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WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY AS 101a Quiz # 3 Instructor: Dr. Ioannis Haranas 1. In 1054 CE, the Chinese recorded a very interesting and powerful cosmic event. What was this event? a. a star merger *

b. a supernova c. a galactic collapse d. simultaneous solar and lunar eclipses

2. What was a common feature of astronomy as practiced worldwide prior to the Greeks? * a. recognizing patterns b. making hypotheses c. defining the 24-hour clock d. observing supernovae 3. What did Eratosthenes measure very accurately? * a. the size of the Earth b. the length of the year c. the distance to the Moon d. the length of the month 4. Who were the two great authorities of Greek astronomy? * a. Aristotle and Ptolemy b. Julius Caesar and Aristotle c. Columbus and Ptolemy d. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar 5. Whose writings became so famous that he was known throughout the Middle East simply as “The

Philosopher”? a. Ptolemy b. Eratosthenes * c. Aristotle d. Hipparchus

6. Which of the following statements reflects beliefs that were almost universally held in pre-Copernican astronomy? a. The planets travelled in elliptical orbits around the Earth. b. The planets travelled in elliptical orbits around the Sun. c. The Sun was at the centre of the universe. * d. The Earth was at the centre of the universe. 7. In what circumstances is retrograde motion observable? a. It is observable for planets located between the Earth and the Sun. *

b. It is observable for planets more distant from the Sun than the Earth c. It is only observable for the Moon. d. It is observable for all planets.

8. You are observing the night sky from Mars. In what circumstances is retrograde motion observable? * a. It is observable for planets more distant from the Sun than Mars. b. It is observable for planets located between Mars and the Sun. c. It is only observable for Earth and Venus. d. It is observable for all planets. 9. What is the term for the apparent westward motion of a planet in the sky compared to the background stars

(as viewed from the Earth) when observed on successive nights? a. epicycle * b. retrograde motion c. prograde motion d. heliocentric motion 10. What is parallax? * a. the apparent motion of an object due to the motion of the observer b. the distance between two straight lines c. the small circle that the planets slid along in Ptolemy’s geocentric universe d. the distance between two foci of an ellipse 11. What was the reason for using epicycles and deferents to explain the motion of the planets in the night sky? a. prograde motion b. Mercury and Venus’s limited angular distance from the Sun *

c. retrograde motion d. non-uniform speed of the planets in their orbits

12. Why did ancient astronomers believe that the Earth did not move?

*

a. because they could not detect parallax b. because they believed in circular motion c. because all observable planets follow retrograde motion d. because parallax is only detectable during the day

13. In Ptolemy’s view of the universe, what is at the centre of a planet’s epicycle? a. the Sun b. the Earth *

c. the deferent d. the equant

14. What is the term for a small circle that has its centre located on the circumference of another larger circle? a. equant b. deferent *

c. retrograde loop d. epicycle

15. What feature of Ptolemy’s model of the universe made it possible to explain retrograde motion? a. heliocentrism *

b. elliptical orbits c. epicycles d. geocentrism

16. Which of the following astronomers described the universe in a way that matches the diagram?

*

a. Kepler b. Ptolemy c. Copernicus d. Galileo

17. The Copernican system was no more accurate than the Ptolemaic system in predicting the positions of the

planets because of a key factor that was unchanged from the Ptolemaic system. What was that factor? a. The Copernican system assumed the Earth was at rest at the centre. b. The Copernican system used elliptical planetary orbits. * c. The Copernican system used uniform circular motion. d. The Copernican system assumed all planets orbited the Sun. 18. What is the book “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” about? a. It describes how Galileo’s observations and Kepler’s calculations proved the Copernican theory. b. It describes the construction of Galileo’s telescope and his observations. c. It is a dialogue written to convince the general public of the merits of the Copernican theory. *

d. It lays out the Copernican theory for the first time.

19. What was the greatest inaccuracy in Copernicus’s model of the solar system? * a. that the planets travelled in circular orbits with uniform motion b. that the planets travelled on epicycles, the centres of which followed orbits around the Sun c. that the planets travelled in elliptical orbits d. that the planets were allowed to travel backwards in their orbits 20. Which of the following objects cannot transit (i.e. pass in front of) the Sun, as seen from Jupiter? a. Mercury b. Venus *

c. Mars d. Saturn...