Everything in Space in a 25-Minute Quiz

Question: What is thought to cause the powerful radio and X-ray emissions from the galaxy Virgo A and the disk of hot, ionized gas at its centre?

Answer: Virgo A, a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo also known as M87, is the most powerful known source of radio energy in the so-called Virgo Cluster. It is also a powerful X-ray source. In 1994 the Hubble Space Telescope obtained images of Virgo A that showed a disk of hot, ionized gas about 500 light-years in diameter at a distance of about 60 light-years from the galaxy’s centre.

Question: What suddenly flares brightly in the night sky, can be seen by the naked eye, and is often mistaken for a new star before fading to its previous level of luminosity?

Answer: Stars that become novas are nearly always too faint before eruption to be seen with the unaided eye. Their sudden increase in luminosity, however, is sometimes great enough to make them readily visible in the nighttime sky. To observers, such objects may appear to be new stars; hence the name nova, from the Latin word for “new.”

Question: Which branch of astronomy has used electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths from about one micrometre to one millimetre to gather information on star formation and on interstellar gas and dust?

Answer: Various types of celestial objects give off energy at wavelengths in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e., from about one micrometre to one millimetre). The techniques of infrared astronomy enable investigators to examine many such objects that cannot otherwise be seen from Earth because the light of optical wavelengths that they emit is blocked by intervening dust particles.

Question: What is the term for the visible surface of the Sun?

Answer: The photosphere is the visible surface of the Sun, about 400 km (250 miles) thick, from which is emitted most of the Sun’s light that reaches the Earth directly. Large-scale photographic images of the photosphere show it to have a granular structure.

Question: Which star is nearest to Earth’s solar system?

Answer: Alpha Centauri is a triple star the faintest component of which, Proxima Centauri, is the closest star to the Sun, about 4.2 light-years distant.

Question: What surface features, thought by early observers to be large bodies of water, form the facial features of “the man in the Moon”?

Answer: In actuality, the Moon’s maria (singular: mare) are huge lava flows marked by ridges, graben, rilles, and faults and are devoid of any water. Maria are the largest topographic features on the Moon and can be seen from Earth with the unaided eye. They form the face of “the man in the Moon.”

Question: What appear transiently on the surface of the Sun and exist mostly in sets of two or more?

Answer: A sunspot is a vortex of gas on the surface of the Sun associated with strong local magnetic activity. Spots may last for months. Single sunspots do appear, but most are in pairs or groups. They may be several times larger than Earth or so small that telescopic observation is difficult.

Question: What reaction involving atomic nuclei is the source of the Sun’s energy?

Answer: The Sun is powered by nuclear fusion, a process by which nuclear reactions between light elements form heavier ones (up to iron). Substantial amounts of energy are released in cases where the interacting nuclei belong to elements with low atomic numbers.

Question: What type of dark object may form when interstellar cloud matter contracts but does not generate the thermonuclear reactions typical of luminous stars?

Answer: A brown dwarf is a hypothetical astronomical object that is intermediate between a planet and a star. Unlike stars, however, brown dwarfs do not have mass enough to generate the internal heat that in stars ignites hydrogen and establishes thermonuclear fusion reactions, which are the source of stellar energies. Though they generate some heat and some light, brown dwarfs also cool rapidly and shrink.

Question: At current rates of energy expenditure, what is expected to last another 5 billion years?

Answer: The Sun is about halfway through its 10 billion year lifespan. For comparison: a star of twice the Sun’s mass burns its fuel at such a rate that it lasts about 3 billion years, and a star of 10 times the Sun’s mass has a lifetime measured in tens of millions of years.

Question: How long does it take for the Sun to complete one rotation at its equator?

Answer: The rotation of the Sun is a function of depth and latitude. The interior below the convective zone rotates as a solid body. At the surface, rotation is fastest at the equator and slowest at the poles. At the equator the sunspots rotate at a 25-day rate, at high latitudes at a 28- or 29-day rate.

Question: Which planet owes its deep blue colour to the absorption of red light by methane gas in its atmosphere?

Answer: Neptune’s outer atmosphere is composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium. Most of the remaining molecules consist of methane gas. Hydrogen and helium are nearly invisible, but methane strongly absorbs red light. Sunlight reflected off Neptune’s clouds therefore exits the atmosphere with most of its red colours removed. This effect is responsible for Neptune’s blue appearance.

Question: What is the largest moon of Saturn?

Answer: Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the only satellite in the solar system known to have clouds and a dense atmosphere. The diameter of Titan is 5,150 km (3,200 miles), making it the second largest moon (after Ganymede) in the solar system.

Question: Which planet is named after the Roman god of agriculture?

Answer: Saturn is easily visible to the naked eye as a point of light and has thus been known to humans since prehistoric times. Its modern name derives from the Roman god of agriculture, known to the Greeks as Cronus, the father of Zeus.

Question: Which discipline is concerned with the geologic aspects of all solid bodies in the solar system, including the major planets and their satellites, asteroids, comets, and meteorites?

Answer: Astrogeology is the scientific discipline concerned with the geologic aspects of all solid bodies in the solar system, including the major planets and their satellites, asteroids, comets, and meteorites. As the name implies, astrogeology constitutes a bridge between the fields of astronomy and geology.

Question: What term denotes the time taken for the solar system to revolve once around the Milky Way Galaxy?

Answer: A cosmic year is equal to about 225 million years, which is the time required for the solar system to revolve once around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Question: What is the colour of blood and has satellites named Fear and Terror?

Answer: Because of its blood-red colour, Mars has often been associated with gods of war. (Indeed, it is named for the Roman god of war. The Greeks called it Ares for their god of battle.) The planet’s two satellites, Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror), were named for two of the sons of Ares and Aphrodite.

Question: Which are the only two planets of the solar system that do not have any natural satellites?

Answer: Most known natural satellites (i.e., moons) orbit planets; the Earth’s Moon is the most obvious example. All the planets in the solar system except Mercury and Venus have natural satellites.

Question: Which planet has two continent-size highlands called Ishtar Terra and Aphrodite Terra?

Answer: A number of Earth-based observatories and Venus-orbiting spacecraft have provided global-scale information on the nature of Venus’s surface. Two striking features are the continent-size highland areas, or terrae: Ishtar Terra in the northern hemisphere and Aphrodite Terra along the equator. Ishtar is roughly the size of Australia, while Aphrodite is comparable in area to South America. Ishtar possesses the most spectacular topography on Venus.

Question: When the Moon enters both umbra and penumbra, what has it done?

Answer: In a total eclipse, after the Moon leaves the umbra, it must still pass through the penumbra, the outer, partial shadow. When the border between umbra and penumbra is visible on the Moon, the border is seen to be part of a circle, the projection of the circumference of the Earth.

Question: Which planet has the strongest magnetic field?

Answer: Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field of any planet, with a magnetosphere so large that it would exceed the apparent diameter of the Moon if it could be seen from the Earth.

Question: Before the Sun dies, what will its outer envelope expand to create?

Answer: The Sun is destined to perish as a white dwarf. But, before that happens, it will evolve into a red giant, engulfing Mercury and Venus in the process. At the same time, it will blow away the Earth’s atmosphere and boil its oceans, making the planet uninhabitable. (None of these events will come to pass for several billion years.)

Question: What is measured in parsecs?

Answer: The parsec is a unit used by astronomers for expressing distances to stars and galaxies. It represents the distance at which the radius of the Earth’s orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc. One parsec equals 3.26 light-years, which is equivalent to 30.9 trillion kilometres (19.2 trillion miles).

Question: Which constellation has three bright stars in the hunter’s belt and a nebula in his sword?

Answer: Orion, named for the Greek mythological hunter, is one of the most conspicuous constellations. Orion’s belt consists of three bright stars; it lies nearly on the celestial equator. His sword, south of the belt, contains the Orion Nebula, visible to the unaided eye, an emission nebula containing hundreds of young stars.

Question: Which planet is named after one of the greatest of the Greco-Roman gods but has moons named after characters in plays by William Shakespeare?

Answer: Uranus was discovered in 1781 by the English astronomer William Herschel. It was eventually named according to the tradition of naming planets for the gods of Greek and Roman mythology; Uranus is the father of Saturn, who is in turn the father of Jupiter. The names of Uranus’s four satellites come from English literature, three taken from William Shakespeare’s plays.

Question: Once used to denote any astronomical object that was “misty” or “cloudy” rather than sharp and clear, what term now refers more exclusively to the gas and solid particles of the interstellar medium?

Answer: A nebula (Latin: “mist” or “cloud”) is any of the various tenuous clouds of gas and dust that occur in interstellar space. The term was formerly applied to any object outside the solar system that had a diffuse appearance rather than a pointlike image, as in the case of a star. Today the term nebula generally refers exclusively to the interstellar medium.

Question: What astral formation is created by a dark cloud of dust rising in front of an illuminated cloud of ionized gas?

Answer: The Horsehead Nebula is an ionized-hydrogen region in the constellation Orion. The nebula consists of a cloud of ionized gas lit from within by young, hot stars; a dark cloud containing interstellar dust lies immediately in front.

Question: The gravitational force felt on the Moon is what fraction of the force felt on Earth?

Answer: Because of the Moon’s small size and mass, its surface gravity is only about one-sixth of Earth’s.

Question: Which of these planets is not a Jovian planet?

Answer: Of the eight currently recognized planets of the solar system, the inner four (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are called terrestrial planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are called giant planets or Jovian planets. 

Question: In 2011 a planet completed its first revolution of the Sun since it was discovered in 1846. Which planet is this?

Answer: Neptune’s orbital period is about 165 Earth years. In 2011 it finally completed its first orbit of the Sun since its discovery in 1846.

Question: Who discovered Uranus?

Answer: In 1781, during his third and most complete survey of the night sky, William Herschel came upon an object that he realized was not an ordinary star. It proved to be the planet Uranus, the first planet to be discovered since prehistoric times. Herschel became famous almost overnight.

Question: What dwarf planet was once classified as a planet?

Answer: In August 2006 the International Astronomical Union voted to remove Pluto from the list of planets and give it the new classification of dwarf planet. The change reflects astronomers’ understanding of Pluto as a large member of the Kuiper belt.

Question: What planet is closest to the Sun and appears low in the sky as an evening star or morning star?

Answer: Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun. It revolves around the Sun at an average distance of 58 million kilometres. Mercury is never more than 27 degrees 45 minutes of angle away from the Sun and is thus seen as a “morning star” just before sunrise or an “evening star” just after sunset.

Question: What planet is the brightest in the sky?

Answer: When visible from Earth, Venus is the brightest planet in the sky. Viewed through a telescope, it presents a brilliant, yellow-white, essentially featureless face to the observer.

Question: What term signifies the measure of the brightness of a star or other celestial body?

Answer: Stellar brightnesses are usually expressed by means of their magnitudes, a usage inherited from Classical times. A star of the first magnitude is about 2.5 times as bright as one of the second magnitude, which in turn is some 2.5 times as bright as one of the third magnitude, and so on.

Question: What is on top of Mount Palomar, in California, that allows access to space?

Answer: Palomar Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on Mount Palomar, about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of San Diego, California. The observatory is the site of the Hale Telescope, a reflector with a 508-cm (200-inch) aperture that has proved instrumental in cosmological research.

Question: What is albedo?

Answer: Albedo is the fraction of light that is reflected by a body or surface. It is commonly used in astronomy to describe the reflective properties of planets, satellites, and asteroids.

Question: What theory proposes that the universe expanded rapidly from a highly compressed primordial state?

Answer: The big-bang model is a widely held theory of the evolution of the universe. Its essential feature is the explosive emergence of the universe from a state of extremely high temperature and density—the so-called big bang that occurred at least 10 billion years ago.

Question: Which constellation contains the stars Rigel (left leg of the hunter), Betelgeuse (the hunter’s shoulder), and Bellatrix (meaning “the female warrior”)?

Answer: Orion (the hunter), one of the most conspicuous constellations, contains many bright stars. One of these, Betelgeuse, is a variable star that is easily distinguished by its reddish colour. The total brightness of Rigel, in the hunter’s leg, when measured over all visible light, is greater than that of Betelgeuse. The third brightest star in the constellation is Bellatrix.

Question: What is the largest known asteroid in the solar system, discovered by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi and named after the Roman goddess of agriculture?

Answer: Ceres is the largest known asteroid in the solar system and was the first to be discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi of the Palermo Observatory on January 1, 1801. Ceres was named for the Roman goddess of agriculture.

Question: What is the name of the storm system on Jupiter that was once about 48,000 km (30,000 miles) in length?

Answer: The Great Red Spot has survived as long as detailed observations of Jupiter have been made—perhaps 300 years or more. In the late 19th century the length of the spot was about 48,000 km (30,000 miles), and since then it has been shrinking.

Question: What does a light-year measure?

Answer: A light-year is the distance traveled by light moving in a vacuum in the course of one year, at its accepted velocity of 299,792,458 metres per second (186,282 miles per second). A light-year equals about 9.46053 trillion km (5.878 trillion miles).

Question: What zodiacal constellation is represented by a ram?

Answer: Aries is a zodiacal constellation lying between Pisces and Taurus that is represented by a ram. (In Latin, Aries means “Ram.”)

Question: Which planet is nearly Earth’s twin in size and mass?

Answer: Venus is nearly Earth’s twin in terms of size and mass. Venus’s diameter is about 12,102.5 km, or 94.9 percent of Earth's diameter at the Equator, while its mass is 81.5 percent that of Earth.

Question: Which celestial object, located in the southern constellation Centaurus, is the brightest globular star cluster in the sky?

Answer: Omega Centauri is the brightest globular star cluster. It is located in the southern constellation Centaurus. It is visible to the unaided eye as a faint luminous patch.

Question: What was known to the ancients as the Dog Star and today is known for having a companion white dwarf star?

Answer: Sirius, also called Alpha Canis Majoris or the Dog Star, is the brightest star in the night sky. It is a binary star in the constellation Canis Major. A companion star, known as Sirius B, is about as massive as the Sun, though much more condensed, and was the first white dwarf star to be discovered.

Question: What kind of cosmic body is presumed to be at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy?

Answer: At the very centre of the Milky Way Galaxy lies a remarkable object—in all likelihood a massive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk of high-temperature gas. As gas nears the black hole, its strong gravitational force squeezes the gas into a rapidly rotating disk, which extends outward about 5 to 30 light-years from the central object. Rotation measurements of the disk indicate that the black hole has a mass roughly four million times that of the Sun.

Question: What was the world’s first artificial satellite?

Answer: Sputnik was the name given to a series of artificial Earth satellites whose launching by the Soviet Union beginning on October 4, 1957, inaugurated the space age. Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, was an 83.6-kg (184-pound) capsule.

Question: What is the only planet among the four terrestrial planets to have a strong magnetic field?

Answer: Among the terrestrial planets, which are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, only Earth has a strong magnetic field, which shields the planet from the interplanetary medium.