Astr 310 Astrobiology - Final Exam Study Guide
FINAL version posted on May 10 at 1 pm
Friday, May 11, 10:30-12:30, in the usual classroom (GMCS 301)
Bring a clean, uncrumped
ParSCORE Student Enrollment form (the larger
6"x11"pink form), some #2 pencils & an eraser.
This is a "closed-book exam".
No calculators/PDAs/PalmPilots/cell phones/GPS/ipods/mp3 players,
etc., allowed; slide rules are ok.
** To save time, fill out your name and Red ID on the ParSCORE form before
the exam starts. Be sure to put your Red ID on both sides of the
form. Also, fill in the bubble for "Test Form A" and
"Exam # 003".
Don't bother with the phone number or code.
** Be sure to fill out your ParSCORE form correctly! You
may lose points on your exam for errors on the scantron form (1 point per
error). Common errors include:
. putting an extra zero in front of your Red ID
. filling in wrong digits on your Red ID
. filling in two answers because your writing was sloppy
. not erasing an answer fully
. not marking your answer bubble dark enough
Caution: If your scantron is so damaged that it cannot be read by the
scantron machine, your final exam will not be graded and you will earn a zero
score for the final exam!! (If your scantron form is a bit beaten up,
spend a quarter and buy a new scantron form - it is worth it!)
This exam covers all material presented in class and all homework reading
assignments.
This includes any websites assigned as homework
reading.
The exam will emphasize material covered since the second midterm exam.
In particular, be sure to know the topics of
Mars
and the search for
life on Mars, the Jovian moons: Europa, Titan, and Enceladus;
extrasolar planets (exoplanets); the Drake Equation and SETI; and the Rare
Earth hypothesis.
Exam will consist of 50 multiple choice
questions, with 5 possible choices for answers (a,b,c,d,e). There are no
"trick" questions - the best answer is the right answer.
** Be sure you did Part 3 of Written Homework #3 **
"Using Google Mars, examine examine Gusev Crater, the Viking 1, landing
site, and the Pathfinder landing site. Pay attention to the geologic features
at those sites...."
Did you really use the Google Mars website and explore these sites?
What things are in common, and what things are different at these sites?
How does Gusev crater compare with Gale crater?
What mission landed and explored Gusev crater?
Be sure to review the following:
- Wien's law and the Doppler effect
- the Principle of Occam's razor and the scientific method
- basic properties of the planets
- the concepts and motivation for the big bang theory
- size and scale of the solar system
- the size of the galaxy and the distances to stars
- the origin of the elements
- Europa and the icy Jovian moons
- the Cassini/Huygens mission; discoveries about Titan and Enceladus
- basic biochemisty of life on Earth: carbon (organic) based life ,DNA,
proteins, genetic code, handedness, etc.
- the importance of water
- the 3 domains of life on Earth: archaea, bacteria, eukariotes
- extremophiles
- evolution and extinction
- the importance of comets, asteroids, and NEOs
- extrasolar planets: discovery methods, properties, etc.
- the latest results of NASA's Kepler Mission
- SETI & the Drake equation
- the Rare Earth Hypothesis
- Course Reader: Be sure to know the main points of the articles and
the names of the authors of each article. (No one would read literature
and not know who the author was!) Pay particular attention to the Rare
Earth articles, since these were written by the actual authors who
invented the hypothesis, and the discussion is in some ways much better
than the discussion in the textbook.
Likewise with the SETI chapter in the textbook - Seth Shostak is an
expert and key player in the field.
You do NOT need to study/review the following:
- the numerical value of the Hubble's constant or the Hubble diagram,
but of course know about Hubble's discoveries and what they mean
- any of Fred Hoyle's many accomplishments, other than his role in
panspermia
- specific sizes in km or masses in kg of any of the planets, but do know
that Jupiter is roughly ~310 times more massive than Earth, and Venus is
a little less massive than Earth, and Mars is ~1/10 the mass of
Earth.
- details of COBE or the WMAP missions (but know what they are and what they
did)
- anything about Mercury, Uranus, or Neptune
- anything about the "non-planet" Pluto, except that is is a Kuiper
Belt Object
- how to calculate distances via parallax (but know what parallax is!)
- the specific details of the 3 Viking biology experiments (but do know
the results!)
- anything related to modes of space travel (e.g. chemical or non-chemical
rocket propulsion)
- DO NOT memorize the genetic code!! But of course, know how to read
it and what it means.
- Anything about radio galaxies, elliptical galaxies, giant molecular
clouds, white dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes or gamma ray
bursters. (You do need to know a bit about types of stars, star formation,
stellar evolution, supernova, and cosmic rays though.)
