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NY Regents Earth and Space Sciences Radiation and Spectra — practice questions

Explore 21 free Radiation and Spectra questions in NY Regents Earth and Space Sciences Science. Open each question or exercise to read its content, reference answers and available explanation.

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Radiation and Spectra questions and exercises with answers

Showing questions 1–21 of 21.

Which band of the electromagnetic spectrum holds the shortest wavelengths of all?Read the answer and worked solution →How fast does light travel through empty space?Read the answer and worked solution →Passing a beam of white sunlight through a prism produces which of these?Read the answer and worked solution →Which range of wavelengths does the human eye perceive as visible light?Read the answer and worked solution →A star moving away from us shifts the wavelengths of its spectral lines in which way?Read the answer and worked solution →Light waves with longer wavelengths always have which property?Read the answer and worked solution →A hotter glowing object radiates its peak power at which wavelengths?Read the answer and worked solution →A hot, thin gas viewed with no continuous source behind it shows which kind of spectrum?Read the answer and worked solution →Which element was identified in the Sun before anyone found it on Earth?Read the answer and worked solution →In the Bohr model, what does an electron do when it drops to a level nearer the nucleus?Read the answer and worked solution →Which astronomer discovered infrared in 1800 by placing a thermometer beyond the red?Read the answer and worked solution →AM radio waves cannot travel freely out through the atmosphere. What stops them?Read the answer and worked solution →What decides which element an atom belongs to?Read the answer and worked solution →What name is given to a single self-contained packet of electromagnetic energy?Read the answer and worked solution →A star is moved to ten times its present distance from us. How much fainter does it look?Read the answer and worked solution →Wien's law uses a constant of 3 million nanometer kelvins. A star radiates most strongly at 500 nanometers. What is its surface temperature?Read the answer and worked solution →Two stars are the same size and the same distance away, but star B is three times as hot as star A. How much more power does star B radiate?Read the answer and worked solution →Dark lines cross the spectrum of the Sun. Where do the atoms that remove those colors sit?Read the answer and worked solution →Excited atoms give back the very light they absorbed, yet dark absorption lines still survive. Why?Read the answer and worked solution →Pick the longer wavelengthRead the answer and worked solution →Sort light by what gets throughRead the answer and worked solution →

Worked practice questions

Which band of the electromagnetic spectrum holds the shortest wavelengths of all?

  1. Radio waves
  2. Microwaves
  3. Infrared
  4. Gamma rays
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Correct answer: D. Gamma rays

1. The spectrum runs from very long waves to very short ones. 2. Radiation with the shortest wavelengths, no longer than 0.01 nanometer, is gamma rays. 3. Radio waves sit at the opposite end, with the longest waves of the family. _Source: OpenStax Astronomy (CC BY 4.0), Ch 4 "Earth, Moon, and Sky" and Ch 5 "Radiation and Spectra", section 5.2 The Electromagnetic Spectrum_

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How fast does light travel through empty space?

  1. About 300,000 kilometers per second
  2. About 300,000 kilometers per hour
  3. About 30,000 kilometers per second
  4. About 3,000 kilometers per second
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Correct answer: A. About 300,000 kilometers per second

1. Light covers a fixed distance in each second of travel. 2. That distance is about 300,000 kilometers, so the speed is 300,000 kilometers per second. 3. Even at this speed light needs more than 4 years to reach us from the nearest star. _Source: OpenStax Astronomy (CC BY 4.0), Ch 4 "Earth, Moon, and Sky" and Ch 5 "Radiation and Spectra", section 5.1 The Behavior of Light_

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Passing a beam of white sunlight through a prism produces which of these?

  1. A single beam of violet
  2. A pair of dark shadows
  3. A ring of white light
  4. A band of all the colors
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Correct answer: D. A band of all the colors

1. White sunlight is not a single color but a mixture. 2. A prism bends each wavelength by a slightly different amount and spreads them apart. 3. The result is a band showing all the colors of the rainbow, called a spectrum. _Source: OpenStax Astronomy (CC BY 4.0), Ch 4 "Earth, Moon, and Sky" and Ch 5 "Radiation and Spectra", section 5.3 Spectroscopy in Astronomy_

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Earth, Moon, and Sky