Exam 4: Origins of Modern Astronomy

Eratosthenes used simple geometry to determine the distance between Alexandria to Syene so that he could calculate Earth's_______________.

Explain the differences between a hypothesis, theory, and a natural law.

The 99 years that revolutionized Astronomy ended with whose death?

Kepler's third law of planetary motion states, "A planet's _____ squared is proportional to its average distance from the Sun cubed."

Why did Copernicus hesitate to consider alternatives to the Ptolemaic Universe?

Kepler's second law of planetary motion states "A line from a planet to the Sun sweeps over equal areas in equal intervals of ____."

A well-known structure located in Britain and investigated by archeoastronomist is called _______________.

What were the three discoveries Galileo made with his telescope observations and quickly published into Sidereus Nuncius ?

Explain the geometry of an ellipse, which Kepler used to describe a planet's orbits.

Most Greek philosophers believed in a geocentric Universe.

Greek philosophers used religion and astrology to understand the mysteries of the Universe.

Kepler discovered that planets do not move at uniform speeds along their elliptical orbits.

Though their contributions to astronomy were different, Galileo and Copernicus were astronomers during the same time period.

Ancient astronomers often had difficulty explaining _____, the occasional westward motion of the planets.

Which statement best describes a theory?

Which book was authored by Copernicus that explained the Sun as the center of a planetary system?

In Kepler's model of the Universe, what was the purpose of the five regular solids?

A circle is an ellipse with an eccentricity of ____.

_______________'s laws have been used for almost four centuries as a true description of orbital motion.

Early astronomers believed that Earth did not move because they saw no ____, the apparent motion of an object because of the motion of the observer.