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Quiz about Starry Night Trivia
Quiz about Starry Night Trivia

Starry Night Trivia Trivia Quiz


Sorry to disappoint Modern Art-enthusiasts...this quiz has nothing to do with van Gogh's famous picture; rather, it's about all the twinkling specks of light that we can see (with or without optical aids) in the night sky. Enjoy!

A multiple-choice quiz by achernar. Estimated time: 7 mins.
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Author
achernar
Time
7 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
181,344
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
6 / 10
Plays
3072
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 73 (4/10), Guest 174 (5/10), Guest 216 (8/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. In the year 1604, Johannes Kepler observed a supernova in our Galaxy, approximately 6 kiloparsecs (20000 light years) away from us. This supernova appeared brighter than the brightest star in the night-sky, with its apparent magnitude being -2.5 (as bright as Jupiter) at its peak. In which constellation did this supernova occur? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. This constellation is the 4th in the zodiac and definitely one of the most inconspicuous! It is supposed to resemble a crab, but is very small and dim, and so to many (including me!), it bears no resemblance to one! This constellation is nearly impossible to see in light-polluted areas like big cities. Its neighbouring constellations are Lynx to the North, Canis Minor and Hydra to the South, Leo to the East and Gemini to the West. Which constellation am I talking about?

Answer: (One word...six letters)
Question 3 of 10
3. During the first voyage around the world (1519), the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew "discovered" 2 irregularly-shaped objects, which were cloud-like in appearance, in the night-sky of the Southern Hemisphere. These later came to be known as the 2 "Magellanic Clouds", the larger and the smaller being called "Large Magellanic Cloud" (LMC) and "Small Magellanic Cloud" (SMC) respectively. What exactly are the Magellanic Clouds? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. When most of us hear the world "constellation", we imagine groups of stars which form "shapes" in the night-sky, like that of a hunter, a scorpion, a dipper, a lion, and so on. However, to an astronomer, a constellation is a 'section' of the Celestial Sphere, rather than an imaginary figure. The night-sky has been broken up into 88 pieces, each of these being called a 'constellation'. Which of these 88 constellations is the largest, in terms of area covered on the Celestial Sphere? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. In the year 1603, Johannes Bayer introduced his "Bayer Designations" for stars, in his star-atlas "Uranometria". According to this system, stars are assigned designations consisting of a Greek letter followed by the genitive of the constellation which contains the star. A few examples of these designations are Alpha Centauri, Gamma Crucis, Nu Draconis, Epsilon Hydrae and Delta Ursae Majoris. In principle, the Greek letters were to be assigned in descending order of brightness of the stars. For example, the brightest star of the constellation Canis Minor became Alpha Canis Minoris, the 2nd-brightest Beta Canis Minoris, and so on.

However, there are numerous examples which have been found where his designations are clearly out of order (resulting in some astronomers even accusing him of having faulty vision!), where the Greek letters weren't properly assigned, such as cases where the star assigned the letter alpha is clearly not the brightest. Which of the following cases is *not* an example of such a designation mistake?
Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. If you look into a sky-chart, you'll probably come across several objects with funny-looking names consisting of the capital letter "M" followed by a number. For example, the Pleiades star-cluster in Taurus is labeled "M45", and "M13" is the labelling for the Hercules Globular Cluster. And so it goes on right from "M1" to "M110". But tell me, what exactly does the letter "M" represent in each of these cases? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Now coming back to supernovae: on July 4, 1054, Chinese astronomers (and possibly Native Americans) recorded a supernova explosion taking place in the constellation Taurus- so bright that it was even visible to the naked eye during daytime! This supernova explosion, 6,500 light years away, resulted in the formation of a nebula, now more than 6 light years across, and expanding at the rate of 1000 kilometres per second! Also known as M1, what is this nebula commonly referred to as? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Well, even for novice star-gazers this question should not be much of a problem, that is, unless you're too far North in the Northern Hemisphere! Tell me, which is the brightest star in the sky (after the Sun, of course), also known as Alpha Canis Majoris? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. On the Celestial Sphere, all stars appear to have fixed positions. This however is not the case; the stars *do* change their positions on the Celestial Sphere, just not fast enough for it to be easily noticed within our lifetimes. These apparent changes in position, called 'Proper Motion', are not due to any of the Earth's numerous motions such as precession, or chromatic aberrations; rather, they are due to the movement of the Solar System and the Sun as a whole in space, or due to the actual motion of the star itself. Of all the stars, which has the largest proper motion? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. I can't bear to leave this quiz without a question on the stars in our immediate neighbourhood...well, that is, if you call some 10 light years your "neighbourhood"- the closest star to Sun is some 4.22 light years away. If you go at the maximum speed of the "Voyager 1" space-craft (17 kilometres per second), it'd take some 75,000 years to get there! So tell me, what is the name of this star? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. In the year 1604, Johannes Kepler observed a supernova in our Galaxy, approximately 6 kiloparsecs (20000 light years) away from us. This supernova appeared brighter than the brightest star in the night-sky, with its apparent magnitude being -2.5 (as bright as Jupiter) at its peak. In which constellation did this supernova occur?

