Astronomy Quiz

[Graeme]

Astronomy quiz anyone?


https://theskysearchers.com/app.php/quiz/play/5


It's not too difficult!

Graeme

[HansV]

You must be logged in to access this page.

[Graeme]

Doh!

1. Is astronomy fun?
a - Yes
b - No
c - Who cares

2. How many planets are there in our Solar System?
a - 6
b - 7
c - 8
d - 9
e - 10

3. Which phenomena do not originate in our Solar System?
a - Zodiacal light
b - Aurora
c - Gegenshein
d - Milky Way
e - Meteors

4. What is the name of the North Pole star?
a - Vega
b - Deneb
c - Betelgeuse
d - Sirius
e - Polaris

5. What is the name of the nearest star to us?
a - Alpha Centuri
b - Proxima Centuri
c - Betelgeuse
d - Sol
e - Polaris

6. In what century was the first telescope invented?
a - 15th
b - 16th
c - 17th
d - 18th
e - 19th

7. Which bright periodic comet returns to the inner Solar System once every 76 years?
a - Hershel
b - Halley
c - Caldwell
d - Messier
e - Flamsteed

8. Which deep sky catalogue contains 110 objects?
a - Hershel
b - Hubble
c - Caldwell
d - Messier
e - Flamsteed

9. Which planet in our Solar System has the most mass?
a - Mars
b - Jupiter
c - Saturn
d - Uranus
e - Neptune

10. Which of these is the brightest star in the sky in visible light?
a - Vega
b - Deneb
c - Betelgeuse
d - Sirius
e - Polaris

11. What is the common name of the phenomenon where the Moon passes precisely between the Earth and the Sun?
a - Lunar eclipse
b - Western elongation
c - Solar eclipse
d - Opposition
e - Perihelion

[HansV]

Are you sure about the options for question #7?

Spoiler

I assume the correct answer is Halley

[Graeme]

Are you sure about the options for question #7?

Spoiler

I assume the correct answer is Halley

I am. Comets are mostly named after the first person to discover them!

Edit: I'm not, think I went a bit dyslexic there! Question text corrected.

[ChrisGreaves]

2. How many planets are there in our Solar System?

Hi Graeme, I did not log in to check the quiz, and I am glad.
Questions like the one above bug the heck out of me. I get hung up on arguing that we don't have a solar system, so that the phrase "our Solar System" has no meaning.
We belong to a solar system, so the question "How many planets are there in the Solar System to which we belong?" is answerable, and the answer is "it depends on which astronomers you talk to".
Pedantically yours, Chris

[Graeme]

The phrase Our Solar System was chosen in order to differentiate between the one we live in and the countless trillions others. Also irrespective of individuals' opinions, there is an agreed current definition of what constitutes a planet in our Solar System and so an agreed number of planets. Your pedantry is irrelevant.

I just edited the format of the questions. So what answers did you choose?

I got No. 5 wrong!

Graeme

[BobH]

Here is the best I could do:

Spoiler

1) a, Yes
2)8 or 9 depending on Pluto
3 a (a guess), Zodiacal Light
4 e, Polaris
5 d, Sol
6 a, 15th Century IIRC
7 none of the above, Halley's Comet has that periodicity
8 d, Messier ?
9 b, Jupiter
10 I have no idea
11 c, solar eclipse[/spoiler

[HansV]

My replies:

Spoiler

1a
2c
3d
4e
5d
6c
7a ??? I thought it was Halley's Comet
8d
9b
10d
11c

[Graeme]

Here is the best I could do:

Spoiler

1) a, Yes
2)8 or 9 depending on Pluto
3 a (a guess), Zodiacal Light
4 e, Polaris
5 d, Sol
6 a, 15th Century IIRC
7 none of the above, Halley's Comet has that periodicity
8 d, Messier ?
9 b, Jupiter
10 I have no idea
11 c, solar eclipse[/spoiler

7/11
Not bad Bob! I have now corrected my error in question 7!

[Graeme]

My replies:

Spoiler

1a
2c
3d
4e
5d
6c
7a ??? I thought it was Halley's Comet
8d
9b
10d
11c

11/11!

[ChrisGreaves]

... there is an agreed current definition of what constitutes a planet in our Solar System and so an agreed number of planets.

Agreed. So we are back at nine again, are we?

Your pedantry is irrelevant.

But isn't that always so?

So what answers did you choose?

