How many planets are there in the Solar System?
Less than 10
Describe a Terrestrial Planet
More like Earth than Jupiter
Describe a Jovian Planet
More like Jupiter than Earth
What is the difference between an asteroid and a comet?
Think of ice
What is the age of the Solar System?
In the billions of years
Define a planet
Wanderer that cleans its path
What is a planetesimal?
Planets are made from these
Which planet is farther from the Sun, Uranus or Neptune?
Go to Wikipedia
Use the conservation of Energy to explain why planetesimals move faster when gas, and particles, fall towards the center of the Solar System
Think of a coin dropped from a building
Why is the Solar System flat like a pizza?
Think of the other conservation law
If 
, what is the value of 
? Remember 
Use a calculator
State Kepler's Second Law
Go to wikipedia
What is perihelion?
Has to do with distance
What is aphelion?
Check which of these two is smaller
If a new planet is found with an aphelion twice as big as the perihelion, what is the velocity ratio between those points?
Use one of Kepler's Laws
State Kepler's First Law
Go to Wikipedia
Define an ellipse
Wikipedia
Which country was Tycho Brahe from?
Wikipedia
Who used Tycho Brahe's, data and found the laws of planetary motion?
Wikipedia
Who saw Jupiter's satellites with a telescope for the first time?
Think of the International Year of Astronomy
What does the universe look like from Earth?
Imagine and look up
Why do stars rise and set?
Think of the motion of the Earth
Why do the constellations we see depend on latitude and time of year?
Think of Earth's motion
What causes the seasons?
Think of Earth's axis of rotation
How does the orientation of Earth's axis change with time?
Think of a top
Why do we see phases of the Moon?
Think of a light bulb and two balls moving around
What causes eclipses?
Think of Copernicus
Why was planetary motion so hard to explain?
Think of parallax
Why did the ancient Greeks reject the real explanation for planetary motion?
Problems with distances to stars
When is the Winter Solstice in 2012?
Wikipedia
Which element is more abundant in the Universe?
Think of building objects from scratch, bottom up
Approximately how many stars are there in the Milky Way?
Think of a big number
Approximately how many galaxies are there in the Universe?
Around the same number
What is a comet?
Has to do with ice and place
What is an asteroid?
Check orbits in Wikipedia
What is a planet?
Think of Greek etymologies and Pluto
Which star does the Earth axis point to in the Northern hemisphere?
If you stay up all night, it doesn't move much
What is the Course ID in MasteringAstronomy?
Sorry, I haven't fixed this
What is a black hole?
Wikipedia
What is the value of the speed of light?
Give an exact number
What is light?
Think of the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell
What is the wavelength range of blue light?
Wikipedia
What is matter?
Keep it simple
How do light and matter interact?
There are three main ways
Which object produces more light, Jupiter or the Sun?
One is a star, the other is not
What is an extrasolar planet?
First one found in the middle 90s
Where was James Clerk Maxwell born?
Somewhere across the Atlantic
Where was Heinrich Hertz born?
Closer to Maxwell than to Chicago
Do we emit light?
Think of illegal border crossing
For the midterm ten of these questions, will be presented as multiple choice.
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