Phase Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Moon's orbit around the Earth

The Moon's orbit around the Earth is locked so we always see the same side. Throughout the four weeks of its orbit, sunlight strikes the Moon's surface at different angles, illuminating all, part, or none of it from our perspective. This cycle of illumination and thus visibility from the Earth is known as the phases of the Moon.

Answer: Mercury and Venus

Like the Earth, Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun. Since they orbit nearer the Sun, we can observe its illumination of their surfaces - all, part, or none - much as with the Moon. Unlike lunar phases, however, these inferior planets' phases can only be observed by telescope.

Answer: Yes

To someone on the Moon, the Earth has phases just as to someone on the Earth, the Moon has them, and for the same reason. Namely, at different points of the Moon's orbit around the Earth, sunlight illuminates all, part, or none of the observed body's visible surface from the perspective of the other body. Someone standing on the Moon could observe a gibbous earth while his friend on the Earth observed a crescent moon, or vice versa.

Answer: Water becoming ice

In a phase change, a substance transitions from one state of matter to another, as in a liquid water freezing into solid ice. Such a transition may either take up energy or release it. In the case of water freezing, heat is released.

Answer: Plasma

Plasma is an ionized gas. Yet, this description is misleading since, like each of the other states of matter, plasma has its own distinct properties. For instance, plasma is always an electrical conductor.

Answer: In all of these

Plasma is the commonest form of ordinary (baryonic) matter, occurring in the interstellar medium and in stars. Lightning and sparks are familiar terrestrial examples of plasmic phenomena, as are neon signs.

Answer: Their crests and troughs coincide

When waves are in phase, they boost or amplify one another.

Answer: In a book on physics

In physics and mathematics, phase space is a multidimensional construct in which each possible state of a dynamic system (momentum, for instance) is represented by a unique point. These points can be used to plot changes in the system but with far greater complexity and detail than a plot on a two-dimensional Cartesian plane graph.

Answer: In zoology: the variation - as black, brown, blond - within a species or population

Within a discipline, a term may have different significations depending on context. In biology and zoology, the term "color phase" can have several meanings. One of these is the range of coloration within a species or population, or even the colors themselves as in the phrase "brown phase".

Answer: Digging according to strata (that is layers), so as not to confuse the historical periods represented by the site

Early archaeologists all too often did not dig in phase, thus hopelessly jumbling the historical record of site occupation and cultural development. In modern archaeology, digging in phase is considered best practice. Doing so greatly increases the value of the site for the purposes of historical and cultural understanding, since it allows researchers to study artifacts in their proper contexts as well as to trace patterns of change and continuity over time.