- Any moons except for the four Galilean satellites, Titan and
Enceladus, and the concept of cryovovanism on the icy moons in general.
- You don't need to know the names of specific bacteria species
[such as Streptococcus mitis (the bacteria that survived on the
Moon) or Helicobacter pylori (the ulcer-causing bacteria that
dwells in the stomachs of half of the people on Earth), or
Thiomargarita namibiensis ("the sulfur pearl of Namibia")],
with the exception of that particular bacteria that can withstand huge
doses of radiation....
- Do not confuse specific species with the classes of
extremophiles; you should know the different types (classes) of
extremophiles e.g. thermophilic, halophilic, etc..
- You do not need to memorize any molecular structures. For example, you
will not be asked to know the molecular difference between adenine and
guanine. but of course you do need to know what these molecules do!
- You do not need to know the location of the elements in the periodic
table, or their properties, with the exception of "CHONPS".
Textbook: skip the following sections:
Telescopes and interferometry
Optical or any non-radio SETI
Human evolution
Dyson spheres
(skip all the "Movie Madness" sections)
Anything to do with the encephalization quotient
Galactic colonization
ET and the human condition
Course Reader:
For the final exam, you do NOT need to review the following:
"Clairborn Pell, Senator from Outer Space", "Courtney Brown's
Preposterous Farsight"
Also, you will not need to know any physical constants except the speed of
light. You will not need to know exactly how many meters are in a parsec
or how many AU in a light year or that sort of thing. But you do need
to know the metric system (how many nm in a km, etc.), conversion of units,
and the definitions of an AU, arcsecond, megaparsec, etc..
You do need to know Wien's constant.
You may be asked to do a few very simple math-related problems.
You may be asked to do a few Wien't law problems.
You will be asked questions that test your understanding of
certain laws, even if you are not asked to calculate anything using that
law. For example, while you may not be asked "At what wavelength does
the peak of blackbody radiation from Venus' surface occur at (given that
Venus' surface temperature is 750 K)?", you may be asked "What does Wien's
law tell us?". You won't be asked, "How old is the Universe if
Ho = 49 km/s per Mpc?", but you may be asked "How do you
determine the age of the Universe from Hubble's constant?"
The class lectures (not just the on-line notes) should be your
primary source of information.
** The material covered in class are the most important items to know
for the final exam. This includes any guest lectures, and material covered
in class that are not in the notes. This is usually (but not always)
about more up-to-date discoveries and results.
Look over the midterm exams to help you prepare for the final exam.
** Expect about roughly 10-15% of the questions to be related to material
in the Course Reader articles
A number of questions will come from the homework assignments related
to reading and exploring specific webpages, such as "Google Mars" or
SpaceWeather.com or the Cassini Mission website, NASA's Mars Exploration
webpages, Kepler Mission, etc., etc..
Some "be sure to know these" hints:
- What is Wien's law?
- Given a star's surface temperature, at what wavelength is the light
from a star the brightest?
- What is the Fermi paradox?
- What does "temperature" really measure?
- What is "endosymbiosis"?
- What is a chloroplast? What is a mitochondria? What is a ribosome?
- Why is Mars such an interesting place for astrobiology?
- What have the MER missions discovered, and how did they do this?
- How are extrasolar planets discovered?
- What is the Drake Equation?
- What are the arguments supporting the Rare Earth hypothesis?
- Why we think all life on Earth had a common ancestor?
- What are the key things essential for life (as we know it)?
- What are extremophiles?
- What can you use spectroscopy for?
- What makes a hypothesis a scientific hypothesis and not
just an idea?
- What is Elizabeth Loftus' thesis? What has she discovered? Why is
this relevant to UFOs?
- Know the uses of the following: Doppler effect, Wien's law, Hubble's
law
- Approximately what is age of the Earth? How do we know?
- "We are all made of star-stuff." What does this mean?
- What are three largest divisions (domains) of terrestrial life?
- What role do supernovae play in the origin, evolution and development of
life?
- What is the main discovery of the MER missions to date?
- What is the main discovery of the Cassini/Huygens mission to date?
- What is the main discovery of the Kepler mission to date?
- What is SETI and why has it concentrated on radio frequencies?
- What is the Cassini mission?
- How big is the solar system? How far to the nearest stars? How big is
the galaxy?
- What is a NEO?
- What is the K/T boundary?
- What makes Europa interesting for astrobiology?
- What makes Titan interesting for astrobiology?
- What do the letters "ATP" stand for?
- What do the letters "CHONPS" stand for?
- What do the letters "NASA" stand for?
- What do the letters "ESA" stand for?
