Explain why in space, "no one can hear you scream."
What will be an ideal response?
Screams, and any sound that we make, are pressure waves traveling through a gas of atoms and molecules. We perceive sound when these waves strike our eardrums and cause them to vibrate. However, it takes many trillions of such particles to move our eardrums noticeably, and in interstellar space, where the gas density is extremely low, there would be too few (if any) collisions with our eardrums for us to hear sound.
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Which of the following would you expect to be very common in globular clusters?
A) high-mass main-sequence stars B) low-mass main-sequence stars C) supernova remnants D) x-ray binaries E) supergiant stars
At a pressure of 1 atmosphere a column of mercury in a barometer is supported to the height h = 0.76 m. The density of mercury is 13.6 × 10^3 kg/m3 . A barometer of similar design filled with water would support a column of water how high at a pressure of 1 atmosphere?
a. more than ten times h c. less than one tenth h b. about 1.36h d. the same height h
Molecular hydrogen, H2, is thought to be the most abundant molecule in interstellar space, but it is difficult to detect. Which easily detected molecule occurs in space along with hydrogen, the measurement of which allows us to estimate the amounts of molecular hydrogen?
a. CO, carbon monoxide
b. H2O, water vapor
c. CO2, carbon dioxide
d. CH3, methyl radical
Evidence to support the fact that Earth's central core is solid can be attributed to
A) a decrease in S-wave velocity as they encounter and move through the inner core. B) an increase in P-wave velocity as they encounter and move through the inner core. C) a decrease in P-wave velocity as they encounter and move through the inner core. D) an increase in S-wave velocity as they encounter and move through the inner core.