General Astronomy

Homework 04 (2021.03.29)
01. During the period of most intense bombardment by space debris, a new 1-km-
radius crater formed somewhere on the Moon about once per century. During this
same period, what was the probability that such a crater would be created within 1
km of a certain location on the Moon during a 100-year period? During a 106 -year
period? (Hint: If you drop a coin onto a checkerboard, the probability that the coin
will land on any particular one of the board’s 64 squares is 1/64.)
02. Because of the presence of Jupiter, the Sun moves in a small orbit of radius
742,000 km with a period of 11.86 years. (a) Calculate the Sun’s orbital speed
in meters per second. (b) An astronomer on a hypothetical planet orbiting the
star Vega, 25 ly from the Sun, wants to use the astrometric method to search for
planets orbiting the Sun. What would be the angular diameter of the Sun’s orbit as
seen by this alien astronomer? Would the Sun’s motion be discernible if the alien
astronomer could measure position to an accuracy of 0.001 arcsec? (c) Repeat part
(b), but now let the astronomer be located on a hypothetical planet in the Pleiades
star cluster, 360 ly form the Sun. Would the Sun’s motion be discernible to this
astronomer?
03. (a) The star 2M1207 is 170 light-years from Earth. Find the angular distance
between this star and its planet (the distance is about 55 au in between) as seen
from Earth. Express your answer in arcseconds. (b) The mass of 2M1207 is 0.025
that of the Sun; the mass of the planet is very much smaller. Calculate the orbital
period of the planet, assuming that the distance between the star and planet is
the semimajor axis of the orbit. Is it possible that an astronomer could observe a
complete orbit in one lifetime?
04. The total power in sunlight that reaches the top of our atmosphere is 1.75×1017
W. (a) How many watts of power are reflected back into space due to Earth’s
albedo (=0.31: the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by
a surface)? (b) If Earth had no atmosphere, all of the solar power that was not
reflected would be absorbed by Earth’s surface. In equilibrium, the heated surface
would act as a blackbody that radiates as much power as it absorbs from the Sun.
How much power would the entire Earth radiate? (c) How much power would one
square meter of the surface radiate? (d) What would be the average temperature of
the surface? Give your answer in both the Kelvin and Celsius scales. (e) Why is
Earth’s actual average temperature higher than the value you calculated in (d)?
05. Most auroral displays have a green dominated by emission from oxygen atoms at
a wavelength of 557.7 nm. What minimum energy must be imparted to an oxygen
atom to make it emit this wavelength?