Exam 4: Earth, Moon, and Sky

If you want to locate someone precisely on the surface of the Earth, you specify her exact latitude and longitude. If you want to locate a star precisely on the sky, you need to specify its exact:

During the period we have daylight savings time, we

The Earth is closest to the Sun in which month of the year?

Which of the following statements about eclipses of the Sun is true?

How does the Sun influence the tides that we experience on Earth?

What phase of the Moon must it be to have a lunar eclipse?

Recently, the media, always trying to make things sound sensational, have started to call totally eclipsed moon "the blood moon." Why does the Moon look reddish to us when there is a total lunar eclipse?

The latitude of the Earth's equator is

A very rich, very shady international banker (with residences all over the globe, including Bayonne, New Jersey) mysteriously disappears. Someone later mails a wide-angle photo of his body to a London newspaper, taken on June 22, showing the Sun exactly overhead at noon. What can the police deduce from this photograph about where on Earth the body is located?

Why was the problem of devising a workable yearly calendar so difficult on Earth?

Some college students decide to form a secret society that would meet each year after graduation at a time when the day and night were the same length. Which of the following would be a time they could meet?

Why is there a 4-minute difference between the solar day and the sidereal day?

When the Sun and Moon are lined up and pull together, the tides they raise are called:

When England and the American colonies finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, what dramatic change had to be made?

If you could somehow return to the Earth in many millions of years, which of the following will be different?

The terms "a.m." and "p.m." (as in see you at the movies at 8:30 p.m.) derive from what astronomical idea?

A "New Age" bride and groom, who are enchanted by the Sun, want to get married on the day when it gets to be highest in the sky. If they live in the United States, around what day of the year will the wedding take place?

A friend of yours (who has not had the benefit of an astronomy course) tells you about a report he has read in a tabloid newspaper. They claim that on the dark side of the Moon, which is never in sunlight, there is a secret base of aliens who cannot stand light, and who send UFO's to Earth under the cover of darkness. Ignoring the UFO claim for a moment, what is the scientific error in this story?

The period of the moon's rotation on its axis is

The "prime meridian" (where longitude equals zero) passes through: