Chapter 16 The Milky Way Galaxy

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The space between the stars is known to contain

A. A large quantity of dust but no gas at all.

B. A variable amount of gas but no dust at all.

C. A perfect vacuum.

D. Both gas (atomic or molecular) and dust.

2. What is the approximate diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy in light years?

A. 10

B. 100

C. 1000

D. 100,000

E. 1000,000

3. What fraction of the Galaxy's mass is in a form that does not emit electromagnetic radiation?

A. About 90%

B. About 50%

C. About 10%

D. 0%, all of the Galaxy emits some form of light.

4. Stars in globular clusters belong to Population ________.

A. I

B. II

C. III

D. Zero
5. Rotational velocity outside the visible boundary of our Galaxy is _____ than would be expected on the
basis of observed stars and gas, indicating the presence of _____.

A. Zero; vacuum

B. Lower; gas

C. Smaller; white dwarfs

D. Higher; dark matter

6. The Sun lies _______ the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy.

A. At the center of

B. About half of the way out in

C. About one-tenth of the way out in

D. In the halo above

7. What happens when the electron in a hydrogen atom flips its direction of spin, from parallel to anti-
parallel to that of the proton?

A. Nothing--this transition never occurs.

B. The atom emits 656 nm radiation that gives red color.

C. The atom emits high energy ultra-violet rays.

D. The atom emits 21-cm radio radiation.

8. Which radiation is the most useful to map the structure of our Galaxy?

A. Far ultra-violet.

B. 21 cm radio radiation.

C. X-rays.

D. Gamma rays.

9. Astronomers measured the location of the Sun in the Milky Way Galaxy by

A. By counting the number of stars.

B. By plotting the position of globular star clusters.

C. By plotting distribution of water molecules.

D. By plotting the position of O and B stars.

10. Who was the first to measure the structure of Milky Way using globular clusters?

A. Jacobus Kapteyn

B. Edwin Hubble

C. Harlow Shapley

D. William Hershel

11. What is the characteristic color of a reflection nebula?

A. Blue

B. Red

C. Green

D. Yellow

E. Black

12. What is the characteristic color of an emission nebula?

A. Blue

B. Red

C. Green

D. Yellow

E. Lack

13. What is an emission nebula?

A. A region of gas around cool K or M type stars.

B. A region of ionized gas around hot O or B type stars.

C. A region of gas around black holes.

D. A gas cloud in globular clusters.

14. Which of the following may explain the failure to observe population III stars?

A. We do not expect to observe Population III stars, because pure hydrogen and helium stars never
formed.

B. Population III stars had their surfaces contaminated by remnants of massive stars.

C. The first stars to be formed in the young Milky Way were very massive and therefore short-lived.

D. All of the above.

E. Only B and C above.

15. One of the reasons that Kapteyn underestimated the size of the Milky Way and Shapley
overestimated it is that they did not recognize the ____.

A. Effects of the motion of the Sun from the center

B. Dimming effect of interstellar dust

C. Age of the globular clusters

D. Existence of dark matter

16. The radio waves emitted from Sagittarius A* region take how long to travel to the Earth?

A. 50,000 years.

B. 100,000 years.

C. 8.5 years.

D. 220 million years.

17. The solar system is located about ___ from the center of the Milky Way.

A. 8 kiloparsecs

B. 8 light years

C. 8 AU
18. The solar system is about 5 billion years old and completes one orbit around the center of the Milky
Way in 220 million years. Therefore, we conclude that the solar system has completed a total of about
___ orbits around the galactic center.

A. 5

B. 10

C. 22

D. 50

19. The gas and dust in the disk of the Milky Way amount to approximately ____ of the mass of the
stars.

A. 15%

B. 30%

C. 50%

20. The estimated age of the Milky Way galaxy is about ___.

A. 20 billion years

B. 100,000 years

C. 13 billion years

D. 4.6 billion years

21. The average distance between stars in the neighborhood of the solar system is about ___.

A. 4 AU

B. 4 light years

C. 4 kiloparsecs

D. 4 arcseconds

22. The Milky Way galaxy contains about _____ stars. Most of theses stars are probably _____.

A. 100 billion; red giants

B. 100 billion; O and B type stars

C. 10 billion; white dwarfs

D. 100 billion; cool dwarfs

23. The majority of stars in the Milky Way appear to be in the _______.

A. O and B spectral type

B. Mass range of 0.1 to 0.5 solar masses

C. 6,000K to 10,000 K temperature range

D. Sagittarius A* region

24. The typical size of the interstellar dust particles is ____ and they consist of _____.

A. 1 cm; silicates and carbon compounds

B. 1 mm; hydrogen and helium

C. About a micrometer or less; hydrogen and helium

D. About a micrometer or less; silicates and carbon compounds

25. Older, red stars are found where in the Galaxy?

A. Only in the halo.

B. Only in the disk.

C. Only in the bulge.

D. All throughout the Galaxy.

26. Dust and gas in the Milky Way

A. Are spread evenly throughout the halo and disk.

B. Are concentrated in a thin layer in the disk.

C. Are found in different places: dust primarily in the disk and gas primarily in the halo.

D. Are found in different places: gas primarily in the disk and dust primarily in the halo.
27. Sir William Herschel counted the number of stars in different directions, and getting similar numbers
in each direction along the disk, concluded the Sun was near the center of a disk-like collection of stars.
Herschel came to the wrong conclusion about the Sun's location because

A. He was predisposed to believe the Sun was in the center of the Milky Way, and ignored data which
disagreed with that conclusion.

