A102 Review Problems
2003 March 31
These problems are not due as homework. They are here for your own studying purposes. Solutions are availble in PDF format..
How might you tell the difference between a Type Ia and a Type II supernova? (I.e. what observations might you make in order to decide if a given supernova was of a given type? Think about this either for a supernova which we've just observed exploding, as well as for a historical supernova where we can only observe the remnant.)
Consider a binary system consisting of a main sequence star and a white dwarf companion. Which star is older? Which star started its life with more mass?
Why do no images of the Milky Way resemble the image of NGC6744 in Figure 18.9 of the text?
Chapter 16, Question 4. Although you don't have to solve any equations to answer this, it may help to refer to a relevant equation which qualitatively helps explain the answer.
Chapter 16, Question 14 (parts a and b; we haven't talked about gravitational waves, so don't worry about part c).
Chatper 18, Question 4.
We can tell that we're not at the center of our galaxy just by looking at the distribution of globular clusters at different places on the sky. How does this work? Why would looking at the distribution of open clusters not give us the same answer as looking at distribution of globular clusters?