Astronomy college course/Chasing Pluto

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1 The trip by New Horizons from Earth to Pluto took almost a

	week
	month
	year
	decade
	century

2 The time to reach __________ was shortened from 9 days to 3 hours due to the speed of the rocket that delivered New Horizons

	the Moon
	Mars
	the asteroid belt
	Jupiter

3 When the discovery of the "ninth planet" was made in 1930, the name Pluto was chosen after a cartoon that was a common childhood experience shared by most astronomers of the day

	true
	false

4

The image to the right corresponds to

5

The image to the right corresponds to

6

These two images of Pluto represent:

	a land-based telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope
	raw and processed images
	New Horizons near Earth and mid-way to Pluto
	New Horizons mid-way to Pluto and near Pluto
	New Horizons and the Hubble Space Telescope

7 The atmosphere of Pluto

	emerges when the surface thaws as it approaches the Sun
	emerges when the surface thaws due to tidal heating from the Moons
	emerges when the surface thaws due to tidal heating from Jupiter
	emerges when the surface thaws due to tidal heating from Neptune
	is mostly oxygen

8 Energy for the New Horizons is provided by

	lithium batteries
	fuel cells
	solar power
	nuclear power

9 As it approached Pluto, New Horizons was slightly larger than

	a grand piano
	the Hubble Space Telescope
	a 10 story building

10 The "Chasing Pluto" video showed a stellar occultation that was observed in order to learn something about Pluto's

	mass
	atmosphere
	size

11 The "Chasing Pluto" video showed a stellar occultation that was observed

	from the Keck Observatory in 1994
	from the 200 inch Hale Telescope in 1968
	from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1998
	from a cargo plane in 1988

12 A stellar occultation occurs when a planet passes in front of a star

	true
	false

13 A stellar occultation occurs when the north or south pole of a planet is aligned with a star

	true
	false

14 Stellar occultation tells something about a planet because

	blocking the nearby stars allows a better view of the planet
	the star acts as a light source for the detection of planetary spectral lines that are absorption lines
	the star acts as a light source for the detection of planetary spectral lines that are emission lines
	the orientation of the planet's rotation about its axis can be precisely determined

15 Silicon carbide was used to construct the telescope LORRI because this material is

	strong
	light
	not prone to warp at low temperature
	all of these

16 The darker portions of Pluto are believe to be from "snowflakes" of

	silicates
	water
	hydrocarbons
	nitrogen

17 "Pepssi", "Rex", "Swap", "Lorri", "Alice" and "Ralf" are

	named after friends of the cartoon charactor 'Pluto'
	instruments on the New Horizon
	asteroids discovered by New Horizon
	the people responsible for calculating the orbit of New Horizon
	Kuiper objects discovered by New Horizon

18 What was the concern about taking a telescope/camera to the cold environment near Pluto?

	the telescope might bend
	the the mirror might crack
	the plates might crack
	the electronics might fail

19 As New Horizon's approaches Jupiter, it was essential that

	it approach Jupiter closely enough for Jupiter's gravity to pull New Horizons to a 20% higher speed
	avoid hitting the moons of Jupiter
	avoid going into the rings of Jupiter

20 While close to Jupiter, New Horizons the most spectacular image was of

	the great red spot
	Jupiter's rings
	a newly discovered moon
	a live volcano

21 The Kuiper belt has been described as a ___________ made of ___________

	deep freeze ... rock and metal
	mystery band ... rock and ice
	mystery band ... rock and metal
	deep freeze ... rock and ice

22 For most of its nine-year journey, it was asleep, but once a week, the New Horizon's spacecraft

	photographed EARTH
	photographed PLUTO
	called MOM
	adjusted the ORBIT

23 Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto back in the 1930s

	privately funded the Lowell observatory
	was self educated
	had resigned from a position at Yale to focus his efforts on discovering "Planet X"

24 Clyde Tombaugh's reward for discovering Pluto was

	a Nobel prize
	a college education
	an invitation to teach at Yale

25 The blink comparator compared

	the atmosphere around an object with the object itself
	the size of two different objects
	the location of an object on two different days

26 A typical average radio station uses 50,000 watts to transmit a signal. The transmitter on New Horizons used

	5 thousand times less power
	5 thousand times more power
	5 times less power
	5 times more power
	almost the same amount of power

27 Mike Brown's search for another Pluto-like object eventually led to the discovery of [[w:Eris|]] in 2005. What was the first clue that Eris was larger than Pluto?

	It was brighter in the sky than Pluto
	it was surprisingly bright for an object moving that quickly
	it was surprisingly bright for an object moving that slowly
	it had a surprisingly large influence on Pluto's orbit

28 Pluto ceased to be called a planet in 2006, after the IAU defined a planet of our Sun as an object that is (1) in orbit around the Sun, (2) roughly spherical due to it's mass, and (3):

	lies in the same plane as the other nine planets
	has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
	has a nearly circular orbit
	is larger than Earth's moon
	is more massive than Mercury

29 The influence of Jupiter's gravity on Pluto is that Jupiter gradually pushes Pluto away

	true
	false

30 The influence of Jupiter's gravity on Pluto is that Jupiter gradually brings Pluto closer

	true
	false

31 Which was NOT listed as one of the three things commonly considered necessary for the formation of life?

	sunlight
	water
	energy
	organic matter

32 As New Horizons approached Jupiter, it looked for new moons, and the ground crew was glad that

	the New Horizons discovered three new moons
	there were no new moons because moons are debris generators
	there were no new moons because moons are capable of capturing spacecraft