B. He did not know that interstellar dust made it hard for him to see a large part of the Milky Way's disk.

C. He only counted globular clusters, and not regular stars.

D. The Sun's position in the Milky Way at that particular time was very unusual and skewed his results.

28. The Milky Way is tilted on the sky because

A. It's appearance depends entirely on where you are on the Earth.

B. The solar system is tilted compared to the disk of the galaxy.

C. The Sun's gravity deflects incoming starlight.

D. The disk of the galaxy is warped.

29. Why is it not possible to use visible light to investigate the center of our Galaxy?

A. Intervening gas locating in the disk of the Galaxy blocks our view of the galactic center.

B. The massive black hole located at the center of the Galaxy prevents light from escaping the region.

C. There are no sources of visible light found at the center of the Galaxy.

D. The density of stars toward the galactic center is so high that it is not possible to see through them.

30. One difference between Population I and Population II stars in the Milky Way is

A. That Pop I stars produce energy by fusion and Pop II by fission.

B. That Pop I stars have very few metals and Pop II stars are metal rich.

C. That Pop I stars have orbits in the disk and Pop II stars have orbits that pass through the disk.

D. That Pop I stars produce energy by fusion and Pop II stars through gravitational contraction.

31. In general, Population I stars are _________ than Population II stars.

A. Older
B. Younger

C. The same age.

32. In general, Population I stars are _________ and Population II stars are _________.

A. Massive; dwarfs

B. Dwarfs; massive

C. Blue; red

D. Red; blue

33. If you made a plot of open clusters on a star map, they would be

A. Evenly scattered on the page.

B. Concentrated along the Galaxy's disk.

C. Clustered away from the Galactic bulge.

D. Spherically arranged in a halo.

34. Which statement is not true about open clusters?

A. After a molecular cloud has collapsed and formed many stars, the cloud dissipates and the stars
spread out into an open cluster.

B. Open clusters usually contain many blue stars.

C. Open clusters are gravitationally bound and therefore have a spherical shape.

D. Open clusters typically contain dozens to hundreds of stars.

35. In a telescopic observation of a field of stars, you see an irregularly shaped dark patch. This is most
likely

A. An area where there are no stars.

B. A black hole.

C. The dusty center of a globular cluster.

D. A dark nebula.
36. A bright red nebula is called an HII region when it contains

A. Molecular hydrogen gas, H2.

B. Hot hydrogen gas thermally glowing.

C. Hydrogen atoms which have been ionized by ultraviolet radiation.

D. Hydrogen which is generating 21 cm radio waves.

37. Compared to a cold molecular cloud at 10 K, an HII region has a temperature about

A. 1,000,000 times hotter.

B. 1000 times hotter.

C. 10 times hotter.

D. The same.

38. According to the density-wave theory, spiral arms are blue because they

A. Contain many reflection nebulae from sites of young star formation.

B. Contain only young stars, whose formation was triggered by the explosion of older red stars just in
front of the spiral arm.

C. Contain a lot of young stars formed from clouds compressed by the density wave.

D. Have too much metal content to form red stars.

39. Astronomers believe that the massive object at the center of the Milky Way is a black hole because

A. Images show an accretion disk surrounding an empty spot.

B. Gravitational wave measurements indicate a black hole is there.

C. Observations at X-ray, infrared and radio limit the size of the object to smaller than 10 AU.

D. It is necessary to explain the galaxy's rotation curve.

40. Astronomers have found the black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass of about
_________ solar masses.
A. 40

B. 4 hundred thousand

C. 4 million

D. 4 billion

41. The ______ theory offers a likely explanation for the formation of _____.

A. High rotation speed; spiral arms

B. Density wave; galactic bulge

C. Density wave; spiral arms

D. High rotation speed; dark matter

True / False Questions -

42. The Milky Way has no sharply defined outer edge.

43. New surveys suggest brown dwarfs, stars under the critical mass for stable fusion, are probably very
rare.

44. Of the normal matter in the Milky Way, the vast majority of the mass is in the form of gas and dust.

45. The Milky Way shows evidence that over its history it has merged with and "cannibalized" smaller
galaxies.

46. Astronomers can measure the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy by plotting the position of globular
star clusters.

47. The solar system is located about 8 light years away from the galactic center.
48. The estimated age of the Milky Way galaxy is about 13 billion years.

49. The main parts of the Milky Way galaxy are the disk, the bulge and the halo.

50. Associations are loose groups of young stars in the spiral arms usually mingled with large clouds of
gas and dust.

51. Dust accounts for about 1% of the total mass of interstellar matter.

52. The zone of avoidance is the region around massive black hole found at the center of the Galaxy.

53. We know that galaxies exist in the zone of avoidance because we can detect them using radio
telescopes.

54. The composition of the interstellar gas is very similar to the composition of our Sun.

55. Hydrogen, both in neutral and in molecular form, can be used to map out features of the Galaxy
through its emission of 21-centimeter radiation.