Distances

Which ancient civilization concluded that the Earth was round by observing sailing ships?

• ancient Romans
• ancient Greeks
• ancient Egyptians
• ancient Persians

Which philosopher calculated the size of the Earth using shadows, angles and wells?

• Aristotle
• Pythagoras
• Eratosthenes
• Socrates

You can see the curve of the Earth’s edge as the shadow moves across the Moon during ___

• a lunar eclipse
• a solar eclipse
• the Moon's cycle of phases
• a new moon

In the 17th century, which two scientists laid the mathematical groundwork of planetary orbits?

• Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei
• Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke
• Galileo Galilei and Robert Hooke
• Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton

The distance from the Earth to the Sun is given the name ___

• the basic astronomical distance, or BAD
• the Sun-Earth distance, or SED
• the astronomical unit, or AU
• the light-year, or LY

The passage of a planet across the disk of the Sun is called ___

• a conveyance
• a transit
• osmosis
• a permeation

When using transits to calculate the Earth-Sun distance, why are results not highly accurate?

• our atmosphere blurs the images
• the timing devices aren't accurate enough
• telescopes aren't powerful enough
• the events occur too rarely

In the 1960s, to calculate the AU, radio telescopes were used to bounce radar pulses off of ___

• the Sun
• Venus
• Mercury
• Jupiter

Our ability to determine distances between objects and see the world in three dimensions is called ___

• depth perception
• 3D cognition
• triangulation
• perspicacity

The shift in position of an object, viewed along two different lines of sight, is called ___

• paralyses
• triangulation
• parallax
• perspicacity