Astronomy and space trivia

140 Astronomy and space trivia questions, no sign-in. Review your misses in the LoreUp app.

• What is the main reason a star's spectrum shows dark absorption lines?Stars and galaxies
• Which galaxy can look like a faint smudge to the naked eye from a dark mid-northern sky?Stars and galaxies
• Compared with a lower-mass main-sequence star, a higher-mass main-sequence star is?Stars and galaxies
• What fusion process turns helium into carbon in the core of a red giant?Stars and galaxies
• In what kind of system does a nova typically occur?Stars and galaxies
• Where in the Milky Way do globular clusters mainly live?Stars and galaxies
• Why does a telescope show fainter stars than the naked eye?Stars and galaxies
• Which three bright stars make a large triangle in the summer evening sky?Stars and galaxies
• Why do constellations appear to drift across the sky in the course of one night?Stars and galaxies
• Why are stars hard to see in the middle of the day?Stars and galaxies
• At mid-northern latitudes, some stars in the northern sky circle without setting below the horizon.Stars and galaxies
• The same star looks fainter if it is farther from Earth.Stars and galaxies
• Red dwarfs are among the most common kinds of star in the Milky Way.Stars and galaxies
• Dark energy is the unseen mass assumed to explain why stars far from a galaxy's centre orbit so fast.Stars and galaxies
• An H II region is a patch of gas made to glow because hot young stars have ionized the surrounding hydrogen.Stars and galaxies
• Even as the universe expands, distances between stars inside a gravity-bound system such as the Milky Way do not stretch in proportion.Stars and galaxies
• Type Ia supernovae are not used as standard candles for measuring cosmic distances.Stars and galaxies
• Every star visible to the naked eye looks white.Stars and galaxies
• The Southern Cross is a constellation well seen in the southern sky.Stars and galaxies
• The Sun is the largest star in the Milky Way.Stars and galaxies
• Which country landed people on the surface of the Moon in the twentieth century?Space exploration
• About how high is the orbit the International Space Station travels in?Space exploration
• Which country was the first to land a probe on the far side of the Moon?Space exploration
• Which crewed lunar programme did the United States pursue in the 2020s to send people back to the Moon?Space exploration
• What kind of body did Japan's Hayabusa2 take surface samples from and send back to Earth?Space exploration
• What is the cover at the top of a launch vehicle that shields the satellite and is thrown off once the air thins out?Space exploration
• Which government agency runs space development in the United States?Space exploration
• Which private space company operates Falcon 9, whose first stage is landed and flown again?Space exploration
• Which kind of satellite watches clouds and storms from above for use in weather forecasting?Space exploration
• What is it called when a spacecraft approaches a space station and locks firmly onto it?Space exploration
• A spacecraft coming back into Earth's atmosphere barely heats up on the outside.Space exploration
• The first animal to orbit Earth was a dog named Laika.Space exploration
• The Space Shuttle was a crewed spacecraft whose orbiter was built to be flown again and again.Space exploration
• A spacecraft comes to a stop as soon as it shuts down its engine in space.Space exploration
• Apollo 13 landed on the Moon and then brought its whole crew home safely.Space exploration
• China has sent an astronaut into space aboard a spacecraft it built itself.Space exploration
• Objects float inside the International Space Station because Earth's gravity does not reach that altitude.Space exploration
• Because the Moon has no wind or rain, the footprints left by the Apollo astronauts stay as they were for a very long time.Space exploration
• A space launch vehicle climbs by dropping each lower stage in turn once its propellant is spent.Space exploration
• Astronauts go outside into space and work with their bodies unprotected, wearing no spacesuit.Space exploration
• Gravity acting on an object at the Moon's surface is about what fraction of the pull at Earth's surface?The solar system
• What is the Sun mostly made of?The solar system
• Counting outward from the Sun, which place does Earth hold among the planets?The solar system
• Which planet is so close to Earth in size and mass that it is called Earth's twin?The solar system
• Seen from space, what mainly gives Earth its blue tint?The solar system
• Roughly what share of the whole solar system's mass belongs to the Sun?The solar system
• What is the nucleus of a comet mostly made of?The solar system
• The dark, flat stretches on the Moon were named seas. What are they actually made of?The solar system
• How long does light from the Sun take to reach Earth?The solar system
• Earth is the planet with the most moons in the solar system.The solar system
• The asteroid belt is so tightly packed with rocky bodies that a spacecraft can barely get through it.The solar system
• How long does the Moon take to go from a crescent through full and back to a crescent?The solar system
• Jupiter and Saturn are made of solid ground, so a visitor could land and walk about on the surface.The solar system
• Mars lies farther from the Sun than Earth does, and its average surface temperature is lower.The solar system
• Mars has broad oceans of liquid water spread across it, as Earth does.The solar system
• Earth is the only planet in the solar system with air a person could breathe without a spacesuit.The solar system
• Every planet in the solar system has a day the same length as Earth's 24 hours.The solar system
• Mars has changing seasons, much as Earth does.The solar system
• All the planets of the solar system travel around the Sun in the same direction.The solar system
• In the night sky a planet appears to drift little by little among the stars that make up the constellations.The solar system