6. On your ______ birthday, you will be able to see five of the Big Dipper's stars as they appeared during the year you were born.
a. 35th
b. 42nd
c. 76th
d. 317th
7. A human standing on the Arctic Circle will be rotating _____________ than a person at 43 degrees N latitude.
a. more slowly
b. more quickly
c. at the same rate
d. turkey (for the surrealists)
8. How many Earths can fit inside the Sun?
a. 100,000
b. 400,000
c. 900,000
d. 1.2 million
9. How many Suns could fit inside Betelgeuse?
a. 5
b. 29,000
c. 15 million
d. 160 million
10. Over the course of an entire night, one can see about ______________ stars in the sky with the unaided eye.
a. 1000
b. 2000
c. 4000
d. 10,000
ANSWERS
1. What is special about the May 26th full moon?
c. both a and b
The moon will be full around the same time it reaches perigee,
its point of least distance from Earth and, so, is a "Super moon."
Also, this full moon will pass directly into the umbra, the inner part of
Earth's inner shadow. However, almost all of this eclipse will occur after
the moon has set here in New England.
2. Which two naked-eye planets are currently visible in the eastern pre-dawn sky
b. Jupiter and Saturn
Saturn rises first, but Jupiter is twelve times brighter.
Both gas giant planets will be visible after 3 a.m.
3. Totality during the May 26 total lunar eclipse will last ________________.
a. 14 minutes
As the full moon will move through the upper part of the umbra, it won't remain immersed within it for very long. The longest possible total lunar eclipse lasts 1 hour and 47 minutes.
4. Who was the 8th man on the moon?
h. James Irwin
The question included a complete list of all twelve astronauts who walked on the moon.
Only four of them: Buzz Aldrin, David Scott, Charles Duke and Harrison Schmitt are still alive.
James Irwin was the first moon walker to die. He passed away on August 8, 1991 at the age of 61.
5. A sufficiently powerful light beam could wrap around the equator approximately _____ times each second.
d. 7.5
A light beam travels at 186,290 miles per second, fast enough to circle the equator nearly eight times in one second. It is astonishing to realize that Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to the Sun, is about 4.3 light years away!
6. On your ______ birthday, you will be able to see five of the Big Dipper's stars as they appeared during the year you were born.
c. 76th
The five central stars of the Big Dipper (Alcor/Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, and Merak) are all about 76 light years from Earth. When you're 76, you can see them as they appeared around the time of your birth. They are all part of the Ursa Major Moving Cluster, which includes many stars that we don't see as part of the Big Dipper.
7. A human standing on the Arctic Circle will be rotating _____________ than a person at 43 degrees N latitude.
a. more slowly
Earth's tangential rotation speed is greatest at the equator and diminishes with increasing distance from it. Someone in Portland (ME) rotates around Earth at 757 mph; someone on the Arctic Circle is moving at 413 miles per hour.
8. How many Earths can fit inside the Sun?
d. 1.2 million
Although Earth seems immense to us, it is dwarfed by the Sun, which is so large it could consume more than one million Earth-sized worlds.
9. How many Suns can fit inside Betelgeuse?
d.160 million
Earth is dwarfed by the Sun, but the Sun is dwarfed by Betelgeuse. The red supergiant star that marks Orion's eastern shoulder is so immense that 160 million Suns could fit inside it. We hasten to point out, however, that Betelgeuse's outer layers are so tenuous that one could almost describe the region as a "red-hot vacuum."
10. Over the course of an entire night, one can see about ______________ stars in the sky with the unaided eye.
d. 10,000
Though an impressive number, 10,000 represents a minute fraction of the 400 billion stars within the Milky Way Galaxy
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