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| 1 | |
What would the angle between the Sun and the Earth be if the solar system were viewed from a distance of 1 pc? |
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| 2 | |
The Sun is about 300,000 times as massive as the Earth. Calculate the radius of the Sun's orbit about its common center of mass with the Earth. How big would the radius of the Sun's orbit appear if the solar system were viewed from a distance of 1 pc? |
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| 3 | |
At what speed does the Sun orbit its common center of mass with the Earth? (For this problem, you need to look up the Earth's orbital speed in Appendix 4.) |
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| 4 | |
The planet orbiting 16 Cyg B has an orbital distance of 1.7 AU. If 16 Cyg B has the same mass as the Sun, what is the orbital period of the planet? |
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| 5 | |
How long will it take the Voyagers to travel 10 pc through interstellar space? |
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| 6 | |
Suppose scientists built a signal processor capable of simultaneously looking for interstellar signals in one hundred million channels, each 1 Hz wide. How many times would the processor need to be used to examine the entire spectrum of a candidate star between 1 and 10 GHz? |
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| 7 | |
Approximately how long would it take radio signals from the Earth to reach Pluto? How long would it take radio signals to reach the Earth from the nearest star, Proxima Centauri? |
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| 8 | |
Use the Drake Equation and your own estimates of its terms to estimate the number of communicating civilization in the Galaxy. (There is no correct or incorrect answer to the problem.) |
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