Astronomers and Astronauts
A German-Canadian physicist who served as Chancellor of Carleton University, his building is now home to Carleton's Observatory.
Gerhard Herzberg
Which star in the night sky is theorized by scientists to potentially go supernova within our lifetime, shining as brightly as the Moon during the day when it does?
a) Barnard's Star
b) Alpha Centauri
c) Altair
d) Betelgeuse
Betelgeuse
Who was the first human to orbit the Earth?
a) Alan Shephard
b) Yuri Gagarin
c) Marc Garneau
d) Gus Grissom
Yuri Gagarin
What is the largest planet?
Jupiter
The first Canadian satellite in space
Alouette-1
Responsible for developing the on-board flight software for the Apollo Program, this NASA employee also invented the term "software engineering"
a) Buzz Aldrin
b) Margaret Hamilton
c) Lisa Campbell
d) Mae Jemison
Margaret Hamilton
What phenomena is caused by solar wind interacting with Earth's magnetic field?
Aurora Borealis / Aurora Australis
Northern Lights / Southern Lights
What NASA mission series brought their first landers to the surface of Mars in the 1970s?
Viking
Which planet in our Solar System has the most confirmed moons?
Saturn
Which space mission was the first to bring humans into orbit around the moon?
Apollo 8
What Danish astronomer with a metal nose is best known for spending decades of his life in the 16th century recording astronomical observations?
Hint: he has a lunar crater named after him.
Tycho Brahe
What term describes the process by which a black hole grows as it pulls material in from its surroundings?
a) Accretion
b) Protoplyd
c) Cosmic inflation
d) Neutron capture
Accretion
What was the first successful reusable spacecraft to be launched?
a) Space Shuttle
b) Soyuz
c) X-15
d) Gemini 12
Space Shuttle (Columbia, specifically)
What is the name of the largest asteroid in the Asteroid Belt?
a) Vesta
b) Ceres
c) Pallas
d) Charon
Ceres
Name an interstellar probe mission (there are five!)
Voyager 1
Voyager 2
Pioneer 10
Pioneer 11
New Horizons
Name an American crew member on Artemis III
David Glover
Christina Koch
Reid Wiseman
What phenomena generates a gamma-ray burst?
a) Energy from a solar flare
b) Collapse of a supermassive star into a black hole
c) Neutron star radiation
d) Gravitational waves
The collapse of a supermassive star into a black hole
What was the name of the first space station, launched by the Soviet Union in 1971?
a) Mir
b) Salyut 1
c) Skylab
d) Almaz
Salyut 1
A theoretical thick spherical shell made of icy, comet-like objects is said to surround the Solar System out past the Kuiper Belt. What is this bubble called?
The Oort Cloud
Name a currently active CSA-operated satellite
SciSat
NEOSSAT
RADARSAT-2
RADARSAT Constellation Mission
Which astronaut holds the record for most cumulative spacewalk time, at over 82 hours?
a) Michael Lopez-Alegria
b) Peggy Whitson
c) Anatoli Solovyev
d) Oleg Artemyev
Anatoli Solovyev
Name the comet currently visible from Earth for the last time for the next 80 000 years
C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ALTAS
What was the name of the first rover to explore the surface of Mars, in 1997?
a) Opportunity
b) Spirit
c) Curiosity
d) Sojourner
Sojourner
What class of star is our Sun?
Recall: KGBFOAM
G
What club at Carleton is developing a CubeSat mission?
CA2RC