Vocabulary Words:

Heliocentric = SUN CENTERED

Geocentric = EARTH CENTERED

Perihelion = CLOSEST POINT TO THE SUN IN AN ORBIT

Aphelion = FARTHEST POINT FROM THE SUN IN AN ORBIT

Orbital Period = THE TIME IT TAKES TO MAKE ONE

ORBIT/REVOLUTION AROUND THE SUN

Meteor = A BRIGHT STREAK OF LIGHT IN THE SKY CAUSED BY

THE ENTRY INTO EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE OF AN OBJECT

Meteoroid = OBJECT OUT IN SPACE

Meteorite = ANY PART OF A METEOROID THAT MAKES IT TO

EARTH’S SURFACE

Nano = A BILLIONTH, DWARF IN GREEK

1. Which Astronomer supposedly died of a ruptured bladder? TYCHO

BRAHE

2. Copernicus tried to explain __RETROGRADE __ motion with his model of the Universe.

3. The Galilean Satelites (or moons) belong to which planet? JUPITER

4. Know and be able to write out Kepler’s 3 laws of planetary motion…

5. Be able to draw Copernicus’ model of the Universe and Ptolmey’s model of the Universe

6. Study your history of Astonomy

Know descriptions for the following important people in the History of Astronomy: The great pyramids
of Giza, StoneHenge, Aztecs, Mesopatamians, Aristotle, Erastosthenes, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho
Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein

7. What is eccentricity? The orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a parameter that determines
the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is a
circular orbit, values between 0 and 1 form an elliptical orbit, and 1 is a parabolic escape orbit. What is
the eccentricity of a circle? e = 0

8. What did Galileo discover with his telescope? PHASES OF VENUS,

4 LARGEST MOONS OF JUPITER (GALILEAN SATELITES),

“SEAS” ON THE MOON

9. What is the orbital period of Halley’s Comet? 76 YEARS

10. What is the HST? HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

11. What technology is used to see nanosized particles? ELECTRON

SCANNING MICROSCOPE AND ATOMIC FORCE

MICROSCOPE

12. What are carbon nanotubes? BONDED CARBON THE IS 200

TIMES STRONGER THAN STEEL, ~1000 TIMES THINNER

THAN THE WIDTH OF AN AVERAGE PIECE OF HAIR, AND

LIGHT WEIGHT

13. Did Galileo invent the telescope? NO BUT HE REWORKED A

CARNIVAL TOY AND WAS THE FIRST TO LOOK AT THE

SKY WITH THAT TYPE OF TECHNOLOGY

14. Aristarchus was the first philosopher/scientist to put the Sun in the center of the universe way
before Copernicus but was not taken seriously.

15. Who was Plato’s student? ARISTOTLE

16. What did Ptolemy do to his model to try and make it work? ADDED

EPICYCLES

27. Who believed in the geocentric theory (list all)? PLATO,

ARISTOTLE, PTOLEMY

18. Who believed in the heliocentric theory (list all)? COPERNICUS, KEPLER, NEWTON