Exam 2: The Copernican Revolution: The Birth of Modern Science

Newton's Law of Gravity would explain why Saturn, so far from the Sun, moves so slowlyacross the sky.

As originally stated, the Copernican model did no better job of predicting planetary behaviorthan did the Ptolemaic one.

According to Newton's second law, when the same force acts on two bodies, the body with thelarger mass will have the ________ acceleration.

Which of these was NOT a part of the original Copernican model?

The Law of Universal Gravitation was developed by:

Galileo's observations of the entire phase cycle of Venus proved that Ptolemy's epicyclescould not be correct in keeping Venus between us and the Sun.

Kepler based his theories on the precise planetary observations of Tycho Brahe.

A circular orbit would have an eccentricity of:

How can astronomers determine the mass of the Sun?

While both Ptolemy and Copernicus assumed all orbits were ________, Kepler's first lawcorrected this and made planetary motion predictable.

If the mass of a body were doubled, its gravity would become 4 times stronger.

Islamic scholars helped preserve the astronomy of Ancient Greece during Europe's Dark Ages.

If an asteroid has an orbital period of 8 years, what is its average distance from the Sun,measured in astronomical units (A.U.)? Explain.

Explain how Kepler's laws allow us to use the motion of an asteroid to find its averagedistance from the Sun.

Which of these observations of Galileo refuted Ptolemy's epicycles?

Today we rely largely on what technique to precisely measure distances in the solar system?

The orbits of most of the planets in our solar system have eccentricities close to zero.

How does Kepler's First Law refine the Copernican model greatly?

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the rare transits of ________ were critical indetermining the astronomical unit's length.

According to Copernicus, the retrograde motion for Mars must occur: