Cosmos Episode 4 Worksheet
Directions: Answer the questions as you watch episode 4 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. What does William Herschel mean when he tells his son there is a “sky full of ghosts”?
2. How fast does light travel in space?
3. Why do we see the Sun rise before it is over the horizon?
4.How far away is Neptune from the Earth (in light hours)?
5. How long would it take the Voyager Spacecraft to reach the nearest star in our galaxy?
6. Using the idea of how fast light travels, how do scientists know our universe is older than 6500 years?
7. How far away from Earth is the center of the Milky Way Galaxy?
8.How far away is the oldest galaxy we’ve ever discovered?
9. Why does no one know what happened before the Big Bang?
10. How long after the Big Bang did it take for stars to form?
11. Who discovered field forces that act on us even when we’re not touching other objects?
12. How fast do waves move through space, as calculated by James Maxwell?
13. Why did Einstein’s family move from Germany to Northern Italy?
14. What two things did the book Einstein read as a kid discuss on the first page?
15. What did Einstein call the “rules” that must be obeyed when traveling at high speeds?
16. What is the name of the man Neil deGrasse Tyson calls “one of the greatest scientists you’ve probably never heard of” and what did he discover?
17. What happened to the fire hydrant when it was exposed to 100,000g?
18. What is the name of the first black hole ever discovered and how did we “see” it?
19. Why does Neil deGrasse Tyson call black holes the “subway system of the Universe”?
20. If getting sucked into a black hole could cause an explosion similar to the Big Bang, what would be in the center of that black hole?
21. What type of “time travel” did John Herschel invent?
22. What is the date that Neil deGrasse Tyson met Carl Sagan in Ithaca, New York?
Cosmos Episode 5 Worksheet
Directions:Answer the questions as you watch episode 5 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. What are two things Neil deGrasse Tyson says helped usevolvedfrom a band of wandering hunting and gatheringancestorsto a global civilization?
2. What type of camera did Mo Tzu invent?
3. What three things should all doctrines be tested with according to Mo Tzu’s book “Against Fate”?
4. What was the name of the first Emperor of China that wanted everything in China to be uniform?
5. What happened to the books written by Mo Tzu?!
6. During Ibn Alhazen’s time, what was the agreed upon hypothesis of how we see things?
7. Where did our current number system and the concept of zero come from?
8. What important property of light did Alhazen discover with only his tent, a piece of wood, and a ruler?
9. What must happen to light in order for an image to form?
10. How is the lens of a telescope and light like a big bucket and rain?
11. What was Alhazen’s greatest contribution to science?
12. What is the name of the only particle that can travel at the speed of light?
13. The word “spectrum” comes from a Latin word meaning what?
14. What did William Herschel’s experiment with light and heat prove?
15. What was the profession of the man that kept an 11 year old Joseph Fraunhofer as a slave?
16. How did Joseph Fraunhofer get to meet the future King of Bavaria?
17. Where did the King’s counselor offer Joseph Fraunhofer a job?
18. Why are organ pipes in the Abbey different lengths?
19. What is the difference between light and sound waves as they travel?
20. What determines the color of light we see?
21. Which color has the lowest energy?
22. Why are there dark bands in the spectra Joseph Fraunhofer saw?
23. What is the force that holds atoms together?
24. How old was Joseph Fraunhofer when he fell ill and what probably caused it?
25. What did Joseph Fraunhofer discover about the elements that make up the universe?
Cosmos Episode 6 Worksheet
Directions:Answer the questions as you watch episode 6 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. About how many atoms does Neil deGrasse Tyson say that he’s made up of?
2. How many hydrogen and oxygen atoms are in one molecule of water?
3. Why do the water molecules move faster when the sun hit them?
4. What has to happen to the water molecules before they can evaporate?
5. How long have tardigrades been living on Earth?
6. What are the “holes” in the moss called that take in carbon dioxide and “exhale” oxygen?
7. What does a plant need in order to break water into hydrogen and oxygen?
8. Why is photosynthesis the “ultimate green energy”?
9. How long can a tardigrade go without water?
10. When did the firstflowering plants evolve?
11. What didCharles Darwinconclude about the orchid based on his idea ofNatural Selection?
12. How much of Madagascar’s rain forests have been destroyed?
13. What is the name of the nerve that is stimulated when we smell something?
14. Why do certain scents trigger memories?
15. How does the number of atoms in every breath we take compare to all the stars in all the known galaxies?
16. What idea about nature was first expressed by Thales?
17. What was the name of the ancient Greek philosopher who came up with the idea of atoms?
18. What is the only element that is flexible enough to create different structures necessary to sustain life?
19. How did Neil deGrasse Tyson explain that the boy did not really touch the girl?
20. How many protons and electrons does an atom of gold have?
21. Why is the Sun so hot?
22. What is the “ash” in the Sun’s nuclear furnace?
23. How are heavier elements, like iron, made?
24. How much distilled water is in the neutrino trap?
25. Why did neutrinos reach the Earth 3 hours before anyone knew of the Supernova 1987A?
26. What law of Physics made it possible for Neil deGrasse Tyson not to flinch when the red ball came swinging back at his face?
