Astronomy Exam 1 Questions With Explanations

Astronomy Exam 1 Questions With Explanations astronomical unit (AU) - ANS the average mean distance between the Earth and Sun speed of light - ANS 186,000 mi/sec light year - ANS 6,000,000,000,000 miles; the distance that lights travels in 1 year through a vacuum celestial sphere - ANS an imaginary sphere of large radius which the ancient's believed the whole heavens were plastered onto constellations - ANS in modern astronomy, 88 non-overlapping sky regions, covering the whole sky the rotation of Earth on its axis - ANS cause of the motion of the celestial sphere (the background of stars) from east to west on a daily, basis when viewed from Earth the Earth was the center of the universe - ANS in pre-Copernican astronomy, it was almost universally believed that wanderer - ANS the word "planet" is derived from a Greek word meaning Geocentric cosmology - ANS an Earth centered universe Ptolemy - ANS Greek astronomer who made Geocentrism the world standard through the Middle Ages Heliocentric Cosmology - ANS a sun-centered universe yes, on a summer night many of the constellations you can see are different from those you can see on a winter night, but there are some constellations you can see all year long - ANS Are constellations seasonal? solstice (winter and summer) - ANS Northern and southern most points of the path of the Sun on the ecliptic