THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM

70 Falmouth Street      Portland, Maine 04103

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43.6667° N    70.2667° W  Altitude:  10 feet below sea level Founded January 1970

2021-2022: XCVII

"All my life my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name."

-Andre Breton

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER

Friday, March 25, 2022

Quiz # 23: Twenty Astronomical -and other- Questions

Quiz: Twenty Astronomical Questions


Yes, we're playing twenty questions!
No, this is not the usual twenty questions game in which one player has to deduce the identity of an object based on a series of yes-or-no questions.     Such deductive reasoning games are lovely intellectual workouts, but ,as we can't interact, the format wouldn't work for us.

Instead, we're asking twenty questions, most of which pertain to astronomy.  We'll include a few other questions just for variety.


1.  The dark areas along the lunar surface are referred to as _____________.

2.  Which planet in our solar system is the fifth largest? 

3.  If the Moon is rising at midnight, it is likely to be in what phase?

4.  The Sun can occupy the zenith only within which region on Earth?

5.  The Milky Way is an example of what type of galaxy?

6.  Which golden-nosed Dutch astronomer is considered the grand patriarch of observational astronomy?

7. Reflecting telescopes use ____________ instead of lens to focus and collect light.

8.  The Big Dipper is not a constellation, but is instead known as a(n) ______________.

9.    The conservation of _____________ causes spinning objects to rotate faster as they decrease in size.

10. A stop sign is in the shape of a what?

11.  The Universe, some think, consists of four dimensions.  Three of these dimensions are spatial.  The other dimension is _________.

12.  Which two planets in our solar system have no known moons?

13.  Which 17th century German mathematician formulated the three laws of planetary motion?

14.  Which type of electromagnetic radiation is the most energetic?

15.  Orion's belt consists of how many stars?

16.  How does an annular solar eclipse differ from a total solar eclipse?

17.  What is the only even prime number?

18.   Which naked eye circumpolar star approximates the position of the North Celestial Pole?

19.   In order to see the "Midnight Sun" effect in the Northern Hemisphere, you would have to live north of _________________.

20. The Arctic was named for ____________, the brightest star in Bootes the Sheepherder.

ANSWERS


1.  Maria or mare.  The Latin word for "seas," as they were once believed to have been seas of water.

2. Earth
(Had we asked this question twenty years ago, we wouldn't have had to include the qualifier "in our solar system."  Now, wonderfully, we have to distinguish between the planets in our solar system and those around other stars.)

3.   Last Quarter.
The Last Quarter Moon generally rises around midnight.  The new moon, which we can't see, rises at sunrise; the First Quarter Moon rises at noon; Full Moon rises at sunset.    These times are approximations.

4.  The tropics

5.  A barred spiral galaxy

6. Tycho Brahe

7.  Mirrors

8. asterism

9.  momentum
You will observe that a spinning skater rotates  much more quickly as she draws in her arms.   

10.  Octagon

11. time   (temporal)

12.  Mercury and Venus

13.  Johannes Kepler

14.   Gamma radiation

15. Three   (Mintaka, Alnilam, and Mintaka)

16. During an annular solar eclipse, the moon moves across the Sun, but a ring of light remains around it.   During a total solar eclipse, the moon blocks all of the sun.    (Annular solar eclipses occur when the moon is at or near apogee, the most distant point in its orbit.)

17. 2

18.  Polaris

19.  The Arctic Circle

20.  Arcturus

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