What is the approximate diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy in light-years?

• 10
• 100
• 1,000
• 100,000
• 1,000,000

The Sun lies _______ the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy.

• at the center of
• about half of the way out in
• about one-tenth of the way out in
• in the halo above

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-2

Astronomers measured the location of the Sun in the Milky Way Galaxy by _______

• counting the number of stars.
• plotting the position of globular star clusters.
• plotting distribution of water molecules.
• plotting the position of O and B stars.

The Solar System is located about ___ from the center of the Milky Way.

• 8 kiloparsecs
• 8 light-years
• 8 AU
• 8 parsecs

The estimated age of the Milky Way Galaxy is about ___________.

• 20 billion years
• 100,000 years
• 13 billion years
• 4.6 billion years

The average distance between stars in the neighborhood of the Solar System is about ___________.

• 4 AU
• 4 light-years
• 4 kiloparsecs
• 4 arc seconds

Sir William Herschel counted the number of stars in different directions, and getting similar numbers in each direction along the disk, concluded the Sun was near the center of a disk like collection of stars. Herschel came to the wrong conclusion about the Sun's location because _______

• He was predisposed to believe the Sun was in the center of the Milky Way, and ignored data which disagreed with that conclusion.
• He did not know that interstellar dust made it hard for him to see a large part of the Milky Way's disk.
• He only counted globular clusters, and not regular stars.
• The Sun's position in the Milky Way at that particular time was very unusual and skewed his results.

The Milky Way is tilted on the sky because

• its appearance depends entirely on where you are on Earth.
• the Solar System is tilted compared to the disk of the Galaxy.
• the Sun's gravity deflects incoming starlight.
• the disk of the Galaxy is warped.

What does the Milky Way look like on the night sky?

• a spiral-shaped region of nebulosity
• a pale band of light scattered with stars that stretches across the sky
• a uniform scattering of stars throughout the sky
• The Milky Way is not visible from Earth without a telescope.

Roughly how far across is the Milky Way?

• 25 light-years
• 25,000 light-years
• 100,000 light-years
• 10 million light-years