Space & Astronomy

C.Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri is the nearest known star beyond the Sun and belongs to the Alpha Centauri system.

A.Milky Way

Our solar system lies within the Milky Way, not in the nearby Andromeda galaxy.

D.Distance

A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, so it measures distance rather than duration.

C.Supernova

Supernovae include explosions of massive stars and thermonuclear explosions involving white dwarfs; they are not newborn stars.

A.A region where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape

Inside the event horizon, even light cannot escape; a black hole is not an empty tunnel through space.

C.Andromeda Galaxy

Andromeda is the nearest major spiral galaxy; smaller satellite galaxies lie closer to the Milky Way.

C.Star (main sequence)

The Sun is a main-sequence star, generating energy through nuclear fusion in its core.

A.A cloud of gas and dust in space

Nebulae are interstellar clouds, some forming stars and others originating from dying stars.

C.A rapidly rotating neutron star that emits beams of radiation

A pulsar’s rotating radiation beams can appear as regular pulses when they sweep across Earth.

B.Event horizon

The event horizon is the escape boundary; the singularity is a different theoretical feature deeper inside.

A.About 13.8 billion years

This is the approximate age inferred from cosmological observations, not the age of Earth or the solar system.

C.Apollo

Apollo carried astronauts to the Moon; Mercury and Gemini were earlier human-spaceflight programs.

B.1969

Apollo 11 landed in July 1969, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon.

C.Discovery

Discovery deployed Hubble in 1990. Hubble is a NASA–ESA project, not exclusively one agency’s undertaking.

D.Earth

The ISS is in low Earth orbit; it does not travel around the Moon.

A.Alexei Leonov (USSR)

Leonov made the first spacewalk in 1965; Gagarin had earlier become the first human in space.

B.Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, before the American Explorer 1 satellite.

A.Infrared

Webb observes primarily infrared light, useful for studying distant galaxies and dust-obscured regions.

C.Voyager 2

Voyager 2 visited all four giant planets; Voyager 1 visited Jupiter and Saturn, not Uranus or Neptune.

A.Yuri Gagarin

Gagarin orbited Earth aboard Vostok 1 in 1961; Alan Shepard’s first flight was suborbital.

A.238,000 miles

The Moon’s distance varies along its orbit; roughly 238,000 miles is an average, not a fixed separation.

C.Solar eclipse

A solar eclipse requires alignment; most new moons do not block the Sun for observers on Earth.

B.Ursa Major

The Big Dipper is an asterism within Ursa Major, rather than a separate official constellation.

A.Iron oxide (rust)

Iron oxide contributes Mars’s reddish color; the planet’s surface is not covered in metallic copper.

B.Zenith

Zenith means directly overhead; nadir is the opposite direction, directly beneath the observer.