Telescopes and space missions

Grade 9 Science Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. 1.

   Four plan cards, labeled A to D. Esme plans to study faint, cool dust clouds that glow in far infrared. Which plan fits?

   • A radio dish, since infrared is radio
   • A small telescope flown closer to the clouds
   • A cooled infrared telescope in space
   • A visible-light telescope on a mountain
2. 2.

   NASA: Voyager 1 is near one light-day from Earth, more than 16 billion miles. If the team sends a command, when will they see the reply, by Jun's math?

   • About 1 day
   • At once
   • About 2 days
   • About 16 billion seconds
3. 3.

   1 light-day ≈ 2.6 × 10¹⁰ km; 1 AU ≈ 1.5 × 10⁸ km. About how many AU is one light-day (about 2.6 × 10¹⁰ km), using 1 AU ≈ 1.5 × 10⁸ km, by Kira's math?

   • About 173 AU
   • About 0.006 AU
   • About 17,300 AU
   • About 1.7 AU
4. 4.

   Two mirrors, one twice as wide, with areas shaded. Milo's cousin says doubling a mirror's width doubles the light it gathers. Which response is best?

   • Disagree: mirror size does not matter
   • Agree: and doubling again gives 3 times
   • Agree: light grows with width
   • Disagree: twice as wide gathers 4 times the light
5. 5.

   Noah's friend says Mission Control can steer a Mars rover live, like a video game. Which response is best?

   • Disagree: signals take minutes each way, so commands are planned
   • Agree: the delay is under a second
   • Agree: radio reaches Mars at once
   • Disagree: rovers get no commands
6. 6.

   Light gathered grows with diameter squared. A team wants images 4 times as bright from faint galaxies. By how much must the mirror's diameter grow, by Ren's math?

   • It cannot be done
   • Twice the diameter
   • 16 times the diameter
   • 4 times the diameter
7. 7.

   17 km/s; one year 3.16 × 10⁷ s. NASA gives Voyager 1's speed as about 17 km/s (61,000 km/h) relative to the Sun. About how far does it go in one year (3.16 × 10⁷ s), by Tala's math?

   • About 1 AU
   • About 540 million km, about 3.6 AU
   • About 17 km
   • About 5.4 × 10¹⁵ km, a light-year
8. 8.

   Four mission cards, labeled A to D. Which pairing of mission and type is right, by Zee's reading?

   • Voyager 1: a lander
   • Hubble: a Mars rover
   • New Horizons at Pluto: a flyby
   • Perseverance on Mars: an orbiter
9. 9.

   The spectrum with the air's open and blocked bands, plus ground and space telescopes. Why do astronomers use both ground and space telescopes, by Ari's reading?

   • Ground ones can be huge; space ones see the blocked light
   • Ground telescopes see each kind of light, so space adds little
   • Space ones are closer to the stars
   • Bigger mirrors matter just in space
10. 10.

    Voyager 1 launched in 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and is still sending data (NASA). Why does a one-light-day distance make every command a careful plan, by Bo's reading?

    • Voyager is just a few hundred km away
    • Commands arrive at once
    • Each command takes a day to arrive, and the reply a day to return
    • Voyager is a rover on Mars