Chapter 6: Light: The Cosmic Messenger
Multiple Choice

1.  

Light from a distant star can be divided into a spectrum by using a glass prism or



2.  

When considering light as small packets of energy, scientists call these



3.  

High-energy light has a very small



4.  

Light waves that are so low in energy and frequency that our eyes cannot detect them are



5.  

Hotter objects emit photons with a higher average



6.  

The Doppler effect describes the change in



7.  

The process by which plants interact with the sun's energy for photosynthesis is called



8.  

Which of the following moves fastest?



9.  

An astronomer who sees a continuous spectrum with various colors missing and who notices that spectrum does not vary infers that the continuum light source she is looking at is



10.  

At what temperature does a "complex" object produce thermal radiation?



11.  

The outermost layer of our Sun, called the corona, has a temperature of more than 2 million Kelvin. It is primarily giving off



12.  

The Doppler effect implies that a galaxy that is moving away from Earth would have a spectrum that is



13.  

Scientists often switch back and forth when describing light - sometimes as a wave and sometimes as a particle. If you are given the frequency of the photon, you also can determine its



14.  

Suppose you shine light with wavelength 121.6 nm on a tube filled with low-density atomic hydrogen gas, causing the gas to absorb, and then re-emit this same wavelength of light. If you then double the intensity of the light, the gas will



15.  

Firefighters are able to determine the temperature of a fire from great distances using a device called a pirometer. In order to calculate the fire temperature, this device probably measures



16.  

Given that light travels at 300,000 kilometers per second, how long does it take sunlight to travel the 150 million kilometers between the Sun and Earth?



17.  

The star Sirius has a surface temperature of about 12,000 Kelvin, whereas our Sun has a surface temperature of about half that value. How much more total energy per unit surface area does Sirius give off?



18.  

Compared to our own Sun, the bright red star in the constellation of Orion, Betelgeuse, must be



19.  

Earlier, it was pointed out that a ground-state electron in a hydrogen atom will move up to the third level when it absorbs exactly 12.1 eV of energy. What color light will be emitted when this electron drops down to the second level if the photon emitted has a wavelength of 656.3 nm?



20.  

Observing an astronomical target, an astronomer measures a wavelength shift between the central wavelength of the observed emission line and the wavelength of that line as seen in a laboratory at rest. What can he infer from the line shift?



21.  

The astronomer notes that the widths of the emission lines from tonight's target are very broad. Based on the information you have learned in this chapter, what is one possible explanation for the WIDE emission lines?


   

Note: answer choices in this exercise are randomized.


Menu Line
© 2003 Pearson Education, Inc.,
publishing as Addison Wesley