PY 101 STARS AND GALAXIES

Practice Test 1 (CHAPTERS 19-20)

1. What is one difference between Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars?
a) Cepheids are brighter and have longer pulsation periods
b) Cepheids all have the same brightness, while RR Lyrae vary
c) Cepheids vary because they are mass transfer binaries but RR Lyrae vary because they are pulsating, single stars
d) Cepheids are brighter but have shorter pulsation periods
2. On what yardsticks did Shapley rely to find the distance to globular clusters?
a) Cepheids
b) eclipsing binaries
c) RR Lyrae
d) Type Ia supernovae
3. What observation of the galaxy best reveals that it is embedded in a huge halo of unseen matter
a) tidal streams
b) the rotation curve
c) motions of globular clusters
d) the shapes of the spiral arms
4. Which relation can be used to deduce the luminosity of a spiral galaxy from the maximum rotation speed of its gas,
dust, and stars?
a) H-R diagram
b) Hubbles Law- things get faster farther away
c) the Tully-Fisher Relation
d) Hubbles Tuning Fork Diagram
5. Why is the energy source of Seyfert (and other active) galaxies thought to be extremely compact?
a) Their nuclei look like point sources when we view them through our telescopes.
b) Their energy is totally non-stellar in origin.
c) Seyferts lack dust, so it is easy to see that their nuclei are compact.
d) Their emission varies rapidly.- black hole
6.Which of the following is NOT typical of an active galactic nucleus.
a) very high luminosities, peaking in the visible part of the spectrum
b) largely non-stellar emission, i.e., unrelated to nuclear fusion
c) bipolar jets of matter and radiation
d) highly variable energy output
7. Like the Virgo Supercluster, rich clusters of galaxies may contain many _________ of galaxies.
a) hundreds
b) thousands
c) tens of thousands
d) millions
8. Quasars emit an enormous amount of energy from a region the size of
a) the Earth
b) the Sun
c) the whole solar system
d) the whole galactic bulge
9. Why are supermassive galaxies often found at the cores of rich galaxy clusters?
a) Most of the matter forming the cluster fell into one large galaxy.
b) They are the result of many mergers.

c) The large galaxy was there from the beginning and attracted a lot of smaller ones around itself to form the cluster in
the first place.
d) Large galaxies passing through a cluster are often captured.
10. Astronomers have known that there are distant galaxies that are distinct from our own Milky Way for about the last
a) 50 years
b) 100 years 1920- Andromeda founded
c) 200 years
d) 300 years
11. Both nearby and far away elliptical galaxies look red because:
a) they are moving away from us.
b) the ionized hydrogen in them glows red.
c) they contain mostly old stars.-----------------more mergers
d) they contain lots of dust.
12. To find the mass of a black, you need to know
a) the velocity of a star orbiting it
b) the luminosity of an orbiting object
c) the distance to the black hole
d) all of the above.
e) a) and c) only

keplers law

TRUE/FALSE
1.Shapley found that the Sun is located about halfway out from the center of the Milky Way disk. T 25,000 ly or 8 kpc
2.Spiral density waves are the favored theory for explaining the abundance and persistence of spiral arms in galaxies. T
3. Most galaxies are members of some sort of cluster. T- field galaxies are rare exceptions
4. The expansion of the Universe indicates that the Milky Way is receding from other members of the Local Group. F
5. A large cluster may be 10,000 times more massive than our galaxy. T- coma-has 10,000
6. It is likely that every massive galaxy went through a quasar-like stage during its early evolution. T lots of blackholesmassive growth in center
7. As structures formed in the universe, large clusters formed first and then fragmented into the smaller galaxies they
contain. F
FILL IN THE BLANK
1. The disk of the galaxy is about 100 times wider than it is thick. (1 lyr thick)
2. Most globular clusters are located in the stellar halo

region of the galaxy.

3. The major problem facing optical astronomers when they try to map out the Milky Way is the obscuration caused by all
the interstellar dust in the Milky Way disk.
4. Hubble used CEPHEID variable stars to the show the distance to ANDROMEDA was 2MIL light years. This
demonstrated that it was (inside, outside) the Milky Way. (Fill in the blanks and circle inside or outside).
5. Collisions between galaxies can turn spirals into ELLIPTICALS.

6. The astronomer, _LEVIT_ , determined a linear relationship between the pulsation period and luminosity of
_CEPHEIDS that was critical for the interpretation of Hubbles later studies.
ESSAY
1. Review evidence for the hypothesis that galaxies grow through mergers.
*direct evidence you can see them- one happening in milky way (saggitarious)
*stellar pop in ellipticals are older ( more star formations)
*hubble deep field- further they are the smaller and bluer (higher merger rate)
2. Describe the galactic bulge: what is the shape?; what kinds of stars are there and what are their ages?; what else
does it contain?
Football- mix of young and old yellowish
contains supermassive black hole 3.5 mil
The bulk of the metal-rich stellar population of the Galactic bulge is old, with an age of
t = 102.5 Gyr (Ortolani et al. 1995, Zoccali et al. 2003)
3. Explain two of the basic differences between normal and active galaxies.
*Normal galaxy's energy is emitted in or near the visible potion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
*The radiation from active galaxies does not peak
*Active galaxies do not emit

They differ from Seyferts not only in the wavelengths at which they radiate, but also in both the appearance and
the extent of their emitting regions.