← All Quizzes Science

Space & Astronomy Quiz

Q: Which planet in our solar system has the most moons?

Saturn — Saturn holds the record with 146 confirmed moons as of 2023, surpassing Jupiter's 95.

Q: What is the name of the UK-built Mars rover that was lost shortly after landing in 2003?

Beagle 2 — Beagle 2, built by a British team led by Professor Colin Pillinger, successfully landed on Mars but failed to fully deploy its solar panels and never communicated back.

Q: Approximately how long does light from the Sun take to reach Earth?

About 8 minutes — The Sun is roughly 150 million kilometres from Earth, and light travels at 300,000 km/s, giving a travel time of approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

Q: What is the term for the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing — not even light — can escape?

Event horizon — The event horizon is the point of no return around a black hole; once matter or light crosses it, escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, making escape impossible.

Q: Which telescope, launched in 2021, succeeded the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's flagship observatory?

James Webb Space Telescope — The James Webb Space Telescope launched on 25 December 2021 and began science operations in 2022, observing the universe in infrared with far greater sensitivity than Hubble.

Q: What is a light-year?

The distance light travels in one year — A light-year is a unit of distance — approximately 9.46 trillion kilometres — equal to how far light travels through a vacuum in one year.

Q: Which British astronaut spent 6 months aboard the International Space Station in 2015–2016?

Tim Peake — Tim Peake became the first British ESA astronaut on the ISS, launching on 15 December 2015 and returning on 18 June 2016 after completing the Principia mission.

Q: What is the name of the largest volcano in the solar system, located on Mars?

Olympus Mons — Olympus Mons on Mars stands about 22 km high and spans roughly 600 km across, making it the tallest and widest known volcano in the solar system.

Q: In what year did astronomers publish the first direct image of a black hole's shadow?

2019 — The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released the first image of a black hole — the supermassive one at the centre of galaxy M87 — in April 2019.

Q: What force is primarily responsible for keeping planets in orbit around the Sun?

Gravity — Gravity, described by Newton's law of universal gravitation and refined by Einstein's general relativity, is the force that governs the orbital motion of all planets around the Sun.

Planets, black holes, missions and discoveries — how far does your space knowledge go?

12 questions · ~6 mins ·

Question 1 of 12

1. Which planet in our solar system has the most moons?

2. What is the name of the UK-built Mars rover that was lost shortly after landing in 2003?

3. Approximately how long does light from the Sun take to reach Earth?

4. What is the term for the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing — not even light — can escape?

5. Which telescope, launched in 2021, succeeded the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's flagship observatory?

6. What is a light-year?

7. Which British astronaut spent 6 months aboard the International Space Station in 2015–2016?

8. What is the name of the largest volcano in the solar system, located on Mars?

9. In what year did astronomers publish the first direct image of a black hole's shadow?

10. What force is primarily responsible for keeping planets in orbit around the Sun?

11. Which spacecraft, launched in 1977, is now the most distant human-made object from Earth?

12. What is the name of the dense, rapidly rotating star left behind after a massive supernova explosion?

Space & Astronomy Quiz

Great effort!