Software of the Month Club 1998 June/Software of the Month Club 1998 June.iso/pc/dos/games/dom1/mellev3.qa

Text File | 1998-04-15 | 10KB | 484 lines

# this is a comment is a Q&A file

.Cosmology and the Infinitesimal

#This first number is the number of questions:

37

#now are the questions

#39
Y:Y
<
 Even though it is impossible to travel
 the speed of light, can you go FASTER
 than the speed of light?
 (theoretically speaking)
>

#40
Y:Y
<
 Time slows down at very fast speeds.
 Is time travel to the future, then
 possible?
>

#41
M:2 3
<
 Traveling near the speed of light is
 the same as being in a time machine to
 the future because time slows down.
 What is the big drawback?
>
1. you are very far away when you stop.
2. you can't go back to the past!
3. you age very fast when you stop.

#42
M:3 4
<
 Some 'stars' are actually more than one
 sun very close together appearing to
 us here on Earth as just one star.
 Alpha Centari is the closest 'star' to
 the Earth. How many suns actually make
 up the Alpha Centari star system?
>
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.


#43
M:1 4
<
 Are there planets around distant stars?
>
1. yes, for sure.
2. no one seems to know.
3. experiments say yes, but who knows?
4. no.


#44
M:2 3
<
 Several technologies listed below,
 theoretically, can detect a planet in
 another star system. What is the secret
 that makes it possible for us to detect
 planets using technology available
 today?
>
1. infrared technology can 'see' planets.
2. a star wobbles in a planets gravity.
3. stars light can light up a planet.


#45
M:1 3
<
 What type of star system is Sirus
 (Bernard's Star) the second closest star
 system?
>
1. Single star system.
2. a binary star system (2 stars).
3. a ternary star system (3 stars in orbit).

#46
Y:Y
<
 Is it possible for the moon to be so
 close to earth that it covers half
 of the sky?
>


#47
M:2 5
<
 If you took a piece of paper and sliced
 it in half, then sliced one of the
 halves in half, etc., how many times
 would you need to slice it before you
 were trying to cut up just one atom?
>
1. about 50 times.
2. about 100 times.
3. about 1000 times.
4. about 1,000,000 times.


#48
Y:Y
<
 Atoms are made up of protons, neutrons
 and electrons, but is it true that
 atoms are mostly just empty space?
>


#49
M:3 3
<
 Sun spots are:
>
1. an illusion.
2. found only at the suns poles.
3. huge cool spots on the sun.


#50
M:1 3
<
 Sun spot activity on the surface of the
 sun is at a maximum every 11.2 Earth
 years. A sun spot is really just a
 darker region of the sun created by:
>
1. a region about 2000 degrees cooler.
2. solar gasses obscuring the surface.
3. Earth clouds refracting sunlight.


#51
M:4 4
<
 The surface of the sun is only about
 6000 degrees, cool compared to the
 interior of the star. How hot is the
 interior?
>
1. 20,000 degrees.
2. 100,000 degrees.
3. 10 million degrees.
4. 40 million degrees.


#52
M:3 4
<
 What is a Nebula?
>
1. a group or recently formed stars.
2. a small accumulation of gas in space.
3. a huge cloud of gas, dust and stars.
4. the remnants of a dead star.


#53
M:4 6
<
 What is the largest known nebula in
 the Milky Way?
>
1. Triffid in constellation Sagittarius.
2. Pleiades in the constellation Taurus.
3. the Rosette Nebula.
4. The Orion Nebula.
5. The Crab Nebula.
6. The Veil Nebula.


#54
M:1 3
<
 The Crab Nebula was formed when a star
 went supernova many years ago. This
 star was 6000 light years away from
 Earth and only went supernova recently.
 What year was the supernova and the
 subsequent creation of the Crab Nebula
 first observed on Earth?
>
1. 1054 a.d.
2. 1519 the year Leonardo da Vinci died.
3. 1955 the year Albert Einstein died.


#55
M:3 3
<
 A nova is:
>
1. a single exploding star.
2. another word for a binary system.
3. two stars, brightened as they touch.


#56
M:2 3
<
 The only natural element in the
 universe is hydrogen. Everything else
 is either produced in a star or from
 materials left in the aftermath of a
 star. How then do we know the sun is
 at least a second generation of a star?
>
1. we see gas from the first supernova.
2. Earth elements other than hydrogen.
3. we can see the first supernova nearby.



#57
M:2 3
<
 A supernova is an exploding solitary
 star so bright that it shines more than
 the galaxy of billions of stars it
 resides in. Supernovas are rare because
 single star systems (like our solar
 system) are relatively rare. How often
 does a supernova happen in a galaxy of
 100 billion stars?
>
1. about 5 per Earth day.
2. about 1 every 100 years or so.
3. about 1 every million years or so.


