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Study Guide For Exam #1 Astro 1000 Fall 2008
This test will cover Lectures 1-6: the Nature of Science/Astronomy, the
Changing Night Sky, the Earth-like planets, and Jupiter.
No calculators or electronic gizmos will be allowed (none needed).
Strategies for preparation:
1) Study the lecture notes and identify the major points.
2) Study the chapters in the book & read the chapter summaries.
3) Work the Review/Discussion & Conceptual Self-Tests at the end of each chapter.
Lecture 1: Introduction to Astronomy
1. What is Astronomy? What does it deal with? What does it try to explain?
2. Why can one consider Astronomy to be the most “inclusive” science?
Why would a geologist find astronomy interesting? A climatologist? A
computer scientist?
3. What is a Scientific Theory? What must it be able to do? (answer: make
precise & testable predictions; must be expressed in mathematics;
should be elegant; should clear up lots of old questions & lead to lots of
new ones).
4. Can you prove a Scientific Theory? How many experiments does it take
to do this? If you can’t ever prove a theory, then how does science make
any progress at all?
Lecture 2: The Night Sky ( parts of Chap. 8 )
1. What things do you see when you look up in the sky on a dark night?
(Stars, Planets, the Milky Way, comets).
2. Why does the sky change from hour to hour? From month to month?
3. What is special about the star Polaris?
4. What are Constellations? Are the stars in a constellation physically
related? How old are the constellations that appear in cave paintings?
5. Why do we have Seasons? Why are the seasons reversed in the two
hemispheres (i.e., December means winter in Chicago but summer in
Sydney, Australia).