27. How did Wolfgang Pauli explain the “breaking” of the law of conservation of energy in radioactive isotopes?
28. Why can we not go further back than 15 minutes into January 1 on the “cosmic calendar”?
29. About what size was the universe when it was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old?
Cosmos Episode 7 Worksheet
Directions: Answer the questions as you watch episode 7 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. What is happening to the Earth at its very beginnings?
2. What date for the beginning of the Earth did James Ussher give based on his study of the Bible?
3. What type of life was dominant in the Precambrian Time?
4. Why is figuring out the age of the Earth by counting the layers of rock not accurate?
5. Between what two planets do we find the leftover “brick and mortar” from making the Earth?
6. What stable element does Uranium break down into after about 10 transformations?
7. What happened to the rocks that were around at the birth of the Earth?
8. On what famous project did Clare Patterson and his wife work together?
9. What kind of crystals did Harrison Brown ask Clare Patterson to work on?
10. What conclusion did Clare Patterson come to about why his repeated experiments gave wildly different data about lead?
11. What did Clare Patterson need to build before he could completely rule out lead contamination in his sample?
12. Who are two of the scientists Clare Patterson thanks as he waits for his sample to finish in the spectrometer?
13. What was the true age of the Earth found to be and who was the first person he told?
14. Who is the Roman god of lead?
15. What modern holiday did Saturnalia turn into?
16. What is the “bad” side of the god Saturn similar to?
17. Why is lead poisonous to humans?
18. Why did Thomas Midgley and Charles Kettering add lead to gasoline?
19. Why was Dr. Kehoe hired by GM?
20. What organization gave Clare Patterson the grant to study the amount of lead in the ocean?
21. How did Clare Patterson conclude the oceans were being contaminated by leaded gasoline?
22. When the petroleum corporations took away their funding for Patterson’s research, who stepped in to fund him?
23. What did Patterson find in the polar ice?
24. How long did Patterson have to fight before lead was banned from gasoline?
25. How much did lead poisoning in children drop after lead was banned?
Cosmos Episode 8 Worksheet
Directions: Answer the questions as you watch episode 8 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. What is the cost for having all of our electric lights?
2. How much brighter than the Sun are the Pleiades?
3. In the Kiowa myth about the Pleiades, what famous tourist attraction did the rock the women were on become?
4. In the Greek myth of the Pleiades, what was the name of the hunter that chased after Atlas’s daughters?
5. What did Edward Charles Pickering call the room full of women he employed?
6. How many stars did Annie Jump Cannon catalog?
7. How did Annie Jump Cannon lose her hearing?
8. What did Henrietta Swan Levitt discover?
9. How many major categories of stars are there?
10. What American University accepted Cecelia Payne?
11. What did Henry Norris Russell discover about the Earth and the Sun?
12. After listening to Russell’s speech, what did Payne figure out about Cannon’s data?
13. Why did Russell reject Payne’s thesis?
14. Which stars are considered “newborns”?
15. How old are most of the stars in the Big Dipper?
16. What kind of star will the Sun be after it becomes 100 times its original size?
17. What kind of star will the Sun be after it collapses like a “soufflé”?
18. What is the name of the brightest star in our sky?
19. What is the fate of the star Rigel?
20. With a star as big as Alnilam in Orion’s belt, what will it eventually become after it implodes?
21. What pattern did the Aboriginal people of Australia see in between the stars?
22. How far away is the star in our galaxy that will hypernova?
23. When hydrogen fuses in the Sun, what does it make?
24. How long will it be before Orion finally catches up to the Pleiades?
Cosmos Episode 9 Worksheet
Directions: Answer the questions as you watch episode 9 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.
1.On what day of the “cosmic calendar” is 350 million years ago?
2. Why could insects grow to be so much larger 350 million years ago than they can today?
3. How do insects take in oxygen?
4. How big was most vegetation on land before trees evolved?
5. What happened to the trees in the Carboniferous Period after they died?
6. Where were the eruptions centered during the mass extinction in the Permian Period?
7. What had the buried trees in the Carboniferous Period turned into and why was this bad during the time of the eruptions in the Permian Period?
