Science Mid-Term Review

Multiple Choice: Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

Earth’s rotation takes about 24 hours.

Day and night are caused by Earth’s rotation on its axis.

One complete revolution of Earth around the sun takes about one year.

Earth has seasons because its axis is tilted as it moves around the sun.

When the north end of Earth’s axis is tilted toward the sun, North America will experience more direct rays and longer days.

The phase of the moon you see depends on how much of the sunlit side of the moon faces Earth.

From new moon phase to full moon phase, you see an increasing amount of the lighted side of the moon.

For a solar eclipse to occur, the moon must be directly between Earth and the sun.

During a full moon, a lunar eclipse can occur.      

Tides are caused mainly by differences in how much the moon pulls on different parts of Earth.

Maria on the moon’s surface were formed by ancient lava flows.

Galileo saw that much of the moon’s surface is covered with round pits called craters.

The moon is about one-fourth the diameter of Earth.

Scientists think the moon was formed when large object struck Earth, and ejected material from the collision combined.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs when the sun is farthest south.

An equinox occurs when neither end of Earth’s axis is tilted toward or away from the sun.

Because the moon rotates once for each revolution around Earth, you never see the far side of the moon from Earth.

The amount of the lighted side of the moon you can see is the same during first quarter and third quarter phase.

You are less likely to see a total solar eclipse than a total lunar eclipse because the moon’s umbra only covers a small area on Earth’s surface.

The two factors that combine to keep Earth and the moon in their orbits are gravity and inertia.

The tendency of a moving object to continue moving in a straight line or a stationary object to remain in place is called inertia.

All objects are attracted to each other by the force of gravity.

The strength of the force of gravity depends on the masses of the objects and the distance between them.

The different shapes of the moon seen from Earth are called phases.

The temperature of the moon’s surface varies greatly from day to night because the moon has no atmosphere.

A total solar eclipse is visible from only within the moon’s umbra.

During a total lunar eclipse the moon is in Earth’s umbra.

Water me be found near the poles on the moon.

Satellites in geosynchronous orbit stay above the same point on Earth.

A large artificial satellite on which people can live and work for long periods is called a space station.

Much of what scientists know about the moon has come from studying moon rocks gathered by astronauts.

Data collected from moonquakes shows that the center of the moon may be molten.

One of the main uses of satellites is observing Earth’s surface.

Rockets move forward because gas is propelled out of the back of the rocket.

Rocket technology originated in China.

The reaction force that propels a rocket forward is called thrust.

The main advantage of multistage rockets is that the total weight of the rocket is reduced as the rocket rises.

The space race was between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The first human in space was Yuri Gagarin.

The American program to land people on the moon was called Apollo.

The space shuttle can be used many times to carry astronauts into orbit.

The main source of power for the International Space Station is solar panels.

Exploration of space beyond the moon has been done by space probes with no human crew.

The design of a probe is based on assumptions about conditions it will encounter.

Objects in space experience extreme temperatures because space is a vacuum.

A feeling of weightlessness in orbit is called microgravity.

Astronauts in orbit feel weightless because they are falling through space around Earth.

The types of data collected through remote sensing include all of the following EXCEPT collection of soil samples.

All of the following are space spinoffs EXCEPT race cars.

A range of colors formed when white light passes through a prism is called a spectrum.

Both reflecting and refracting telescopes are designed to gather and focus visible light.

Reflecting telescopes differ from refracting telescopes in having a mirror instead of an objective lens.

A light-year is the distance light travels in a year.

Characteristics used to classify stars include size, brightness, and temperature.

Red stars are the coolest stars.

A star is born when nuclear fusion starts.

The lifetime of a star depends on its mass.

Depending on its mass, a star may live from about 10 million to 200 billion years.

A supernova is the explosion of a dying high-mass star.

More than half of all stars are members of groups of two or more stars called star systems.

Eclipsing binary stars can sometimes be identified because they become dimmer at regular intervals.

The Milky Way galaxy is an example of a spiral galaxy.

The theory that astronomers have developed to describe the formation of the universe is called the big bang theory.

The solar system formed from a giant cloud of gas and dust.

The absolute brightness of a star depends on its size and temperature.

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram shows that main-sequence stars increase in brightness as they increase in temperature.

The force that tends to pull together the matter in stars is gravity.

The ancient Greeks knew of all of the following planets EXCEPT Uranus.

The heliocentric system gained support when Galileo observed that Venus goes through phases similar to those of Earth’s moon.

The sun produces energy by nuclear fusion.

You see the photosphere when you look at an image of the sun.

The solar wind is a stream of electrically charged particles that extend outward from the sun’s corona.

In a heliocentric system, Earth revolves around the sun.

All of the inner planets all have they all are small and have rocky surfaces.

Aside from Earth, Mars once had liquid water on its surface.

The atmospheres of the gas giant planets cannot escape into space because the planets have very strong gravitational pulls.

The first four plants are much larger than Earth and are made mainly of hydrogen and helium.

The fact that each planet’s orbit is an ellipse was discovered by Kepler.

The orbits of most comets are long, narrow ellipses.

The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter.

Meteoroids usually come from comets or asteroids.

When a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, it produces a streak of light called a meteor.

One of the conditions required for life on Earth is liquid water.

Europa is considered a good place to look for life because there may be liquid water under its icy crust.

Copernicus explained that the sun is at the center of the system of planets.

The chromosphere and corona become visible during an eclipse.

Venus and Earth are much alike in terms of their size and density.

Saturn’s rings are made up mostly of chunks of ice and rock.

Uranus is different from most other planets because it rotates on its side.

The solar system consists of the sun, several kinds of smaller objects such as comets and asteroids, and nine planets and their moons.

Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet.

Neptune is very similar in size and color to Uranus.

Mercury is the smallest terrestrial planet.