Foundations of Astronomy (MindTap Course List)
14th Edition
ISBN: 9781337399920
Author: Michael A. Seeds, Dana Backman
Publisher: Cengage Learning
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Chapter 1, Problem 4SOP
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Thinking about the Scale of the Solar System As we discussed, the radius of the Earth is approximately 6370 km. The Sun, on the other hand, is approximately 700,000 km in radius and located, on average, one astronomical unit (1 au=1.5x108 km) from the Earth. Imagine that you stand near Mansueto Library, at the corner of 57th and Ellis. You hold a standard desk globe, which has a diameter of 12 inches, and you want to build a model of the Sun, Earth, and their separation that keeps all sizes and lengths in proportion to one another. a) How big would the Sun be in this scale model? Give your answer in feet and meters. b) The nearest star to the Solar System outside of the Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is approximately 4.2 light years away (a light year is the distance light travels in one year, or approximately 9.5x1012 km). Given the scale model outlined above, how far would a model Proxima Centauri be placed from you? Give your answer in miles and km.
The diameter of the Sun is 865,380 miles across while Saturn's diameter is 72,368 miles across. The Sun is _____times bigger than Saturn (give whole number as your answer!). If we could shrink Saturn down to a size of a cherry (diameter is 1 inch across), then Sun would be as big as ______. Use one of the following objects as your answer.
Watermelon (average size is 12 inches across)
Basketball (average size is 9.5 inches across)
Average Halloween pumpkin (average size is 15 inches across)
Pumpkin at the Puyallup fair (average size is 40 inches across)
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Chapter 1 Solutions
Foundations of Astronomy (MindTap Course List)
Ch. 1 - Prob. 1RQCh. 1 - What is the largest dimension of which you have...Ch. 1 - What is the difference between the Solar System,...Ch. 1 - What is the difference between the Moon and a...Ch. 1 - Why do astronomers now label Pluto a dwarf planet?Ch. 1 - Why are light-years more convenient than miles,...Ch. 1 - Why is it difficult to detect planets orbiting...Ch. 1 - Prob. 8RQCh. 1 - What is the difference between the Milky Way and...Ch. 1 - What are the Milky Way Galaxys spiral arms?
Ch. 1 - Prob. 11RQCh. 1 - Where are you in the Universe? If you had to give...Ch. 1 - Prob. 13RQCh. 1 - Prob. 14RQCh. 1 - Prob. 15RQCh. 1 - How do we know? How does the scientific method...Ch. 1 - The equatorial diameter of Earth is 7928 miles. If...Ch. 1 - The equatorial diameter of the Moon is 3476...Ch. 1 - One astronomical unit (AU) is about 1.5 108 km....Ch. 1 - A typical galaxy is shown on the first page of the...Ch. 1 - The time of the Cambrian explosion is listed on...Ch. 1 - Venus orbits 0.72 AU from the Sun. What is that...Ch. 1 - Light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach Earth....Ch. 1 - The Sun is almost 400 times farther from Earth...Ch. 1 - If the speed of light is 3.0 105 km/s, how many...Ch. 1 - Prob. 10PCh. 1 - How long does it take light to cross the diameter...Ch. 1 - The nearest galaxy to our home galaxy is about 2.5...Ch. 1 - How many galaxies like our own would it take if...Ch. 1 - Arrange the following in order of increasing size:...Ch. 1 - Prob. 2SOPCh. 1 - The Sun is roughly 100 times the diameter of...Ch. 1 - Prob. 4SOPCh. 1 - Look at the center of Figure 14. Approximately...Ch. 1 - Look at Figure 1-6. How can you tell that Mercury...Ch. 1 - Prob. 3LTLCh. 1 - Look at Figure 1-9. Would you say that the...Ch. 1 - Of the objects listed here, which would be...Ch. 1 - Prob. 6LTL
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- Use Kepler's 3rd Law and the small angle approximation. a) An object is located in the solar system at a distance from the Sun equal to 41 AU's . What is the objects orbital period? b) An object seen in a telescope has an angular diameter equivalent to 41 (in units of arc seconds). What is its linear diameter if the object is 250 million km from you? Draw a labeled diagram of this situation.arrow_forwardRaising a number in scientific notation to a power is easy: (5 x 105)² = (5)² x (105)² = 5 x 5 x 105 x 105 = 25 x 10(5 × 2) = 25 x 1010 = 2.5 x 101¹1 Keeping this in mind, what is the volume of the sun in km³? The radius of the sun is about 7 x 105 km, and the volume of a sphere is 4/3 x Pi x R³. (Use 3.14 for Pi, and enter your answer with two decimal places). km³ 3 What is the average density of the Sun? Density = mass / volume. The mass of the sun is 2.0x10³0 kg. kg/km³arrow_forwardOur solar system is approximately 10 billion km across. This diameter can be also be expressed as: 10 x 10⁹ km 1010 km 1013 m All of the above. Both a and b are correctarrow_forward
