L41)
• Current Problems in Astronomy: flatness problem, horizon problem, age problem, dark matter, galaxy formation (L41)

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