8. What is another name for the Permian mass extinction event?
9. New England was a neighbor to which geographical area 220 million years ago?
10. The lakes that broke apart the great supercontinent turned into what eventually?
11. What did Abraham Ortelius say ripped America away from Europe and Africa?
12. How did most scientists in the early 1900s explain that certain dinosaur fossils were found in both Africa and South America?
13. How did Alfred Wegener explain why there were the same mountains on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean?
14. What happened to Alfred Wegener the day after his 50th birthday?
15. What did Marie Tharp discover in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after drawing a map of the ocean floor?
16. How much of the Earth lies beneath 1000 feet of water?
17. What is the longest submarine mountain range in the world?
18. What is the name of the deepest canyon on Earth and how deep is it?
19. How do species get light at the bottom of the ocean?
20. What is the process bacteria use in the trenches in order to make food when sunlight doesn’t reach that far?
21. What created the Hawaiian Islands millions of years ago?
22. What is the core of the Earth made of?
23. What two things keeps the mantle a molten liquid?
24. How long were dinosaurs on the Earth?
25. What did Neil deGrasse Tyson say the temperature of the Mediterranean basin was hot enough to do when it was still a desert?
26. How did tectonic forces bring North and South America together?
27. What two adaptations did early human ancestors develop in order to swing from trees and to travel short distances?
28. Why were human ancestors forced to adapt to living and traveling on the ground?
29. What caused the Earth to tilt on in axis?
30. How did the human ancestors get to North America?
31. How long is the current intermission in the Ice Age projected to last?
32. How long has the unbroken “string of life” been going?
Cosmos Episode 10 Worksheet
Directions: Answer the questions as you watch episode 10 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. What is the name of the man Neil deGrasse Tyson says that had he not lived, the world we know may not exist today?
2. Whose ancestral home does Neil deGrasse Tyson visit as he begins telling his story?
3. Who does the little boy in the animation with the compass grow up to be?
4. In what year was Michael Faraday born?
5. What problem with his speech did a young Michael Faraday have?
6. What does the teacher in the animation tell Michael Faraday’s brother to go and do?
7. Where did Michael Faraday begin working when he was 13 years old?
8. How did Michael Faraday gain the attention of Humphry Davy?
9. What happened to Humphry Davy when his experiment went terribly wrong?
10. Where did Michael Faraday call his lifelong home?
11. What did Humphry Davy notice about a wire will electricity running through it as he brought it near a compass?
12. What does Neil deGrasse Tyson say was all Michael Faraday needed to “start a revolution”?
13. What had Michael Faraday created when his wife’s brother flipped the switch for the electricity?
14. What was Humphry Davy’s next project for Michael Faraday and why did he give him that particular project?
15. What brought about the end to the fruitless project Michael Faraday had been stuck on for years?
16. Name three famous scientists who have participated in Faraday’s Annual Christmas Lectures.
17. What had Michael Faraday created when he moved a magnet in and out of a wire?
18. Michael Faraday believed in the “unity of nature”. What did he think could be related to electricity and magnetism?
19. How did the hunk of glass Michael Faraday kept from his failed experiments with lenses help him prove the unity of natural forces?
20. What problems was Michael Faraday having with his health?
21. What did Michael Faraday discover when he sprinkled iron filings around current carrying wires?
22. How do birds use the magnetic field of the Earth?
23. What creates the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth?
24. Why did Michael Faraday’s contemporaries in science not believe his hypothesis about field forces?
25. What mathematician helped prove Michael Faraday’s hypothesis about magnetic fields?
26. Why does Neil deGrasse Tyson not flinch when the heavy red ball comes swinging back at his face?
27. Instead of being static, Michael Faraday’s magnetic field lines turned out to be more like what?
Cosmos Episode 11 Worksheet
Directions: Answer the questions as you watch episode 11 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
1. How does Neil deGrasse Tyson say our ancestors marked the passage of time?
2. Where was civilization, including written language, born?
3.Enheduanna is considered to be the first person to do what?
4. What is the name of Enheduanna’s poem that an excerpt is read from?
5. What is the name of the hero in the story of the great flood?
6. How many years before the Bible was written was this account of the great flood?
7. In what form does everyone carry the message of life in their bodies?
8. What kind of molecules may have gotten together in the sunlit pools of water to form the first life?
9. Where, underwater, could the first life have formed?
10. How could the first life have “hitchhiked” to Earth?
11. What was the name of the village near Alexandria, Egypt where the meteor hit in 1911?
12. Where was the meteorite that hit Egypt originally from?
13. How can meteorites be “interplanetary arks”?
14. How could life on Earth have survived the large number of asteroid and meteor strikes early in its life history?