** Version 1.01, 2008 Feb 29, 10:15 pm **
Astrobiology Exam #1 Study Guide
**** NEW DATE: Midterm Exam MONDAY MARCH 3 ****
Exam will consist of 50 multiple choice questions.
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/phones/GPS/ipods/etc allowed; slide rules are ok, but you won't need one!

** Fill out your name and Red ID on the ParSCORE form before the exam. Be sure to put your Red ID on both sides of the form. Don't fill in the phone number - I don't want to know!
On the back, fill in `Test Form A' and Exam # 001.
 ** Be sure to fill out your ParSCORE form correctly! If you have mistakes, you will lose points on your exam (1 point per error). Common errors include:
. putting an extra zero in front of your Red ID: leave the 10th column blank; don't start in 2nd column
. filling in two answers because your writing was sloppy
. not erasing an answer fully
. filling in wrong digits on your Red ID
. not marking your answer bubble dark enough

The topics discussed in class are the most important.
The on-line notes are very helpful, but incomplete.
We cover much more than just the on-line lecture notes, so be sure to study the lecture material, not just the class notes. The textbook material is less important than the notes, but much more detailed and will really help you understand the topics. The Class Reader is slightly less important than the textbook, but is still very important.
About 15-25% of the exam will be based on the material from the Class Reader. Carefully re-read the assignments and you should do fine on those questions. You should read each article/chapter at least twice and be able to fully explain the main points of each article. I recommend that you write a short summary of each article/chapter. And be sure to know who wrote the article - you'd never omit the author of a work of literature that you've been assigned to read!
A good way to sharpen your skills is to do the "Teach Yourself" excercises, and visit the Astronomy Help Room. And of course, nothing tops coming to my Office Hours for help.

This exam covers all material presented in class and all homework reading assignments: Textbook, Course Reader, and Class Web pages.

With regards to the class lecture material, study up to (and including) star and planet formation.
 Specifically, we have covered the following chapters in the textbook:
Ch 1
Ch 2
Ch 3
Ch 10.1, 10.3, 10.4 about "Habitable Zones"
Ch 11.1, parts of 11.2, 11.4
Chapter 3 contains the most material, so most of the exam questions will be related to Ch 3.
In the Course Reader, you are responsible for the following:
"The Search for Extraterrestrial Life" by Carl Sagan
"Claiborne Pell, Senator from Outer Space" by Martin Gardner
"Courtney Brown's Preposterous Farsight" by M. Gardner
"Are We Alone in the Cosmos?" by T. Owen
"Hallucinations" by Carl Sagan
"Creating False Memories" by E. Loftus
"Abducted!" by M. Shermer
"The UFO Controvercy and the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis" by S. Dick
 Be sure you are comfortable with all the assigned material in the Course Reader.
____________________________________________________________________

Here is a list of some material that you will NOT be responsible for knowing for this midterm exam:
Skip Greek astronomy and the Copernican Revolution, Ch 2.1 - 2.2, except for fig 2.6, p 23-24, and the "Geocentrism" section on p. 32 (don't skip those)
Skip Section 2.4 "Understanding Gravity"
Skip all of the "Movie Madness" sections
Skip "The Fine Tuned Universe" on p 68-69
Skip anything about neutron stars, pulsars; gamma ray bursts.
Skip anything about radioactive decay (for Exam #1 only).
Skip Ch 10.2, 10.5
Skip Ch 11.2 except the Doppler effect on p 373-375
Skip Ch 11.3
Skip details about the Hertzprung-Russell diagram, but do know the spectral types
 ____________________________________________________________________

The exam will consist of 50 multiple choice questions. Most will have 4 choices (a)-(d), but a few will have 5 choices (a)-(e). There is no penalty for guessing.

You will not need to know the values of any physical constants except the speed of light "c". You will not need to know exactly how many meters are in a parsec or how many meters in an AU, or how many meters in a light year. But you do need to know that 1 Mpc = 106 pc, and things like that (basically the metric system). You definitely need to know the definition of an AU, light year, parsec, etc., though not the numerical value.

You may be asked to do a few very simple math-related 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 and part of the electromagnetic spectrum does the peak of blackbody radiation from Venus' surface occur (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 = 50 km/s per Mpc?", but you may be asked "How do you determine the age of the Universe from Hubble's constant?".
____________________________________________________________________

Some typical exam questions:

According to Carl Sagan's article "The Search for Extraterrestrial Life",
there has been one (and only one) detection of life in the Solar System.
What was the name of the mission and what was the planet?
A) The Viking mission found evidence of life on Mars.
B) The Galileo mission found evidence of life on Europa.
C) The Cassini mission found evidence of life on Titan.
D) The Galileo mission found evidence of life on Earth.

Which of the following is FALSE?
A) The Doppler effect can be used to measure the radial velocity of a star.
B) We can measure the distance to galaxies using parallax.
B) Spectroscopy can tell us what a star is made of.
C) Spectroscopy can tell the temperature of a star.

