Astronomy

Question 1

What is the smallest constellation in the night sky, not discovered by European astronomers until the 16th century?

Answer 1

Crux, the “Southern Cross,” only subtends 68 square degrees in the night sky. The Ancient Greeks knew about Crux, thanks to their access to Egypt and North Africa, but it’s not visible farther north, so medieval Europe didn’t re-discover it until the Age of Exploration began.

Question 2

Sharing its name with an old Chevy model, this brighest star of Lyra will one day become the North Star.

Answer 2

Vega

Question 3

The stars Mintaka, Alnilam and Alintak comprise what celestial body?

Answer 3

Orion’s Belt

Question 4

The Morgan-Keenan system classifies stars using seven different letters. Which letter describes Earth’s Sun?

Answer 4

G (G-Type)

Question 5

Betelgeuse, Rigel, and Bellatrix are the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma stars of what constellation?

Answer 5

Orion

Question 6

Mons Huygens, the moon’s tallest peak, is in this lunar range; Monte Corno is the tallest in the earthy one.

Answer 6

Montes Apenninus

Question 7

This is the moon’s tallest peak.

Answer 7

Mons Huygens

Question 8

This is the Latin name for the large, dark lunar plains that early observers thought were seas.

Answer 8

Lunar mare / maria

Question 9

Its name means “fear” and this moon orbits closest to a planet’s surface of any moon in the solar system.

Answer 9

Phobos

Question 10

Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra are four of the five moons of what celestial object?

Answer 10

Pluto (Charon is the fifth moon)

Question 11

The term “dog days of summer” is derived from the heliacal rising of what star?

Answer 11

Sirius

Question 12

For a body orbiting the earth, the closest and furthest points of the orbit from earth are the perigee and apogee. What are the equivalent terms for the closest and furthest points of a body’s orbit from the sun?

Answer 12

Perihelion, Aphelion

Question 13

Some observatories precisely mix light from separate telescopes to achieve the resolution of a single, much larger one. This process, called aperture synthesis, is a specific example of what 14-letter term that has been obscured in the attached image?

Answer 13

Interferometry

Question 14

The desire to observe what roughly twice-per-century events, and hence accurately determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun, inspired the construction of multiple far-flung observatories in 1761 and 1769, including one in Tahiti during the first voyage of Captain James Cook?

Answer 14

Transits of Venus

Question 15

The region of the outer solar system beyond Neptune’s orbit, which contains thousands of small, icy celestial bodies, has what name, after the 20th-century astronomer who proposed that such items might have formed there?

Answer 15

Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud

Question 16

This constellation’s name is Latin for “the charioteer” and is associated with various mythological beings, including Erichthonius and Myrtilus.

Answer 16

Auriga

Question 17

The unit of astronomical length known as a parsec, equal to 3.26 light years, is a term derived from what other two words, which factor into the distance on which the unit is based?

Answer 17

Parallax, Second (Arcsecond)

Question 18

Deneb is a name for the brightest star of what large, northern hemisphere constellation, which is represented as a swan?

Answer 18

Cygnus

Question 19

The largest storm system on Jupiter (and in the entire solar system), which rotates once every six days and is large enough to contain three Earths, is best known by what straightforward three-word name?

Answer 19

Great Red Spot

Question 20

What are the names of the two brightest stars that make up the “Twins” in the constellation Gemini?

Answer 20

Castor, Pollux

Question 21

The Apollo missions brought back more than 800 pounds of moon rocks and showed that the dark, flat lunar areas known as seas are not water, but this common volcanic rock that also makes up most of the oceanic crust here on Earth.

Answer 21

Basalt

Question 22

What is the technical name for what is commonly called a “shooting star”?

Answer 22

Meteor

Question 23

A meteor that reaches the earth’s surface and is not burned up by friction is a meteorite. What is the accompanying term for any meteor that could possibly, but has not yet, collided with the earth’s atmosphere?

Answer 23

Meteoroid

Question 24

What objects did Galileo discover in 1610, calling them “ears” and asking, “Has [he] swallowed his children”?

Answer 24

Nobody is a more famous child-swallower than the Roman god Saturn. In this case, Galileo had noticed weird bulges on the sides of the planet Saturn, which we now know to be its rings.

Question 25

This man’s name was given to a comet that crashed into Jupiter in 1994; he’s the only human whose remains lie on the moon.

Answer 25

Eugene Shoemaker

Question 26

This largest moon of Pluto is about half the dwarf planet’s size.

Answer 26

Charon

Question 27

What term, which was used as a television brand from 1967 until 2005, is a celestial object defined as a high-luminosity core of an active galaxy?

Answer 27

Quasar

Question 28

The highest mountain on Mars, which rises over 16 miles above the Martian surface and was long believed to be the highest mountain in the solar system, has the same name as what terrestrial mountain (with the Latin Mons replacing “Mount”)?

Answer 28

Mount Olympus