The Solar System
This bright red planet is named after the Roman god of war and is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system.
What is Mars?
This is the name of our home galaxy, which is shaped like a giant spiral and contains billions of stars.
What is the Milky Way?
In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to ever walk on this celestial body.
What is the Moon?
Because there is no atmosphere or air in space, you wouldn't be able to hear an explosion because this physical wave cannot travel through a vacuum.
What is Sound?
This giant, football-field-sized laboratory orbits Earth right now and is home to astronauts from all over the world.
What is the International Space Station (ISS)?
This gas giant is the largest planet in our solar system and is famous for its "Great Red Spot," which is actually a massive, centuries-old storm.
What is Jupiter?
This cosmic object has gravity so incredibly strong that nothing—not even light—can escape from it.
What is a Black Hole?
Launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, this was the very first artificial satellite sent into Earth's orbit.
What is Sputnik?
This is the invisible force that keeps the planets orbiting the Sun and keeps our feet on the ground.
What is Gravity?
Because there is virtually no gravity up there, astronauts experience this condition, causing them to float around their spacecraft.
What is Weightlessness or Microgravity
This is the only planet in our solar system known to be less dense than water—meaning if you found a bathtub big enough, it would actually float!
What is Saturn?
Often called "dirty snowballs," these objects are made of ice, dust, and rock, and they grow a glowing tail when they get close to the Sun.
What is a Comet?
This is the name of NASA’s famous moon-landing program from the 60s and 70s, named after the Greek god of archery.
What is the Apollo program?
It takes light from the Sun roughly this many minutes to travel across space and hit the Earth.
What is 8 minutes?
To prevent their muscles and bones from getting weak while floating for months, astronauts on the ISS have to do this for 2 hours every single day.
What is Exercise
Because it is tilted almost 98 degrees on its side, this icy blue planet literally rolls around the Sun like a bowling ball.
What is Uranus?
This is the process where stars squeeze hydrogen atoms together to make helium, creating massive amounts of light and heat.
What is Nuclear Fusion?
This space telescope launched in 2021 uses infrared light to look back in time at the very first galaxies ever formed.
What is the James Webb Space Telescope?
These colorful, dancing lights near Earth's poles (like the Northern Lights) are caused by particles from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetic field.
What are Auroras
Because liquid behaves weirdly in space, astronauts can't drink out of normal cups; they have to use pouches equipped with these.
What are Straws?
Located past Mars, this ring-shaped region is packed with millions of rocky fragments left over from the early solar system.
What is the Asteroid Belt
This is the specific term for a planet that orbits a star outside of our own solar system.
What is an Exoplanet?
She was the first American woman to fly in space, blasting off aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983.
Who is Sally Ride?
This is the massive, blinding explosion that happens when a heavyweight star runs out of fuel and collapses in on itself.
What is a Supernova?
When astronauts need to step outside their spacecraft to fix something, the technical term for this action is an EVA, which stands for this.
What is an Extravehicular Activity (or Spacewalk)?