Our Solar System
Stars and Galaxies
Space Exploration
Cosmic Superlatives
Black Hole
100

This planet is closest to the Sun and has no atmosphere to trap heat, resulting in wildly fluctuating temperatures.

What is Mercury?

100

This is the name of the barred spiral galaxy that contains our own Solar System.

What is the Milky Way?

100

In 1969, this American astronaut became the first human to ever walk on the surface of the Moon.

Who is Neil Armstrong?

100

This is the largest planet in our solar system, boasting more mass than all the other planets combined.

What is Jupiter?

100

This is the boundary surrounding a black hole beyond which the escape velocity entirely exceeds the speed of light.

What is the event horizon?

200

This gas giant is famous for its spectacular, extensive ring system made mostly of ice chunks and rocky debris.

What is Saturn?

200

These cosmic objects have a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from them.

What is a black hole?

200

Launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, this was the world's first artificial satellite.

What is Sputnik 1?
200

This is the brightest star in Earth's night sky, often referred to as the "Dog Star."

What is Sirius?

200

This is the humorous, yet scientifically accurate term for the stretching of objects into long, thin shapes as they fall into a black hole.

What is spaghettification?

300

This distinct, reddish feature on Jupiter is actually a massive storm that has been raging for centuries.

What is the Great Red Spot?

300

This is the dramatic, explosive death of a massive star, which can briefly outshine an entire galaxy.

What is a supernova?

300

This massive space telescope, launched in late 2021, uses infrared astronomy to view some of the oldest, most distant events in the universe.

What is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)?

300

Located on Mars, this shield volcano is the tallest mountain in the entire Solar System.

What is Olympus Mons?

300

This is the name of the supermassive black hole located at the very center of our Milky Way galaxy.

What is Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star)?

400

Orbiting Mars, Phobos and Deimos are the only two natural satellites of this planet.

What are the moons of Mars?
400

Also known as the North Star, this star is used by navigators because its position in the sky doesn't change significantly.

What is Polaris?
400

This was the name of NASA's space shuttle that tragically suffered a fatal breakup during its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere in 2003.

What is Columbia?

400

Measuring roughly 2.5 million light-years away, this is the closest major spiral galaxy to the Milky Way.

What is the Andromeda Galaxy?

400

This famous theoretical physicist proposed that black holes aren't completely black, but slowly leak radiation (now named after him) and eventually evaporate.

Who is Stephen Hawking?

500

This icy dwarf planet, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, features a prominent heart-shaped glacier named Tombaugh Regio.

What is Pluto?

500

This is the boundary surrounding a black hole beyond which the escape velocity entirely exceeds the speed of light.

What is the event horizon?

500

Launched in 1977, this NASA robotic probe became the first spacecraft to officially cross into interstellar space.

What is Voyager 1?

500

Clocking in at over 460 degrees celsius (860 degrees fahrenheit) due to a runaway greenhouse effect, this is the hottest planet in our solar system.

What is Venus?

500

This is the infinitely dense, zero-volume point at the very center of a black hole where the laws of physics as we know them break down.

What is a singularity?

M
e
n
u