Distances in Space
What distance is equivalent to 150 000 000 km?
Astronomical Unit
The correct order of planets from the Sun is_______.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Which star is closest to Earth?
The Big Bang
month
Which celestial body is approximately 384 000 km from Earth?
The Moon
What is the name of the moon of Saturn which has an atmosphere and liquid on its surface?
Titan
At a distance of 4.3 ly, which star is the closest to our Sun?
Proxima Centauri
There are billions of ________ in the universe, each containing billions of ______.
galaxies, stars
The phases of the Moon are New Moon, Crescent, Quarter, Gibbous and Full Moon. The term "waxing" means getting larger. What is the term for a Moon that is decreasing in size?
(Ex. Waning Gibbous or Waning Crescent).
What is the definition of a "light-year"?
The distance light travels in one year.
Which planet do the Galilean Moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) orbit?
Jupiter
What is the name of the galaxy that will collide with the Milky Way Galaxy in 4 billion years?
Andromeda Galaxy
Black hole
Why is it more common to view a lunar eclipse than a solar eclipse?
The Earth is much larger than the Moon so it casts its shadow on the Moon more frequently. Also, during a lunar eclipse, everyone on the night-time side of the Earth can view a lunar eclipse, while a solar eclipse is only visible from certain points on the surface of the Earth.
Fill-in-the-blank: A light year is approximately 9.46 ________ kilometres.
(million, billion, trillion)
trillion
Where are most dwarf planets and meteoroids found in our solar system?
Kuiper Belt
(beyond the orbit of Neptune)
What process occurs inside a star to generate its energy?
Nuclear fusion - hydrogen is fused into helium and other elements.
What is the term for the apparent change in the frequency of a wave caused by the relative motion of the source to the observer?
Doppler Effect
Why don't we have a solar eclipse every month?
The orbit of the Moon is on a 5-6% tilt from the orbit of Earth around the Sun, so the three bodies do not always line up.
8.3 minutes
(Acceptable: 8 or 9 minutes)
Why has Pluto been downgraded from "planet" to "dwarf planet"?
It does not have sufficient mass to dominate its orbit.
At the end of its life cycle, main sequence stars like our Sun will become __________ and then ________.
red giants, white dwarfs
"more red" or "redshifted"
Why do Earth's tides rise and fall on a 12-hour cycle.
It takes Earth 24 hours to rotate on its axis once. The Moon causes a bulge of water on two sides of the Earth, which rotates through a bulge twice each day.