- What do the letters "DNA" stand for?
- What do the letters "JPL" stand for?
- What do the letters "AGN" stand for?
- What do the letters "UFO" stand for?
- What is Occam's Razor?
- What is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory?
- What is the main point of Carl Sagan's article Hallucinations from
"The Demon Haunted World"?
- What is the habitable zone? In what cases is it irrelevant?
- How does the habitable zone change with time? With the star's
spectral type?
- What is the "water hole"?
- Why do SETI investigations mostly use radio electromagnetic
radiation?
- What is the difference between infrared, ultraviolet, radio and
X-rays?
- What it the core premise of the Rare Earth hypothesis?
- Why does a planet's position in the galaxy make a difference to the
ability for life to exist on that planet?
- What are the factors in the Drake equation?
- What is the difference in meaning between the words "galaxy", "solar
system", and "universe"?
- What is a carbonaceous chondrite?
- What does "terraforming" mean?
- What is panspermia?
- What is the Kuiper Belt?
- Who was Alfred Wegener?
- Who are Mayor & Queloz? Geoff Marcy & Paul Butler?
- Who is Bill Borucki?
- Who is Jill Tarter?
- Who is Seth Shostak?
- Who is Carl Woese?
- What did the father and son Alvarez team discover?
- What was Project Mogul?
- Why are astrobiologists suddenly so interested in Enceladus?
- Why doesn't deep-sea water boil if its temperature is 400 degrees?
- What causes the greenhouse effect?
- What is the Kepler Mission?
- What does it mean to say "It has been, and always will be, the Age of
the Bacteria"?
- What is a "potentially hazardous asteroid"?
- What is the solar wind?
- Why couldn't terrestrial planets exist soon after the big bang?
- What is "CHONPS" and why is it important?
- What are the 3 major pieces of evidence for ancient life on Earth?
- What are monomers and polymers?
- Why are amino acids important?
- What is DNA and RNA? How do these work
- What is the "RNA World" hypothesis?
- What are proteins used for, and how are they made?
- What is a codon? What is a gene?
- What is evolution and what is natural selection?
- What is "chicxulub"?
- What is "51 Peg"? "HD 209458 b"?
- If someone says, "But it's only a theory...", why does that make no
sense to a scientist, if interpreted strictly?
- What kind of information can you find on the Cassini-Huygens website?
- What kind of information can you find on NASA's Mars
Exploration Program website?
- What kind of information can you find on SpaceWeather.com?
- Who is Bruce Jakosky, and what is the point of his article?
- Who is Seth Shostak?
- Who is Bill Schopf, and what is the point of his article?
- Why do we say that all terrestrial life is biochemically the same?
- Why is it more likely that we will find procaryotes rather than
eucaryotes when we finally expore Europa or Enceladus or Mars?
- What is "apophis" and why is it important?
- What is an enantiomer? (hint: it is related to "chirality")
- What does "the handedness of terrestrial life" mean?
- What is Lake Vostok? Why is it important
- What are "plate tectonics"?
- What are "hydrothermal vents"?
- What role have meteors+comets played in the origin and evolution of life on
Earth?
- What is cryovolcanism? Where do we find this?
- What are biomarkers and biosignatures?
- What are two excellent biomarker gasses?
- Why do exoplanets have names like "HD 209458 b"?
- If I know at what wavelength a star gives off the most light,
what is the star's temperature?
* What is the difference between an extremophile and an organism that can
tolerate extreme conditions?
* What is a "circumbinary planet"?
* What does the "Google Mars" website contain?
* What are the differenences between a Jovian and a terrestrial planet?
* What is a "hot jupiter"?
* What are the properties of hot jupiter extrasolar planets?
* Why is it harder to find terrestrial planets?
* Have we discovered any terrestrial planets yet?
* Have we discovered any planets in the habitable zone yet?
A suggestion: Review the lecture notes on "What is Astrobiology?"
from very early in the semester. It is a good way to know what the main
topics of the course are. This particular set of notes does not expire -
you can still download it.
Another study tip: look at the "Astrobiology A-Z list" and make sure you
know all the terms and their importance.
And of course, if you have been using the "Teach Yourself" part of the
class website, those are very, very helpful tools for learning the
material.
And finally, some practice questions:
Based on the "read these webpages" type homework assignments, which of
the following is NOT on NASA's Mars Exploration Program
website?
A) links to Current Missions including the Mars Science Laboratory
B) a link to "Where are the Spacecraft?"
C) a link called "Be a Martian"
D) a link called "Send a Postcard to Spirit"
E) a link to a re-analysis of the Viking Mission data
On the Google Mars website homepage, which of the following is
shown?