#58
M:3 3
<
 Supernovas might last 3 months. How
 bright did it seem to people on Earth
 when the star that went supernova
 was observed in the year 1054?
>
1. about as bright as any other star.
2. about as bright as another sun.
3. bright enough to see in the day time.


#59
Y:Y
<
 A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun aligns behind the moon?
>


#60
M:2 3
<
 What is the likelihood of a supernova
 happening nearby during your lifetime?
>
1. not a possibility as all.
2. likely within 100 years.
3. expected in the next decade sometime.


#61
M:1 3
<
 Depending on the size of the star, the
 end of its life cycle varies. The
 very largest stars eventually become:
>
1. black holes.
2. neutron stars.
3. black dwarfs.


#62
M:2 3
<
 Many scientists believe that space and
 time began in a huge explosion called
 the Big Bang. How long ago is this
 even supposed to have happened?
>
1. 5 billion years ago.
2. 15 billion years ago.
3. 100 billion years ago.


#63
M:3 4
<
 Many galaxies (each containing a
 billion or more stars) are grouped
 together in large clusters around the
 universe. How many large galaxies like
 the Milky Way are there in our local
 group of galaxies?
>
1. 15 large galaxies.
2. 5 large galaxies.
3. only 2: the Milky Way and M31.
4. just the Milky Way.


#64
M:2 3
<
 Many galaxies belong to clusters of
 galaxies all in the same general region
 of space. How big are the largest
 clusters of galaxies?
>
1. 10 galaxies in the largest clusters.
2. thousands of galaxies in one cluster.
3. millions of galaxies in one cluster.


#65
M:4 4
<
 Which galaxy is part of the
 constellation Andromeda?
>
1. The Sombrero Galaxy, or 'M104'.
2. The Whirlpool Galaxy, or 'M51'.
3. The Milky Way Galaxy where we live.
4. galaxy M31, 2.3 million years away.
5. galaxy M81, 7 million years.


#66
M:1 4
<
 What is the largest known galaxy
 containing up to 100 trillion stars?
>
1. M87 some 40 million light years away.
2. The Milky way.
3. M31 in our local galaxy cluster.
4. Galaxy Centaurus A.


#67
M:4 4
<
 How long does it take for the Milky Way
 Galaxy in which we live to complete
 just one rotation?
>
1. one Earth year.
2. 100,000 Earth years.
3. 100,000,000 Earth years.
4. 250,000,000 Earth years.


#68
M:2 2
<
 Because galaxies are so large, we often
 see one side as it looked thousands of
 years before the way we see the other
 side. Does this affect our attempts to
 study galaxies?
>
1. yes, it makes measurements look wrong.
2. no, the difference is a minor one.


#69
M:2 3
<
 Quasars are perhaps the biggest mystery,
 even more than black holes. While one
 supernova can be as bright as a galaxy,
 one quasar can be as bright as a
 billion supernovas, a whole galaxy full,
 and all this is in the size of one solar
 system like our nine planet model. Do
 scientists think they understand how
 quasars work?
>
1. they don't have a clue.
2. no, but they have some theories.
3. yes, they understand them well.


#70
M:1 3
<
 How many times has the sun orbited the
 center of the Milky Way?
>
1. 200 or so times.
2. 1000 times.
3. it has not made a full orbit (yet..).


#71
M:2 3
<
 We are all moving through space right
 now as you read this question because
 the Earth orbits the sun and the sun
 orbits the center of the galaxy and the
 galaxy is ever expanding from the
 beginning point of the universe. How
 fast are we moving?
>
1. about 1000 miles per hour.
2. about 500,000 miles per hour.
3. about 100,000 miles per second.


#72
M:3 3
<
 The sun and all the other stars pass in
 and out of the spiral arms of the
 galaxy during their long 250 million
 year orbits. Are the sun and planets in
 our solar system still in one of the
 arms?
>
1. yes, we are in the Orion arm.
2. yes, we are in a the Persius arm.
3. no, we are in plain empty space.


#73
M:1 3
<
 The Earth's solar system is not
 in an arm of the galaxy, but lies
 between arms. Eventually it will re-enter
 an arm because the speed of the arm's
 rotation is faster than that of the sun's.
 Which arm did we exit about 1000 light
 years ago?
>
1. the Orion arm.
2. the Persius arm.
3. the Sagitarius arm.


#74
M:3 3
<
 Are all the other galaxies in the
 universe aligned in any particular
 way?
>
1. yes, they are all in the same plane.
2. yes, but no one can explain how.
3. no, they are arranged at random.


#75
M:3 3
<
 Even though we have telescopes that can
 see galaxies very far away, the
 universe is still much larger. How
 large is the observable universe?
>
1. about 1/2 billion light years.
2. about 10 billion light years.
3. tens of billions of light years.