How Could Astronomers Detect a Large Asteroid If It Were

question 153

Multiple Choice

How could astronomers detect a large asteroid if it were heading straight for Earth?

• A) The asteroid would appear as a slowly brightening starlike object where no star was previously charted, with a redshifted solar spectrum of reflected light.
• B) The asteroid would appear as a short trail against the background stars on a sky-tracked long-exposure photograph, and its spectrum would show no Doppler shift.
• C) The asteroid would appear as a slowly brightening point of light where no star had previously been charted, and the spectrum of sunlight reflected from it would be blueshifted by the Doppler effect.
• D) The asteroid would appear as a slowly brightening and growing diffuse sphere of light where no star was charted because of light scattered from the dust and gas surrounding it, and it would show a blueshifted spectrum.

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