TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE - ANSWERS ABOUT GENERAL SKY KNOWLEDGE
These are the suggested answers to the "TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE" quiz on General Sky Knowledge
- The three brightest stars in the sky are Sirius, Canopus and Alpha Centauri (also known to mariners as Rigel Kent).
- The two basic types of optical telscope are the refractor which uses an objective lens and the reflector which employs a mirror.
- The speed of light is about 300,000 kilometres per second.
- Most of the asteroids lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
- Saturn is the only solar system planet with a density less than water.
- Earth, Mars and the Jovian moon Io all host volcanoes.
- A meteor is the visual phenomenon seen when a small solid body called a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere. If portion of the meteoroid survives reentry, it is called a meteorite on reaching the Earth's surface.
- Most comets usually travel in near parabolic orbits. Periodic comets travel in highly eccentric elliptical orbits.
- The planet Venus is perpetually covered by dense cloud.
- The planet Mars looks reddish (sometimes yellow or orange) from Earth.
- Mars hosts the largest volcano in the solar system - Olympus Mons.
- The 'Earth-like' planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
- You would weigh the most when standing on the surface of Jupiter.
- The moon has many craters. Some of the largest are Tycho, Copernicus, Plato, Clavius, Kepler.
- The Sun is approximately 150 million kilometres from the Earth.
- Jupiter has the shortest day - just under 10 Earth hours.
- The 'Jovian-like' planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
- The two moons of Mars are named Phobos and Deimos.
- Venus is known both as the evening star and as the morning star. It is never more than 43 degrees distant from the Sun in our sky.
- Mars has frequent global dust storms.
- Halley is a well known periodic comet, but many comets are named each year. Some are West, Hyakutake, Bennett, Kohoutek and Shoemaker-Levy.
- The Sun is mostly composed of the element hydrogen.
- Light from the Sun takes approximately 8 minutes to reach the Earth.
- The nearest star is Alpha Centauri, a triple star system. Of the three, the component known as Proxima Centauri is the closest to the Sun.
- A light year is the distance light travels in one Earth year, about 9.5 million million kilometres.
- The darker areas on the Moon's surface are called Mare, which is Latin for "sea". However, there is no significant water on the Moon's surface.
- Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun.
- The nearest star is approximately 4 light years from the Sun.
- Saturn is the only planet whose many rings are easily visible from the Earth.
- The largest planet in the solar system is Jupiter. It diameter is about ten times that of Earth, and its volume 1000 times Earth's volume.
- Pluto is usually the furthest planet from the sun, although its eccentric orbit sometimes brings it within the orbit of Neptune.
- Earth has the greatest density of any planet in our solar system.
- The brightest star in Scorpius is Antares, a red giant.
- The four largest moons of Jupiter are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
- The largest moon orbiting Pluto is named Charon.
- Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra.
- There are 88 named constellations. Some of these are Orion, Scorpius, Centaurus, Crucis (Southern Cross), Taurus, Sagittarius and Canis Major.
- The Pleiades are more commonly known as the Seven Sisters.
- Arcturus lies in the constellation Bootes (pronounced boot-eze).
- The bright north polar star Polaris can never be seen from Australia.
Australian Space Academy