Exam 21: Origin of Modern Astronomy

The earliest astronomical records appear to have been made by the ancient Chinese,Egyptians,and Babylonians in order to ________.

The apparent path of the Sun upon the celestial sphere is called the ________.

When Earth is farthest from the Sun,its location is referred to as the ________ position.

The true shape of the planetary orbits was discovered by ________.

When the moon appears as a thin crescent in the evening sky,just after sunset,the lunar phase is ________.

Planets appear to move ________ each night,but occasionally they appear to stop and reverse direction.

The apparent shift in the position of a nearby star when viewed from extreme points in Earth's orbit six months apart is called ________.

Axial precession is sometimes called the precession of equinoxes because it results in a gradual shift,relative to the celestial background,of the position where the sun crosses the celestial equator at the equinox.Astrology is a mythology based on things like your "sign" which refers to the position of the sun in the celestial zodiac (the 12 constellations along the ecliptic)on your birthday.This system was established almost two thousand years ago.If this mythology were true (and you believe your horoscope)can you use the dates for your "sign" based on this 2000 year old system?

Using the telescope,Galileo discovered that the planet Mars had polar ice caps not unlike those on Earth.

Any variance in the orbit of a planet from its predicted path is referred to as ________.

The cycle of phases of the Moon is the basis for our month.

According to the Ptolemaic (Greek)model of the universe,how many "heavenly" bodies could be observed wandering along the background of stars?

One of the discoveries that led to the modern view of the solar system was that the orbits of the planets are not circular but ________.

The two primary motions of the Earth are ________ and ________.

The distance from Earth to the Sun is used to measure distances in the solar system and is called a light year.

If the earth were the center of the universe and the moon,planets,and sun all moved around the earth,logic would say that all of these celestial objects should move in the same direction across the sky,and relative to the celestial background.The sun and moon both follow this pattern,but the other planets have periods of retrograde motion.How did the Ptolemaic model explain retrograde motion and how is it more easily explained by the heliocentric model.

The period of time required for the Moon to complete a cycle of phases is called the ________ month.

Lunar eclipses last longer than solar eclipses.

The law of universal gravitation was formulated by ________.

This scientist wrote a book entitled Dialogue of the Great World Systems that compared the Earth-centered system with the Sun-centered system.