Astronomy Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 228
In what language are the scientific names of all constellations written?
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latin
James W. Christy discovered Charon, a moon orbiting which distant planet, on June 22, 1978?
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pluto
Which planet has a moon named Triton that has a thin nitrogen atmosphere?
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neptune
Which planet's main moons can be remembered with the mnemonic 'Met Dr. Thip,' where Titan is represented by the second T?
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saturn
Which planet had a fifth satellite discovered by E.E. Barnard in 1892, with the previous satellites discovered by Galileo?
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jupiter
What celestial body is known for its prominences, which are clouds, tubes, and tongues of gases?
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sun
Hidalgo, one of what type of objects, reaches the orbit of Saturn, but most are confined to a belt between Mars & Jupiter?
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asteroid
Which Danish astronomer discovered a 'new star' when Shakespeare was only 8 years old?
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tycho brahe
What astronomical object, discovered by Giovanni Donati in 1858, has a tail approximately 45 million miles long?
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comet
Which planet has Callisto as its outermost Galilean moon?
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jupiter
Which British astronomer was the first to state in 1718 that stars had individual motions?
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edmond halley
Which American astronomer's 1920s discovery that the universe is expanding serves as a basis for the Big Bang Theory?
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edwin hubble
What outer planet did John Couch Adams predict the existence of in 1845, which was discovered in 1846?
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neptune
Which planet has more than 20 satellites that share orbits?
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saturn
Which planet has a diameter estimated to be less than 2,000 miles?
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pluto
What planet did William Herschel discover in 1781, earning him a pension from King George III?
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uranus
Which astronomer determined that the Andromeda galaxy is 900,000 light years from Earth using an earthbound telescope?
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edwin hubble
Which third-largest planet spins on its axis at an angle of 98 degrees from the perpendicular?
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uranus
What is the name of the colorful feature on Jupiter that is centered at 22 degrees south latitude and measures about 22,000 miles long and 9,000 miles wide?
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great red spot
What type of celestial body, with a name derived from Latin for 'long-haired star,' are scientists at JPL learning to navigate a vessel close to?
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comet
Which planet is the seventh from the sun and is approximately twice as far from the sun as Saturn?
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uranus
Which planet has a moon named Triton that orbits in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation?
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neptune
Which planet, currently the farthest from the Sun, has winds reaching speeds of 1500 mph, some of the strongest in the solar system?
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neptune
What highly fragmented celestial body was discovered by Eugene & Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy in 1993?
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comet
What is the Greek-derived name of the brightest star in the night sky, which means 'scorching'?
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sirius
What celestial body does the SOHO observatory orbit, according to physicists?
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sun
Which planet was struck by fragments of a comet first observed in 1993?
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jupiter
What star cluster is known for having Alcyone as its brightest star and is sometimes called the Seven Sisters?
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pleiades
Which planet did Johann Galle discover in 1846 based on the calculations of a French mathematician?
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neptune
Which planet in our solar system orbits the sun at a 98-degree axis, almost lying on its side?
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uranus
Who became the first person to discover a comet by telescope in 1847?
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maria mitchell
Which planet in our solar system comes last alphabetically?
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venus
What astronomical event resulted in the formation of the Crab Nebula that was observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054?
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supernova
What celestial object, named Hale-Bopp, will be among the brightest in the night sky in April 1997?
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comet
What planet is represented by a symbol that includes the letter H, honoring William Herschel?
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uranus
Which German astronomer published his three laws of planetary motion in 1609 and 1619?
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johannes kepler
What is the scientific term for the visible surface of the sun?
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photosphere
What supergiant, pulsating variable star is also known as the North Star?
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polaris
What is the unit of distance abbreviated as 'pc' and equal to 3.21 light years in astronomy?
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parsec
In what southern constellation is the closest star to Earth, besides the sun, located?
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centaurus
Which planet ranks as the third-largest in our solar system?
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uranus
What is the name of the violent storm on Jupiter that was first discovered in 1664?
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great red spot
What is the next planet in the sequence: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn?
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uranus
Which planet has a known moon named Charon, discovered by James W. Christy in 1978?
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pluto
Which planet in our solar system has the strongest surface gravity, 2.64 times that of Earth?
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jupiter
What is the name of the closely spaced group of stars named after a group of seven sisters?
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pleiades
Which is the only planet in our solar system that was discovered by an American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh?
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pluto
Which planet's moon, Titan, has a thicker atmosphere than Earth?
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saturn
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