Astronomy

Question 0

What are the “seas” on the moon called?

Answer 0

Maria

Question 1

What star does the Earth revolve around?

Answer 1

Sol

Question 3

What are the two inferior planets?

Answer 3

Mercury and Venus

Question 4

Name the moons of Mars

Answer 4

Phobos and Deimos

Question 5

What is the y-axis of the HR diagram?

Answer 5

Luminosity/Absolute Magnitude

Question 6

What does HR stand for?

Answer 6

Hertzprung-Russel

Question 7

What are the spectral classes?

Answer 7

O,B,A,F,G,K,M

Question 8

What is a helpful HR mnemonic?

Answer 8

Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me (OBAFGKM)

Question 9

What is the speed of light in miles per second?

Answer 9

186,252

Question 10

What is the speed of light in meters/second?

Answer 10

299,792,458

Question 11

What is the brightest star in the night sky?

Answer 11

Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris)

Question 12

What is (usually) the brightest object in the night sky?
(Excluding the moon)

Answer 12

Venus

Question 13

Name the Galilean moons of Jupiter

Answer 13

Io, Callisto, Europa, Ganymede

Question 14

Who invented the telescope?

Answer 14

Hans Lippershey

Question 15

Who is generally accredited with our present model of the solar system?

Answer 15

Nicolaus Copernicus

Question 16

When was the Crab Supernova observed by Chinese astronomers?

Answer 16

1054 CE

Question 17

What force prevents main sequence and giant stars from collapsing?

Answer 17

hydrostatic pressure

Question 18

What force prevents white dwarves from collapsing?

Answer 18

Electron degeneracy pressure

Question 19

What force prevents neutron stars from collapsing?

Answer 19

Neutron degeneracy pressure

Question 20

What is the Chandrasekhar limit?

Answer 20

The maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star

Question 21

How many solar masses is the Chandrasekhar limit?

Answer 21

1.39

Question 22

Who discovered that the distant galaxies tended to be moving away from one another? (the universe was expanding)

Answer 22

Edwin Hubble

Question 23

Who developed the telescope consisting solely of mirrors?

Answer 23

Sir Isaac Newton

Question 24

What is the world’s largest radio telescope?

Answer 24

Arecibo, located in northern Puerto Rico

Question 25

What was the first manned mission to the moon?

Answer 25

Apollo 11

Question 26

What was the first American satellite?

Answer 26

Explorer 1

Question 27

What was discovered by Explorer 1?

Answer 27

the Van Allen radiation belts

Question 28

Who oversaw the development of the Saturn V?

Answer 28

Wernher Von Braun

Question 29

Who was the first human in space?

Answer 29

Yuri Gagarin

Question 30

Who was the first woman in space?

Answer 30

Valentina Tereshkova

Question 31

When was Sputnik 1 launched?

Answer 31

October, 1957

Question 32

What year did Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon?

Answer 32

1969

Question 33

Who is basically the best person ever and was played by Ed Harris in what is basically the best movie ever? (He oversaw the salvage of Apollo 13)

Answer 33

Gene Kranz

Question 34

What moon of Saturn is well known for it's ice volcanos?

Answer 34

Enceladus

Question 35

What is the largest (and coolest) moon of Saturn?

Answer 35

Titan

Question 36

What is the primary moon of Pluto?

Answer 36

Charon

Question 37

What is the belt of objects of which Pluto is a member?

Answer 37

Kuiper Belt

Question 38

What object contains approximately 1/3 of the mass of the asteroid belt?

Answer 38

Ceres

Question 39

What was Edmund Halley's major contribution to astronomy?

Answer 39

The discovery that comets were periodic phenomena

Question 40

What is the average distance between the Earth and Sun?

Answer 40

93 million miles

Question 41

What body is said to contain trillions of comets at the very outer extent of the solar system?

Answer 41

Oort Cloud

Question 42

What is the nearest large spiral galaxy to the Milky Way?

Answer 42

the Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Question 43

What class of objects is an extremely distant, extremely luminous, group of active galaxies containing supermassive black holes?

Answer 43

Quasars

Question 44

What are rapidly rotating neutron stars called?

Answer 44

Pulsars

Question 45

What planet does Triton orbit?

Answer 45

Neptune

Question 46

What are clouds of plasma released by the sun called?

Answer 46

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)

Question 47

What is the sun's "atmosphere" called

Answer 47

the Corona

Question 48

What instrument allows the viewing of the corona?

Answer 48

coronagraph

Question 49

What allows the contents of a star or other object to be determined?

Answer 49

spectroscopy

Question 50

What allows ground based observatories to counteract turbulence?

Answer 50

Adaptive Optics (AO)

Question 51

What year was the sextant invented?

Answer 51

1757