Outer Space Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers
How old is the universe?
A: In a study published in the journal
Science, a team of researchers says the universe is between 11.2 billion and 20 billion years old.
What is a black hole?
A: A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing can
escape, even light.
How far is the nearest black hole?
A: As of now the closest known one is thought to lie at about 1,600 light years from Earth.
What is a supernova?
A: A supernova is a stellar explosion which produces an extremely bright object made of plasma that declines to invisibility over weeks or months.
What is a quasar?
A: The scientific consensus is that quasars are powered by material
falling into super massive black holes in the nuclei of distant
galaxies.
What is a neutron star?
A: Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of some massive stars.
What is a brown dwarf?
A: Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects with a mass below that necessary to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores.
What is a red giant?
A: They are stars of 0.4 - 10 times the mass of the
Sun which have exhausted their supply of
hydrogen in their cores and switched to fusing hydrogen in a shell outside the core.
How hot is the sun?
A: The core of the Sun is 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface of the Sun,
is only 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
What is a solar flare?
A: A solar flare is an explosion on the Sun that happens when energy stored in twisted magnetic fields
is suddenly released.
What are cosmic rays?
A: Cosmic rays are high energy charged particles, originating in outer
space, that travel at nearly the speed of light and strike the Earth
from all directions.
What is the Van Allen belt?
A: The Van Allen Radiation Belt is a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth, trapped by Earth's magnetic field.
What is the most common element found in the universe?
A: Hydrogen
What is Jupiter made of?
A: Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms, 75/25% by mass) with traces of methane, water, ammonia and "rock"
How many moons does Jupiter have?
A: Jupiter has 63 known satellites (as of Feb 2004): the four large Galilean moons plus many more small ones some of which have not yet been
named.
How long is a day on Mercury?
A: Mercury rotates three times in two of its years.
How many stars are there in in the big dipper?
A: The Big Dipper is a group of seven bright stars, 3 which form a handle and 4 which form a bowl.
How many stars are in the little dipper?
A: The little dipper has 6 stars.
What is a constellation?
A: A constellation is a group of stars that, when seen from Earth, form a pattern.
How many named constellations are there?
A: There are 88 constellations.
What is the big red spot on Jupiter?
A: The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a
hurricane-like storm
system. It is large enough that two Earths could fit across it.
Where is the element
gold come from?
A: Gold only comes from Super Novae.
What is a parsec?
A: The parsec is a unit of length used in astronomy, approximately
equal to 3.261 light years.