02.2 Early Astronomy

Which of the following is NOT an argument for showing that the Earth must be round:

• during an eclipse of the Moon, the shadow of the Earth is always seen to be round

• when ships travel a large distance away, we see their hulls disappear first and their masts disappear last

• the height of the North Star changes as we travel to different latitudes

• photographs of the Earth from space always show a round body

• the Sun is seen blocking different constellations in the course of a year

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-1

Which ancient Greek thinker suggested (long before Copernicus) that the Earth is moving around the Sun?

• Aristotle

• Aristarchus

• Eratosthenes

• Hipparchus

• Zorba

How did Eratosthenes measure the size of the Earth?

• by walking about one-quarter of the way around its circumference

• by measuring the times of sunrise in each of the four seasons

• by determining the parallax of the Moon and finding the size of its orbit

• by measuring the height of the Sun in the sky on the same day in two cities at different latitudes

• by asking Aristotle who knew everything

Which of the following was NOT done by Hipparchus, the great ancient astronomer?

• compiled a pioneering catalog of the positions of hundreds of stars

• created the system of star magnitudes that we still use today

• discovered that the Earth has a motion called precession

• explained retrograde motion

• you can't fool me; Hipparchus did all of the above

When a planet temporarily moves westward in the sky over the course of several weeks or months (instead of eastward, as it typically does), we call it:

• precession

• ecliptic motion

• retrograde motion

• circumpolar motion

• rude

Which of the following is NOT a result of the Earth's precession?

• the Earth wobbles (like a spinning top) with a period of 26,000 years

• where the Earth's axis points in the sky changes over the centuries and millennia

• Polaris will no longer be the North Star in several thousand years

• the stars twinkle when seen from the surface of planet Earth

• the signs of the zodiac most astrologers use are no longer in accord with the constellations in which the Sun is currently found over the course of the year

The slow tipping of the Earth's axis in a circle with a period of about 26,000 years is called:

• precession

• ecliptic motion

• retrograde motion

• deferential motion

• revolution

Tags

NGSS.MS-PS2-4

The great astronomer of ancient times who summarized and improved a system of circles upon circles to explain the complicated motions of the planets (and published the system in a book now called The Almagest) is:

• Hipparchus

• Copernicus

• Ptolemy

• Pythagoras

• Alfonso the Wise

In Ptolemy's system the planets orbit the Earth and not the Sun. How did the system explain the retrograde motion of planets like Jupiter?

• the planets were not moving along the ecliptic but all over the celestial sphere

• the planets moved in very elongated ellipses, and their speed in orbit changed radically over the course of a year

• the Sun moved among the planets, and pulled them out of their circular orbits

• the planets moved on a small circle whose center, in turn, circled a point near the Earth

• you can't fool me, Ptolemy's system did not include ANY explanation of retrograde motion

Calculated the circumference of Earth.

• Summerians

• Aristarchus

• Eratosthenes

• Pythagoras