- Read this main idea: The sun is the center of our solar system. Choose three details that go with the main idea. The sun's gravity holds the planets in place. It provides them with heat and light. The largest stars, called supergiants, are 1,500 times bigger than our sun. It takes Earth 365 days to orbit the sun. Jupiter takes 12 years! Our sun is not the largest or hottest star. It is a medium sized yellow star. Radio telescopes use radio waves to show stars in great detail. Astronomers long ago and today use star charts to map star locations. All of the planets in our solar system revolve around one star-our sun. Stars can be blue, white, yellow, or red. Blue stars are the hottest. A reflector telescope bounces star light through mirrors.arrow_forwardPart 3 1. The diameter of the Sun is 1,391,400 km. The diameter of the Moon is 3,474.8 km. Find the ratio, r= Dsa/Dsvan between the sizes. 2. From the point of view of an obs erver on Eanth (consider the Earth as a point-like object), during the eclipse, the Moon covers the Sun exactly. Sketch a picture to illustrate this fact. Use a nuler to get a straight line. Your drawing does not need to be in scale. 3. The Sun is 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) away from the Earth. Find the distance between the Earth and the Moon in AU's using the ratio of similar triangles. Show your work. DEM= AU. Convert this to kilometers. Use 1 AU = 149,600,000 km. DEM = km.arrow_forwardAt present there are 8 planets in the solar system. In the early models, there were only 6 planets. What is the reason behind this? Describe a model of the modern solar system in terms of the number of planets, their arrangement and the model’s center.arrow_forward
- As we discuss in class, the radius of the Earth is approximately 6370 km. Theradius of the Sun, on the other hand, is approximately 700,000 km. The Sun is located,on average, one astronomical unit (1 au) from the Earth. Imagine that you stand near Mansueto Library, at the corner of 57th and Ellis.Mansueto’s dome is 35 feet (10.7 meters) high. Let’s imagine we put a model of theSun inside the dome, such that it just fits — that is, the model Sun’s diameter is 35 feet The nearest star to the Solar System outside of the Sun is Proxima Centauri,which is approximately 4.2 light years away. Given the scale model outlined above,how far would a model Proxima Centauri be placed from you? Give your answer inmiles and kmarrow_forwardSuppose you were given a 3 in diameter ball to represent the Earth and a 1 in diameter ball to represent the Moon. (The actual ratio of Earth diameter to Moon diameter is 3.7 to 1.) The actual average Earth–Moon distance is about 384,000 kilometers, and Earth’s diameter is about 12,800 kilometers. How many “Earth diameters” is the distance from Earth to the Moon? Based on your answer to Question 2, what is the correct scaled distance of the Moon, using the 3-inch ball as Earth? The Sun’s actual diameter is about 1,400,000 kilometers. How many “Earth diameters” is this? Given your 3-inch Earth, how large (i.e what diameter) of a ball would you need to represent the Sun? Give your answer in feet. The average Earth–Sun distance is about 149,600,000 km. To represent this distance to scale, how far away would you have to place your 3-inch Earth from your Sun? Give your answer in feet. Could we use this scale to visualize the solar system instead of just the Earth and Moon? Why or Why…arrow_forwardYou are making a scale model to visualize the relative sizes of the planets in our solar system. The scale of the model is: 1 cm = 2000 km. The radius of Saturn is 60,000 km. At what radius will Saturn appear on your scale model?arrow_forward
- White Dwarf Size II. The white dwarf, Sirius B, contains 0.98 solar mass, and its density is about 2 x 106 g/cm?. Find the radius of the white dwarf in km to three significant digits. (Hint: Density = mass/volume, and the volume of a 4 sphere is Tr.) 3 km Compare your answer with the radii of the planets listed in the Table A-10. Which planet is this white dwarf is closely equal to in size? I Table A-10 I Properties of the Planets ORBITAL PROPERTIES Semimajor Axis (a) Orbital Period (P) Average Orbital Velocity (km/s) Orbital Inclination Planet (AU) (106 km) (v) (days) Eccentricity to Ecliptic Mercury 0.387 57.9 0.241 88.0 47.9 0.206 7.0° Venus 0.723 108 0.615 224.7 35.0 0.007 3.4° Earth 1.00 150 1.00 365.3 29.8 0.017 Mars 1.52 228 1.88 687.0 24.1 0.093 1.8° Jupiter 5.20 779 11.9 4332 13.1 0.049 1.30 Saturn 9.58 1433 29.5 10,759 9.7 0.056 2.5° 30,799 60,190 Uranus 19.23 2877 84.3 6.8 0.044 0.8° Neptune * By definition. 30.10 4503 164.8 5.4 0.011 1.8° PHYSICAL PROPERTIES (Earth = e)…arrow_forwardany scale model for solar system the sun is represented by an object that is 4.5 feet in the diameter how large would a scale earth need to be in feet in this modelarrow_forwardThe International Space Station is about 90 meters across and about 380 kilometers away. One night it appears to be the same angular size as Jupiter. Jupiter is 143,000 km in size. Use S = r x a to figure out how far away Jupiter is in AU. Note 1 AU = 1.5 x 108 kmarrow_forward
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