Complete the analogy: A "kilogram" is to a "gram", as a "kilometer" is to a
A) "foot"
B) "meter"
C) "yard"
D) "centimeter"

Complete the analogy: A "Gigabyte" is to "byte", as "billion" is to
A) "one"
B) "ten"
C) "one tenth"
D) "million"

Complete the analogy: A "mile" is to a "yard", as a "kilometer" is to a
A) inch
B) yard
C) meter
D) nanometer

Complete the analogy: "Kelvin" is to "Celsius", as a "light year" is to
A) year
B) parsec
C) kilogram
D) Fahrenheit

Suppose a spectral line from an object in space was shifted from 5007.0 to 5100.0 Angstroms. What can we tell about this object?
A) It is a star.
B) It is very cold.
C) It is blueshifted, hence coming towards us.
D) Its radial velocity is positive, meaning it is moving away from us.

The most abundant element in the Universe is
A) carbon
B) hydrogen
C) iron
D) helium

Suppose Star #1 is cooler than Star #2. We can say with a high degree of certainty that Star #1:
A) appears fainter in the sky than Star #2
B) is bluer than Star #2.
C) is redder than Star #2.
D) is more massive than Star #2.
E) choices A) and B).

A web site reports the discovery of "a 25 billion year-old O star."
What is wrong with the report?
A) O stars only last a relatively short time, about 10 million years.
B) The star would be so faint that we couldn't see it.
C) The star would be older than the Universe.
D) both choices A and C
E) choices A, B and C

The Doppler effect can be used to
A) measure the distance to a star using the star's parallax
B) determine what a star is made of.
C) measure the temperature of a star.
D) measure the radial velocity of a star

More hints on what to know and focus on:
- What is "astrobiology"?
- What is Sagan's point in this quote from the Demon-Haunted World?: "Anything vague, especially involving conventional moral judgements, these aliens are happy to respond to. But on anything specific, where there is chance to find out if they actually know anything beyond what most humans know, there is only silence."
- What is the main discovery of Dr. Loftus' research?
- "Project Mogul" is mentioned in M. Shermer's chapter "Abducted!" and also in S. Dick's chapter "The UFO Controversy". What was Project Mogul?
- What was the "Condon Report"?
- What is the main point of Shermer's article?
- What is an "AU"?
- What is a light-year?
- What does it mean to say that by looking at the distant stars and galaxies are are looking back in time?
- What is an ion? What is a neutron? An isotope? What defines an element?
- What is an "organic molecule"?
- What does Wien's law tell us?
- If you see a blue star in the sky, is it likely to be hot or cold (astronomically speaking)?
- What is the Doppler effect?
- What is "cosmology"?
- Approximately what is age of the Universe? Why is the finite age of the universe important?
- What is the "cosmic microwave background"?
- Approximately what is age of the Solar System?
- What is the difference between a terrestrial and Jovian planet?
- Roughly what is the radius of the Solar System?
- Roughly how far away are the nearest stars?
- How long would it take for light to travel to the nearest star and back?
- How far away is the galactic center?
- What is "subjective evidence" and what are its limitations?
- What is "thermonuclear fusion"?
- What is a "habitable zone"?
- What is a planetary nebula?
- What is "stellar evolution"?
- If you see a blue star in the sky, is it likely to be young or old (astronomically speaking)?
- What does it mean to say "We are all made of `star stuff'?"
- What are supernovae? Why are they important for astrobiology?
- What makes a hypothesis a valid scientific hypothesis?
- What is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory?
- What are some of the pieces of evidence for the big bang theory?
- What does "panspermia" mean?
- What is "Occam's Razor"?
- What is considered the best hypothesis for the origin of the Moon?
- What is the atomic number of hydrogen?
- What is the difference between a "photon" and a "proton"?
- What is the "Stroop Effect", and what does it tell us?
- What is a AGN, and why is it important for astrobiology?
- What theme connects the articles of Shermer, Sagan, and Loftus?
- What is "The Myth of the Ancient Astronauts"?
- On our class web page is the following (paraphrased) quote: "There are countless Suns and countless Earths all rotating around their Suns exactly the same way as the planets of our system. The countless worlds in the universe are no worse and no less inhabited than our Earth." Who wrote this quote (and was burned at the stake for stating such heresy!)?
 - What is the diameter of the Milky Way?
- What is a nebula?
- What is a white dwarf?
- What is a protostellar disk?
- Why are protostellar disks flat?
- What is a redshift?
- If a star is moving away from us, is its velocity positive or negative?
- What is a cosmic ray?
- Why are cosmic rays important for biology?
- What is an emission line?
- How long does it take for a star & planet system to form?
- How long does an M-star "live"?
- What things make the Milky Way more friendly for life now than 11 billion years ago?
- What is a "habitable zone"?
- What is the speed of light (c) in km/s? In m/s?
- What is a "light year"? Why is it a distance, not a time?
- How many nanometers in a kilometer? How many micrograms in a kilogram?
- What is temperature?
- What does "absolute zero degrees Kelvin" mean?
- In the opening sequence of the film Contact, why do we hear radio broadcasts from the past?
- Why can't we trust subjective evidence?
- How old is the Sun? How long will it last? What is its spectral type? What is its surface temperature
- What is NASA's Astrobiology Institute?
- What is the electromagnetic spectrum?
- What is the "visible" or "optical" range of light in nanometers?
- What is spectroscopy?
- What is Hubble's constant?
- What is big bang nucleosynthesis?
Good Luck!