Answer: Ophiuchus

This supernova occurred in the constellation Ophiuchus, and was first observed on October 9, 1604. Kepler himself first saw it only on October 17, but the star was named "Kepler's Star" after him, as he'd studied it so extensively. He wrote a book on the supernova- "De Stella nova in pede Serpentarii", meaning- "On the new star in Ophiuchus's foot". Galileo used this supernova as evidence against Aristotle's theory that the heavens remained unchanged, which was the belief prevalent at that time. This was the second supernova that was visible in a single generation, the other one having been discovered by Tycho Brahe in 1572 in the constellation Cassiopeia.

In 1987, a supernova called '1987a' appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This supernova occurred approximately 50 kiloparsecs (164,000 light years) away, the closest one to us since the 1604 supernova.
2. This constellation is the 4th in the zodiac and definitely one of the most inconspicuous! It is supposed to resemble a crab, but is very small and dim, and so to many (including me!), it bears no resemblance to one! This constellation is nearly impossible to see in light-polluted areas like big cities. Its neighbouring constellations are Lynx to the North, Canis Minor and Hydra to the South, Leo to the East and Gemini to the West. Which constellation am I talking about?

Answer: Cancer

Cancer has no stars with an apparent magnitude of less than 3, and so is very difficult to spot. Cancer is best known as the home of an open cluster (a group of stars born at roughly the same time from a molecular cloud and are still fairly close to each other), M44 or Praesepe, also called the "Beehive Cluster" because of its shape. Praesepe can be located fairly easily with a small telescope or binoculars.

It may be worth noting here that (for no known reason) the Chinese gave the Beehive Cluster the rather un-romantic name, "The Exhalation of the Piled-up Corpses"!
3. During the first voyage around the world (1519), the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew "discovered" 2 irregularly-shaped objects, which were cloud-like in appearance, in the night-sky of the Southern Hemisphere. These later came to be known as the 2 "Magellanic Clouds", the larger and the smaller being called "Large Magellanic Cloud" (LMC) and "Small Magellanic Cloud" (SMC) respectively. What exactly are the Magellanic Clouds?

Answer: Irregular dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way

The LMC (70 degrees South) and SMC (73 degrees South) are found in the constellations Doradus and Tucana respectively. They are both "satellite" galaxies of the Milky Way and are much smaller than it. Even though it was Magellan who brought these to the notice of the so-called "civilised" European world, these clouds were well known to Arabic astronomers who lived further south- the earliest recorded mention of these is from the year 964 AD by the Persian astronomer Al Sufi, who, in his "Book of Fixed Stars", called the LMC "Al Bakr" or "The White Ox".

It is also believed that Amerigo Vespucci had written about the Magellanic Clouds in a letter written during his Third Voyage in 1503-04, when he wrote about "three Canopies, two bright and one obscure"; the two "bright" ones being the Magellanic Clouds and the "obscure" one being the Coalsack dark nebula in the constellation Crux (the Southern Cross).
4. When most of us hear the world "constellation", we imagine groups of stars which form "shapes" in the night-sky, like that of a hunter, a scorpion, a dipper, a lion, and so on. However, to an astronomer, a constellation is a 'section' of the Celestial Sphere, rather than an imaginary figure. The night-sky has been broken up into 88 pieces, each of these being called a 'constellation'. Which of these 88 constellations is the largest, in terms of area covered on the Celestial Sphere?

Answer: Hydra

Areas on the Celestial Sphere are measured in 'square degrees', just like areas on the Earth are measured in square kilometres, square miles, hectares, and the such. Hydra, the water-snake, is the largest constellation in the sky, occupying 1303 square degrees. The smallest, Crux, occupies only 68 square degrees. Hydra, despite being so large, has only 1 fairly bright star- Alphard, of magnitude +1.98: 23 times fainter than the brightest star in the night-sky (Sirius).

Here's a list of the 10 largest constellations and the 10 smallest as well:

* Largest--
1. Hydra (1303 sq.deg.)
2. Virgo (1294 sq.deg.)
3. Ursa Major (1280 sq.deg.)
4. Cetus (1231 sq.deg.)
5. Hercules (1225 sq.deg.)
6. Eridanus (1138 sq.deg.)
7. Pegasus (1121 sq.deg.)
8. Draco (1083 sq.deg.)
9. Centaurus (1060 sq.deg.)
10. Aquarius (980 sq.deg.)>

* Smallest--
78. Chamaeleon (132 sq.deg.)
78. Triangulum (132 sq.deg.)
80. Corona Australis (128 sq.deg.)
81. Caelum (125 sq.deg.)
82. Reticulum (114 sq.deg.)
83. Triangulum Australe (110 sq.deg.)
84. Scutum (109 sq.deg.)
85. Circinus (93 sq.deg.)
86. Sagitta (80 sq.deg.)
87. Equuleus (72 sq.deg.)
88. Crux (68 sq.deg.)
5. In the year 1603, Johannes Bayer introduced his "Bayer Designations" for stars, in his star-atlas "Uranometria". According to this system, stars are assigned designations consisting of a Greek letter followed by the genitive of the constellation which contains the star. A few examples of these designations are Alpha Centauri, Gamma Crucis, Nu Draconis, Epsilon Hydrae and Delta Ursae Majoris. In principle, the Greek letters were to be assigned in descending order of brightness of the stars. For example, the brightest star of the constellation Canis Minor became Alpha Canis Minoris, the 2nd-brightest Beta Canis Minoris, and so on. However, there are numerous examples which have been found where his designations are clearly out of order (resulting in some astronomers even accusing him of having faulty vision!), where the Greek letters weren't properly assigned, such as cases where the star assigned the letter alpha is clearly not the brightest. Which of the following cases is *not* an example of such a designation mistake?

Answer: Alpha Carinae (Canopus)

In Gemini, it is, in fact, the Beta star (Pollux) which is the brightest, in Ursa Major it is the Epsilon star (Alioth) and in Hercules the Beta star (Kornephoros). However, in Carina, Canopus is indeed the brightest star.

Several other irregularities have been found in Bayer designations, such as stars being given designations for constellations in which, according to modern constellation boundaries, they don't even lie in! (Of course, in this case you can't blame Bayer, after all, at that time, the modern constellation boundaries hadn't been fixed yet.)

There are also 2 stars which have double designations: the star Elnath was designated Beta Tauri as well as Gamma Aurigae, and Alpheratz was designated both Alpha Andromedae and Beta Pegasi.

You can find a complete list of the genitives for all the 88 constellations here: http://astro2.byu.edu/~sdb/Constellations.html
6. If you look into a sky-chart, you'll probably come across several objects with funny-looking names consisting of the capital letter "M" followed by a number. For example, the Pleiades star-cluster in Taurus is labeled "M45", and "M13" is the labelling for the Hercules Globular Cluster. And so it goes on right from "M1" to "M110". But tell me, what exactly does the letter "M" represent in each of these cases?

Answer: Messier objects: astronomical objects catalogued by Charles Messier

Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a French astronomer who published a catalogue containing 110 deep-sky objects (such as nebulae, star-clusters and galaxies) that could be seen in the night-sky, and gave them names from M1 to M110. His catalogue "Nebulae and Star Clusters" was first published in 1774, and contained 45 Messier objects, from M1 to M45. The final catalogue, published in 1781, contained all 110 Messier objects. So, what was his motivation doing all this? Well, he wanted to help comet-hunters (like himself) and other observers distinguish between comets and deep-sky objects, and wanted to avoid mistaking deep-sky objects for comets.

A more exhaustive catalogue of deep-sky objects is the New General Catalogue, containing nearly 8,000 objects.

Many amateur astronomers and star-gazers enjoy participating in "Messier Marathon"- staying up on a single night and locating all 100 Messier objects with a telescope. *All* the Messier objects can be seen from around 25 degrees North latitude, and during late March or early April only. Typically, observers begin right from sunset one day to sunrise the next, beginning from the Western horizon. By sunrise, the observers will be able to spot the last few Messier objects just rising on the Eastern horizon. Once all the objects have been spotted, the Marathon is complete!
7. Now coming back to supernovae: on July 4, 1054, Chinese astronomers (and possibly Native Americans) recorded a supernova explosion taking place in the constellation Taurus- so bright that it was even visible to the naked eye during daytime! This supernova explosion, 6,500 light years away, resulted in the formation of a nebula, now more than 6 light years across, and expanding at the rate of 1000 kilometres per second! Also known as M1, what is this nebula commonly referred to as?

