Name_______________________Date___________Period____

Ancient and Early Astronomers Exam

_____1. Which two early astronomers were supporters of the geo-centric, or Earth-
centered model of the solar system?
a. Aristotle and Galileo
b. Galileo and Copernicus
c. Aristotle and Ptolemy
d. Copernicus and Ptolemy
_____2. Who developed three important laws of astronomy?
a. Tycho Brahe
b. Albert Einstein
c. Johannes Kepler
d. Daniel Young
_____3. Why was it important for the ancients (people who lived long ago) to study
astronomy?
a. predicting eclipses
b. measuring and recording sunspots
c. astrology and mythology
d. farming, understanding seasons and navigation
_____4. What is a constellation made up of?
a. a group of stars that appear to make a pattern
b. a group of galaxies
c. a group of stars that are fairly close to each other in space
d. a large mainly round object that orbits the sun and doesn't
have any object orbiting in its path
_____ 5. Sailors use what star to navigate on long voyages because it is the brightest
star in the night sky and it does not move its position in the sky throughout
the course of the night?
a. The Big Dipper
b. The North Star
c. The Sun
d. Venus
_____6. Copernicus placed the at the center of the solar system, with the
planets orbiting around it.
a. moon
b. Sun
c. Earth
d. planets
_____7. Brahe's observations, especially of , were far more precise than
any
made previously.
a. Earth
b. galaxies
c. eclipses
d. the planets
_____8. is the force that keeps planets in orbit around the Sun.
a. Rotation
b. Gravity
c. Motion
d. Ozone
_____9. What is the shape of a planet's orbit?
a. circular
b. irregular
c. elliptical
d. constantly changing
_____10. Which astronomer formulated and tested the law of universal gravitation?
a. Isaac Newton
b. Kepler
c. Brahe
d. Ptolemy
_____11. What did Galileo not see?
a. Mountains on the earth's moon.
b. Uranus's moons Titania and Oberon
c. Jupiter's 4 largest moons.
d. The phases of Venus.
_____12. Which astronomer of antiquity first applied a telescope to astronomical
observation?
a. Ptolemy
b. Copernicus
c. Tycho Brahe
d. Galileo Galilei
_____13. Retrograde motion is exhibited
a. by planets.
b. by the moon.
c. by the Sun.
d. during eclipses.
_____14. The Mayans built a structure at Chichen Itza that resembles todays
a. planetariums
b. observatories
c. solariums
d. terrariums
_____15. Which ancient civilization possibly aligned their buildings to line up with
Orion’s Belt stars?
a. Greeks
b. Romans
c. Egyptians
d. Mayans
_____16. The Sun Dagger tool helped early North American Indians by measuring
a. the positions of the stars
b. the solar and lunar eclipses
c. the solstices and equinoxes
d. sunrise and sunset
_____17. The Big Dipper is part of which constellation?
a. Ursa minor
b. Cassiopeia
c. Orion
d. Ursa major
_____18. The constellation of Leo and Taurus are in this group of constellations
a. zodiac
b. mythology
c. winter
d. summer
_____19. Heliocentric means
a. Earth centered
b. Moon centered
c. Mars centered
d. Sun centered
_____20. The North Star is found in this constellation
a. Leo
b. Ursa minor
c. Orion
d. Scorpio
_____21. What tool was used for navigation by early mariners?
a. sextant
 b. compass
c. telescope
d. GPS

_____22. If you are standing at the North Pole. Where would you locate the North
Star?
a. on the horizon
b. you would not be able to see it
c. directly overhead
d. 30 degrees above the horizon
_____23. Maria Mitchell discovered this en looking through her telescope one
evening
a. asteroid
b. comet
c. satellite
d. moon
_____24. This astronomer discovered more than 2,400 variable stars
a. Edwin Hubble
b. Galileo
c. Stephen Hawking
d. Henrietta Leavitt
_____25. Responsible for most of the named constellations in the Northern
Hemisphere
a. Egyptians
b. Mayans
c. Greeks
d. Babylonians