People in Astronomy

On Mondays I’ve been holding an astronomy trivia contest.  Today, we focused on some astronomers.  Here are my questions.  See how many you can answer correctly before you look at the answers at the bottom of the page.

Screen Shot 2018-01-22 at 9.46.29 AM
All images today are from Wikipedia

People in Astronomy

Periscope Trivia Questions January 22, 2018

  1. Who was the first astronomer to determine that the orbits of planets were not circular, but elliptical?

  2. Who first described the principle of inertia?

  3. Who came up with the basis for the principle F = ma?

  4. Who came up with the idea that, for light, the hotter an object is, the shorter the wavelength of its peak emission?

  5. Who developed the idea that the energy emitted by a star is proportional to the temperature?

  6. It was discovered that if a satellite gets close enough to a planet Screen Shot 2018-01-22 at 9.47.49 AM(2.46 times the radius of that planet) tidal forces will tear the satellite apart. Name the French mathematician who did the math.

  7. Who first realized that the gap in the asteroid belt at 3.28 AU was where an asteroid would make two orbits of the Sun while Jupiter would make one orbit? (orbital resonance)

  8. Screen Shot 2018-01-22 at 9.49.05 AMWho discovered the historic period (1650-1700) with little solar activity?

  9. Who re-arranged the Harvard stellar classification system to order stars from hottest to coolest? (OBAFGKM)

  10. Name the American astronomer who graphed the relationship between Absolute Magnitude (flux) of stars and the temperature (spectral class).

Question/Answer/WinnerScreen Shot 2018-01-22 at 9.49.51 AM

  1. Kepler….speear40

  2. Galileo …..Hey_It’s_Christy

  3. Newton…balsawood

  4. Wien…… one got this one correct

  5. Stefan …….. tie: balsawood and Hey_It’s_Christy

  6. Roche…… no one got this one correct

  7. Kirkwood…….mikeK43

  8. Maunder…….speear40

  9. Annie Jump Cannon…….. Hey_It’s_Christy

  10. Russell…… balsawood

Totals: 3 correct: Hey_It’s_Christy and balsawood

            2 correct: speear40

            1 correct: mikeH43

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