Answer: Crab Nebula

At the centre of the Crab Nebula is the Crab Pulsar, a remnant of the supernova explosion discovered in 1969. Pulsars are fast-rotating neutron stars, and are known for their large X-ray emissions. The Crab Pulsar itself is around 10 km in diameter and rotates at the rate of 30 rotations per second! Neutron stars have all their mass contained in free neutrons, and are considered 'dead stars' as they form one of the possible end-points of stellar evolution. Neutron stars typically have a density of 10^14 times that of the Sun, meaning that 1 teaspoonful weighs about a billion (10^9) tonnes! Also, the escape velocity of a neutron star, i.e. the velocity a body is required to attain in order to escape its gravitational field, is 1/3rd the speed of light: 10^8 metres per second.
8. Well, even for novice star-gazers this question should not be much of a problem, that is, unless you're too far North in the Northern Hemisphere! Tell me, which is the brightest star in the sky (after the Sun, of course), also known as Alpha Canis Majoris?

Answer: Sirius

Sirius, also known as the 'Dog Star' (no wonder in the "Harry Potter" series of books Sirius Black can transform himself into a dog!), is found in the constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog). It has a mass of about 2.4 times that of the Sun, and is 23 times as luminous! It also one of the closest stars to the Sun, at around 8.6 light years away- just double that of the closest star, Proxima Centauri.

Sirius was worshipped in ancient Egypt as the time for the flooding of the Nile would come at the time when Sirius could just be seen rising at dawn. (This, however, isn't the case now, due to a motion of the Earth known as the precession of the equinoxes.) In fact, the Egyptian Calendar was based on this so-called 'helical' rising of Sirius, and their temples were constructed in such a way that the light of Sirius could enter the temples and reach the inner altars.

Sirius has a faint companion, called 'Sirius B', which is white dwarf. Sirius B was only 'discovered' in 1862, however, a group of people living in Mali, West Africa (300,000 in number today) called the Dogons, even have references to Sirius B in their ancient mythology! They called Sirius B 'Po Tolo' and described it as "the seed of the Milky Way" and "the navel of the entire universe". How could they see it without a telescope? Nobody knows for sure- some say they were visited by extra-terrestrial beings from a planet orbiting Sirius, others say that around the year 3000 BC they came into contact with some advanced civilisation. Most astronomers dismiss the extra-terrestrial theory- they say that no planet orbiting Sirius could have intelligent life evolve on it, the gravity of Sirius B would make the planet's orbit too unstable. You can read more about the Dogons here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon
9. On the Celestial Sphere, all stars appear to have fixed positions. This however is not the case; the stars *do* change their positions on the Celestial Sphere, just not fast enough for it to be easily noticed within our lifetimes. These apparent changes in position, called 'Proper Motion', are not due to any of the Earth's numerous motions such as precession, or chromatic aberrations; rather, they are due to the movement of the Solar System and the Sun as a whole in space, or due to the actual motion of the star itself. Of all the stars, which has the largest proper motion?

Answer: Barnard's Star

Proper motion is measured in arcseconds per year, with Barnard's Star topping at 10.3" per year. Proper motion of stars generally decreases as you go away from the Sun. Barnard's Star is in the constellation Ophiuchus (the serpent-bearer), and its very large proper motion was discovered in 1916 by the astronomer E. E. Barnard. Barnard's Star is just 6 light years away from Earth, and the 5th closest star, only the Sun, Proxima Centauri, and Alpha Centauri A & B (the latter 3 form a triple-star system) being closer. Barnard's Star is a red dwarf, and hence despite being so close, it can't be seen without optical aids, its apparent magnitude being +9.54.
10. I can't bear to leave this quiz without a question on the stars in our immediate neighbourhood...well, that is, if you call some 10 light years your "neighbourhood"- the closest star to Sun is some 4.22 light years away. If you go at the maximum speed of the "Voyager 1" space-craft (17 kilometres per second), it'd take some 75,000 years to get there! So tell me, what is the name of this star?

Answer: Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star, relatively cool and not very luminous. Red dwarf stars burn hydrogen at a very slow rate, and so estimates for their lifespan are very high, ranging from tens of billions to trillions of years- greater than the age of the universe! The fact that no red dwarf star which has evolved off the main sequence stage has been discovered supports the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe- that the universe has a finite age. Red dwarf stars are also extremely common, it is believed that of the 30 stars nearest to the Sun, approximately 20 of them are red dwarfs.

Proxima Centauri has an apparent magnitude of +11 and is invisible to the naked-eye. It is located in the constellation Centaurus, and is a part of the Alpha Centauri system of stars. Alpha Centauri consists of a binary system- Alpha Centauri A (the 3rd-brightest star in the night-sky) and Alpha Centauri B, as well as the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (sometimes referred to as Alpha Centauri C). While Alpha Centauri A and B orbit each other with a period of 80 years, the 3rd star- Proxima Centauri, completes one orbit in 500,000 years or more.

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I hope you enjoyed playing this quiz!
Source: Author achernar

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor crisw before going online.
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