Julia Lienke September 8, 2008 1) The Earth is 15,000 kilometers.

The sun is 100 times larger in diameter and is 1,500,000 kilometers. The milky way galaxy is 1000 quadrillion kilometers or 100,000 light-years. A typical galaxy cluster is about 1,000,000 light-years. 2) The universe is the totality of all space, time, matter, and energy. 3) A light-year is roughly six trillion miles or about 10 trillion kilometers. 4) The scientific method is an approach to investigation, combining critical thinking, theory, and experiment. Theories can be discarded at any time if a new observation suggests the theory to be false. Science differs from religion in that science is testable and religion is not, religion relies on faith without needing any tangible evidence. 5) A constellation is a group of stars in a certain pattern. Its useful for mapping the sky because it can be identifiable and thereby they become reference points. 6) The sun does not come up in the east. The sun is stationary and the earth spins on its axis to the east revealing the sun at dawn. The moon does technically move from east to west. Because of Earths rotation, stars rise in the east just like the sun does. 7) A sidereal day is Earths true rotation period meaning the time taken for our planet to return to the same orientation in space relative to the stars. A solar day is the time from one noon to the next. There is a difference in length between the two which can be explained by how the Earth revolves around the Sun at the same time as it rotates on its axis. 8) Nineteen times. 9) As the earth orbits the sun the nighttime sky is a view of a different section of the universe. 10) We experience seasons because Earths rotation axis is inclined to the ecliptic plane. The earth tilts on its axis as it makes one orbit around the sun causing for the northern hemisphere to be closer to the sun for half of the year and the southern hemisphere to be closer to the sun during the other half of the year. 11) Precession is the slow wobble of Earths axis due to the influence of the Moon. It is caused by torques (twisting forces) on Earth due to the gravitational pulls of the Moon and the Sun, which affect our planet in much the same way as the torque due to Earths own gravity affects a top. 12) Standard time zones are necessary so a certain area of the earth will be on an agreed upon time together. The leap year is necessary to account for ____

13) We see different phases of the moon because part of it is obscured by varying amounts of the earths shadow. 14) A lunar eclipse is when the earth blocks the light of the sun from hitting the moon. A solar eclipse is when the light of the sun is blocked by the moon. 15) The Moons orbit is slightly inclined to the ecliptic, so the chance that a full Moon will occur just as the Moon happens to cross the plane of the ecliptic is quite low. We dont have a solar eclipse each month because Moon's orbit around Earth is tilted 5 degrees to Earth's orbit around the Sun. As a result, the Moon's shadow usually misses Earth as it passes above or below our planet at New Moon. 16) If they have moons they might. If they dont have moons they wont have eclipses. 17) Parallax is the apparent motion of a foreground object relative to a distant background as the observers position changes. ____ 18) The baseline needs to be long because narrow triangles make it more difficult to measure the angles at point A and B with sufficient accuracy. 19) The baseline and the parallax. 20) No because theres not much difference since the stars are so far away.