Interactive Quiz

Test your knowledge of astronomy and the beautiful From Earth to the Universe images and participating observatories with this fun interactive quiz.
This quiz comes courtesy of Christopher De Pree/Agnes Scott College via John Tierney/Tierney Lab, New York Times website

1. The Sun gives off

Q1

Visible radiation

Ultraviolet radiation

X-ray radiation

Infrared radiation

All of the above

2. The Sun's emission peaks has its highest value in which part of the spectrum?

Q2

Visible

Ultraviolet

X-ray

Infrared

3. When the Moon falls into the Earth's shadow, we call this

Q3

The end of the world

A lunar eclipse

A solar eclipse

Drafting

4. The planet Mars has

Q4

Ice at its poles

A breathable atmosphere

Shallow oceans

Known microbial life

5. The most recent mission to arrive at planet Saturn is

Q5

Voyager 1

Voyager 2

Galile

Cassini

6. Planet Jupiter can be observed

Q6

Only with a space based telescope

With only the human eye

With a ground based telescope

(b) and (c)

7. Comets become most visible

Q7

When they enter the solar system

When they get close to the sun

When they approach the planet Jupiter

When they explode as supernova Close to the Sun

8. The visual color of a star (blue or red, for example) tells us something about its

Q8

Size

Distance

Temperature

(a) and (c)

9. The stars of the Pleiades are located in the constellation

Q9

Taurus

Orion

Gemini

Libra

10. Which company uses the stars of the Pleiades in its corporate logo?

Q10

Colgate-Palmolive

Subaru

Ball Aerospace

Orion Pictures

11. Our Milky Way galaxy, a collection of stars, has a center that is about how far from us

Q11

10 light years

1000 light years

25,000 light years

One million light years

12. The Orion Nebula is a region where

Q12

Stars are forming

Planetary systems are forming

Stars are blowing up

(a) and (b)

13. The Horsehead Nebula (which looks like a dark region against a bright background), is composed of

Q13

Densely packed stars

Black holes

A cloud of molecular material

Unknown substances

14. Planetary nebulas (like the Helix Nebula) are

Q14

Gas around dying star the size of the Sun

Planetary systems forming

Gas around stars that have just been born

Not found in the Milky Way

15. The Crab nebula is an example of a supernova remnant. This explosion was recorded by Arab and Chinese astronomers in

Q15

1054 CE

350 CE

4 BCE

2000 BCE

16. The Chandra X-Ray telescope is an orbiting telescope that can make images with a sharpness (resolution) of about 0.5 arcseconds. That is

Q16

About the size of the full moon

About the size of planet like Jupiter seen through a telescope

Smaller than ground based telescopes can resolve without adaptive optics

Smaller than any other telescope can resolve, ground or space based

17. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is

Q17

A small companion galaxy to the Milky Way, composed of many young stars

A star forming region in the Milky Way

A nearby galaxy, about the size of the Milky Way

Only visible from the Northern Hemisphere

18. The Andromeda Galaxy is

Q18

The most distant galaxy visible from Earth with a telescope

The largest galaxy visible to the unaided human eye

Much smaller than the Milky Way

Not a galaxy at all

19. The Antennae Galaxies are two galaxies that are in the process of colliding and merging. In a few billion years, this fate awaits our Milky Way Galaxy and what other galaxy?

Q19

The Sombrero Galaxy

Messier 81

The Andromeda Galaxy

Messier 101

20. The remnant emission from the Big Bang is known as the

Q20

Cosmic Dust

Karmic Substance

Cosmic Microwave Background

Zodiacal light