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Conceptual Questions



1

What is meant by the statement that "a telescope is a time machine"?
2

How old is the most recent information we can ever have about the planet Pluto?
3

What is the Hubble classification of an elliptical galaxy that appears spherical in shape?
4

What is the Hubble classification of a barred spiral with tightly wound arms?
5

How can the stars in an elliptical galaxy be orbiting the center of the galaxy if the galaxy has essentially no angular momentum?
6

What is the relationship between the sizes of the nuclei of spiral galaxies and how tightly the spiral arms of those galaxies are wound?
7

Why is a galaxy much more likely to collide with another galaxy than a star is to collide with another star?
8

What is believed to be the way that ring galaxies are produced?
9

What evidence do we have that there is dark matter in spiral galaxies?
10

What evidence do we have that there is a massive black hole in the center of the Andromeda Galaxy?
11

What are some of the objects that serve as primary distance indicators in determining the cosmic distance scale?
12

Why can't primary distance indicators be used to find the distances of very distant galaxies?
13

Suppose we were to discover that all of the galaxies are actually ten times farther away than previously thought. What effect would this have on the value of Hubble's constant?
14

Describe how Hubble's law is explained as a consequence of the expansion of the universe.
15

Suppose we lived in a universe in which the greater the distance to a galaxy, the faster that galaxy were approaching us. How could such a relationship between distance and velocity be explained?







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