A) many links to information on the internet about Mars missions
B) many links to science fiction movies about Mars and Martians
C) a mosaic of images from the gamma ray portion of the spectrum
D) a shaded relief map color-coded by altitude
E) links to Mars.com, the homepage of the chocolate and conglomerate,
with company information, operations, careers, products and trademarks.
Which of the following is NOT available as a link from the NASA
Kepler Mission homepage website?
A) information about the Doppler method for finding exoplanets
B) a pull-down menu on the latest Kepler discoveries and news
C) a link to "How does Kepler find planets?"
D) a current list of all the confirmed planets discoved by Kepler
E) links to Kepler Facebook and Twitter sites
A WWWeb site reports the discovery of "a 4.37811529 billion year-old
fossil of a bacterium." You are highly skeptical. Why?
A) This is older than the Earth.
B) Dating of rocks is nowhere near that precise.
C) Rocks that old are practically non-existent on Earth due to crust
recycling by plate tectonics (subduction).
D) choices B) and C)
E) choices A), B), and C)
Which of the following is true about the isotope carbon-13?
A) It has 13 protons in its nucleus.
B) It is radioactive and has a half-life of about 5730 years.
C) It is formed by collisions between cosmic rays and gases in the
Earth's atmosphere.
D) It has 13 neutrons in its nucleus.
E) It can be used to help deduce when life started on Earth.
An SDSU student uses the Mt. Laguna Observatory to measure the
spectrum of a star and finds an absorption line at 657.1 nm. In the
laboratory, this spectral line is normally at 656.3 nm. What can the
student deduce about this star?
A) It must be much hotter than the Sun.
B) It must be much cooler than the Sun.
C) It must be moving toward the Earth.
D) It must be moving away from the Earth.
E) It must have an planet orbiting around it.
How many different types of nitrogenous bases (or nucleotides) are used
in DNA? How many of these bases are in a single codon (the fundamental unit
of the genetic code)?
A) 2; 2
B) 4; 2
C) 4; 3
D) 20; 3
E) 20; 4
How long would it take astronauts to travel from the Earth to the nearest
star if the astronauts could travel near the speed of light?
A) 1 light year
B) 4-5 years
C) a few thousands years
D) 25,000 years
E) 100,000 years
The K-T global mass extinction event was probably caused by
A) supernova
B) extended ice age
C) the Sun entering the white dwarf stage
D) impact with an asteroid
E) contamination by microbes on ALH84001
To date, most CONFIRMED extrasolar planets have been discovered via
A) Wien's law
B) astrometry
C) gravitational microlensing
D) radio telescope searches
E) the Doppler effect
To date, most CANDIDATE extrasolar planets have been discovered via
A) Hubble's law
B) astrometry
C) the transit method
D) infrared observations
E) the Doppler effect
51 Peg is an important extrasolar planet because
A) it was the first exoplanet discovered
B) it is the most massive planet ever found
C) it is the most Earth-like planet found
D) it was the first transiting planet discovered, so we know its
radius
E) it was the first extrasolar planet discovered to be in a
habitable zone
The names of the two Mars Exploration Rovers are:
A) Voyager 1 and Voyager 2
B) Pathfinder and Sojourner
C) Cassini and Huygens
D) Spirit and Opportunity
E) Viking 1 and Viking 2
Amino acids are the chemical building blocks (monomers) of what type
of molecule?
A) cellulose, starch, and/or glycogen
B) nucleotides
C) DNA and RNA
D) proteins
E) ATP
For the following question, the name of a person and the work they are related to are
paired together. Choose the pair in which the person is NOT logically related to the
topic that follows after the arrow.
A) Seth Shostak <-----> SETI
B) Carl Sagan <-----> "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
D) Frank Drake <-----> number of intelligent civilizations in Milky Way
C) Giordano Bruno <-----> the Rare Earth hypothesis
E) Steve Squyres <-----> MER
Results from the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission suggest that
A) peroxides in the Martian soil destroyed all organic compounds.
B) a large amount of argon exists on Mars.
C) a greenhouse effect caused the loss of the atmosphere on Mars.
D) a large amount of water ice may lie just below the surface of Mars.
E) aerobraking is not a viable method for slowing down spacecraft.
Good Luck!
If you enjoyed this course, tell your friends about it.
I have taught this course over a dozen times now, and as always, I have
enjoyed teaching bright, enthusiastic, hard-working, and inquisitive
students like yourselves.
Because I will be busy working on the Kepler Mission, I will be teaching
this course only in the Spring semester the next year.
Good luck on the final exam.
Cheers,
Dr. Welsh.