PY 101 STARS AND GALAXIES

Practice Test 2 (CHAPTERS 19-20)

1. What property is NOT common to all spirals?
a) a flat, bluish disk
b) ongoing star formation, chiefly in the halo _NOT in halo is older stars (globular clusters)
c) abundant interstellar gas, chiefly in the spiral arms
d) all of the above
2. What is the distance from the Sun to the galactic center?
a) 3 kpc
b) 8 kpc or 125,000 lyrs
c) 10 kpc
d) 15 kpc
3. The time it takes for our Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way is
a) 26,000 years
b) 65 million years
c) 225 million years -250 kilo per second
d) 4.5 billion years
4. What is the nearest massive cluster of galaxies to the Milky Way?
a) The Great Wall
b) The Virgo Cluster
c) The Coma Cluster
d) The Sagittarius Cluster
5. Why do Cepheids become useless as distance indicators beyond 20 Mpc?
a) By looking at such distant galaxies, we are seeing so far into the past that Cepheids had not yet formed.
b) Distant galaxies are so young, they contain no Cepheids
c) The ability to see the variation in the luminosity of the Cepheids diminishes with distance.
d) Cepheids are too faint to be seen beyond 20 Mpc.
6.What is the most likely source of energy for active galaxies and quasars?
a) galactic collisions
b) large groups of very bright and massive stars
c) accretion onto a supermassive black hole
d) a single supermassive, superluminous star
7. The supermassive black hole at the heart of M87, the central galaxy of the Virgo Supercluster, is ____________ solar
masses.
a) 3 million
b) 30 million
c) 300 million
d) 3 billion
8. Due to the high density of galaxies and correspondingly high frequency of galaxy collisions, ____________ are rare in
the centers of clusters.
a) irregulars
b) quasars
c) spirals
d) ellipticals
9. Which is true of a galaxy that is a billion light years away?
a) We see the galaxy as it will be in a billion years.
b) We see the galaxy as it was a billion years ago.
c) We see the galaxy as it was when the Universe was a billion years old.
d) We have no knowledge of any objects at that distance.
10. Andromeda will hit the Milky Way in about _______ million years.
a) 5
b) 50
c) 500
d) 5000

11. Extrapolating from galaxy counts in the Hubble Deep Field, the observable Universe contains roughly _________
galaxies.
a) 100 billion
b) 10 billion
c) 1 billion
d) 100 million
TRUE/FALSE
1.Because of their greater luminosities, RR Lyrae are useful at greater distances than Cepheids. F
Herschel- mapped out initial galaxy and realized it wasnt sphere-more flattened and sun wasnt center-he assumed all
had same brightnes- looked dimmer were farther away-all RR lyrae have same brightess- 50 to 100 times brighter than sun- works with above theory
Shapley-mapped RR
CEPHEI
-Levit- found linear relationship between luminosity and how long it took to pulsate
Hubble-distance to andromda- is 2 mil lyrsmilky is 100,000 lys acorss ___ so Andromeda is clearly farther away and not in our milky way
not even a century since weve known this
2.The majority of the Milky Ways mass is contained at radii beyond the Suns orbit. T-dark matter-evidence is through
rotation curve of velocity and radius ( KNOW THIS FOR ESSAY)
3. Our own Local Group is dwarfed by the much larger Virgo Cluster, which is about 17 Mpc (50 million light years)
away. T
4. The jets of particles from an active galaxy are ejected at near-light speeds from the nucleus and may stretch out over
millions of light years. T
5. The orientation at which we see an active galaxy matters; from a face-on view, we tend to see higher energy emission;
from an edge on view, we tend to see lower energy emission. T
6. While galaxy collisions have little impact on individual stars, this is not the case for the giant molecular clouds in
which new star formation is accelerated. T
7. Distant galaxies are more likely to be spirals than those nearby. T

FILL IN THE BLANK

1. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass equal to ______35______ of our suns.
2. Most globular clusters are located in the ____halo_____ region of the galaxy.
3. Because of interstellar gas and dust, astronomers primarily use ____radio____ emission to map out the structure of the
Milky Ways disk.

4. We can estimate the mass of spiral galaxies from their _rotation_ ______curve___.
5. ________cepheid variables_ __________ provide the distances to the nearest galaxies.
6. Lone or ____field__ galaxies are much less likely to become active than galaxies in clusters.
ESSAY
1. Why is light variability a critical issue in determining the sizes of active galactic nuclei?
---- obvious variability- active galaxis have extremely variable luminosity so measure minimum variability time
accretion disk with black hole in middle- the size of accretion disk look at radius R=v change in t- maximum seed
it can travel0 radius must be less than R<c change in t
2. How do we know dark matter exists? How do we know it is different from the matter of which we are composed?
What is the spatial geometry of dark matter surrounding galaxies? Why is it unable to condense into a disk like
regular matter?

Howdoweknow?
1)rotationcurvespirals
2)xrayhalosellipiticals
20:1ratio
(20xmoredark)
or6:1(darkvstotal)
3)fastermotionsofndividualgalaxiesclusters
Howisdifferent?
cannotreleaselightsoitstayspuffedoutinhugehalonormalmatterradiatesawayexcess
energyandbecomesmorecompactdarkmatterdoesnot
Spatialgeometry?Sphere
unabletocondenseintodisk?WHY?