I didn't do them, because I didn't feel like logging in at that time, but I did notice that the site ran phpBB software.
Judging by a quick glance at your questions above, I might have got half of them right.
But I had already worked out that you and Hans would put me to shame and I wanted to maintain my status as "someone who is eager to learn" rather than "someone who knows so little that he has no chance at all of catching up:
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Why Saturn's moons have been so hard to find
Relevant to this thread I yanked out four specific quotes from the article, chunks of text that can cloud a person’s understanding of the solar systems:-

(a) At last count there were no less than 290 "traditional" moons in our Solar System.

The presence of double-quotes alerts me to the potential for contradiction in terms. Double-quotes often signal an undercurrent of “we don’t really mean this, but it will do for now". This sows distrust in some reader’s minds.

(b) ... the second smallest of 22 planetary-mass moons – those large enough to be rounded by their own gravity and that orbit regularly around a larger planet.

This sends me in the direction of defining a moon as “something with enough mass to be shaped in a roughly spherical shape by its own gravitational field”. I believe that this shaping applies to all of our sun’s planets, as well as to earth’s moon. But not, of course, to Elon Musk’s satellites.

(c) Other Saturnian moons evaded human observation for far longer. The potato-shaped Hyperion wasn't discovered until 1848,

Here is conflict. The paragraph discusses other Saturnian moons, and names Hyperion, so Hyperion is a moon, but then Hyperion is potato-shaped (and yes, I get spherical potatoes from the local supermarkets) but the accompanying image shows an object with one axis apparently one-and-a-half times the length of another axis, which raises the question of what I mean by my use of the term roughly.

(d) ... the satellites discovered in the early days of astronomy followed certain patterns:

And now a moon is defined in part as a satellite – which it surely is – but the term satellite leaps out at us, having been previously graced with adjectives such as natural and irregular.

My bottom line: Unless a published article starts off with a set of axioms or definitions, the article is likely to show inconsistencies, sowing a conflicting set of ideas in the regular reader.
I don’t have a solution for this conundrum.
Nor do I know why the adjective Saturnian is used instead of Saturnine. perhaps that is just the massive flexibility of the English language.

Cheers, Chris

[Jay Freedman]

(b) ... the second smallest of 22 planetary-mass moons – those large enough to be rounded by their own gravity and that orbit regularly around a larger planet.

This sends me in the direction of defining a moon as “something with enough mass to be shaped in a roughly spherical shape by its own gravitational field”. I believe that this shaping applies to all of our sun’s planets, as well as to earth’s moon. But not, of course, to Elon Musk’s satellites.

(c) Other Saturnian moons evaded human observation for far longer. The potato-shaped Hyperion wasn't discovered until 1848,

Here is conflict. The paragraph discusses other Saturnian moons, and names Hyperion, so Hyperion is a moon, but then Hyperion is potato-shaped (and yes, I get spherical potatoes from the local supermarkets) but the accompanying image shows an object with one axis apparently one-and-a-half times the length of another axis, which raises the question of what I mean by my use of the term roughly.

There's no conflict here. The statement in (b) is specifically about planetary-mass moons. Hyperion is a moon, but not a planetary-mass moon.

(d) ... the satellites discovered in the early days of astronomy followed certain patterns:

And now a moon is defined in part as a satellite – which it surely is – but the term satellite leaps out at us, having been previously graced with adjectives such as natural and irregular.

A satellite is a body that orbits a larger body. A moon is a satellite, but a satellite is not necessarily a moon.

Nor do I know why the adjective Saturnian is used instead of Saturnine. perhaps that is just the massive flexibility of the English language.

saturnine.png

Sorry if that seems grumpy. See definition 2.

[ChrisGreaves]

Sorry if that seems grumpy. See definition 2.

Jay, I can't imagine you being melancholy or sullen. At all. When we meet for lunch it will be a blast!
I will confess to spending a day or two mulling over your responses to my posts; scraping every bit of wisdom I can from them.
Too in this case I will confess to composing my earlier post right off the top of my head.

I will maintain my basic premise "Unless a published article starts off with a set of axioms or definitions, the article is likely to show inconsistencies, sowing a conflicting set of ideas in the regular reader." In most cases the inconsistencies of are of little consequence. Perhaps I am over-concerned about tests of scientific knowledge. Especially in the popular press, where the writer sets out to spread knowledge.

Cheers, Chris