Exam 5: The Formation of Stars and Planets

You are driving on the freeway when a police officer records a shift of -7 nm when he hits you with a radar gun that operates at a wavelength of 0.1 m.How fast were you going?

How much mass was there in the protoplanetary disk out of which the planets formed compared to the mass of the Sun?

The Doppler shift can be used to determine the ________ of an object.

Explain why an ice-skater spins faster when she pulls her arms in compared to when her arms are stretched straight out.

What conservation law explains why the skater spins faster when her arms are pulled in?

Astronomers hypothesize that the "hot Jupiters" found orbiting other stars must have migrated inward over time by:

According to the conservation of angular momentum,if an ice-skater starts spinning with her arms out wide,then slowly pulls them close to her body,this will cause her to:

How much material in an accretion disk goes into forming the planets,moons,and smaller objects?

An observer outside our Solar System,who monitors the velocity of our Sun over time,will find that its velocity varies by ±12 m/s over a period of 12 years because of:

How do astronomers explain the basic difference in composition between the inner planets and the outer planets?

Approximately how massive are nearly all the extrasolar planets that have been discovered thus far,and how is this related to the way in which we detect them?

Explain how astronomers use the Doppler effect to detect the presence of extrasolar planets.

Briefly explain the five different observational methods we use to detect extrasolar planets.

The atmosphere of which of these planets is primary,as opposed to secondary,in origin?

What happens to the gravitational energy of gas as it falls toward and eventually hits the accretion disk surrounding a protostar?

Why might a newly discovered comet contain clues to the composition of the early solar nebula?

Why do the gas motions of an accretion disk move smaller particles more easily than larger particles?

Suppose you observe a star emitting a certain emission line of helium at 584.8 nm.The rest wavelength of this line is 587.6 nm.How fast is the star moving? Is it moving toward you or away from you?

Explain why an accretion disk forms around a protostar when an interstellar cloud collapses.

Comets and asteroids are: