Anne's Quiz #1

The Solar System

(image to right is from the Hubble Space Telescope, Jupiter with the approaching comet fragments, July 1994 [credits: H.A. Weaver, T.E. Smith (Space Telescope Science Institute) and J.T. Trauger, R.W. Evans (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), and NASA] -- more info on this spectacular event is included in Impact Jupiter by David Levy, one of the discoverers of the comet. I had the pleasure of working with some of the people doing calculations of the impacts.)

Are you a budding astronomer? Let’s find out!

1. What is the approximate circumference of planet Earth?: a) 8000 miles; b) 249000 miles; c) 24900 miles; d) 80000 miles

2. How long does light take to reach Earth from the Sun?: a) 8 seconds; b) 8 minutes; c) 80 milliseconds; d) 8 hours

3. Which planet is closest to the Sun?: a) Mercury; b) Mars; c) Jupiter; d) Venus

4. Between which 2 planets is the asteroid belt?: a) Jupiter and Saturn; b) Uranus and Pluto; c) Mars and Jupiter; d) Earth and Mars

5. What is a shooting star?: a) a distant star that is exploding; b) a distant star in the process of becoming a ‘red giant’; c) a meteor burning through Earth’s atmosphere; d) a UFO

6. What is the ‘Milky Way?’: a) a candy bar; b) a hazy section of the night sky; c) a large cluster of stars in the Pisces constellation; d) the galaxy of stars of which our Sun is a part

7. What is Andromeda?: a) our closest neighboring galaxy, just 2.2 million light years away; b) a type of virus commonly believed to have originated on another planet and brought to Earth by an asteroid; c) the name of the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt; d) Pluto’s moon

8. What is a light year?: a) any year that is not a leap year; b) a year in which the earth experiences more hours of sunlight than darkness; c) the distance light travels in one year - 6 million, million miles; d) the distance from earth to the sun - 90 million miles

9. What is a solar eclipse?: a) the sky darkens briefly as the sun goes behind a cloud; b) the moon gets between the sun and Earth, causing a large shadow; c) the earth gets between the sun and the moon, causing the moon to momentarily disappear; d) the sun’s fire is extinguished briefly, causing a temporary state of darkness

10. Which of Jupiter’s moons is geologically active?: a) Titan; b) Eos; c) Gaia; d) Io

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quiz 1 created 1996