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Photo: Omarius257, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.Journey through our cosmic neighborhood with this quiz about the Sun, planets, moons, and everything in between. Test your knowledge of the fascinating facts that make up our Solar System!
Space Cadet 0–4 · Solar System Savant 5–8 · Cosmic Cartographer 9–10
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On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, becoming the first person to orbit Earth. His groundbreaking flight lasted 108 minutes, marking a pivotal moment in the Space Race and human exploration. Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the Moon, much later.
Photo: Александр Моклецов / СовИнформБюро, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
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Despite Mercury being closer to the Sun, Venus holds the record for the hottest planet. Its incredibly dense atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide, creates a runaway greenhouse effect, trapping heat and raising surface temperatures to over 460 degrees Celsius (860 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to melt lead.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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The surface of Mars is rich in iron minerals, which, when exposed to oxygen, rust and form iron oxides. This process gives the planet its iconic red-orange appearance, earning it the nickname 'The Red Planet.' Intriguingly, Mars's atmosphere is very thin, yet this oxidation process still occurred over billions of years.
Photo: Kevin Gill from Los Angeles, CA, United States, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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The Sun is truly enormous, with a diameter about 109 times that of Earth. Its immense size means that over a million Earths could be packed inside its volume. Despite its massive size, the Sun is considered an average-sized star in the galaxy, highlighting the vastness of the universe.
Photo: Matúš Motlo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Saturn's magnificent rings are not solid but made of countless particles, from specks smaller than a millimetre to chunks several metres across. They are mostly water ice with a little rock. Squeezed together, all the material in the main rings would make a moon only about 300 kilometres across, a bit smaller than Saturn's moon Mimas.
Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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The most widely accepted theory, known as the Giant Impact Hypothesis, suggests that the Moon formed from the debris ejected into orbit after a colossal collision between early Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet named Theia. This event is estimated to have occurred about 4.5 billion years ago, just after the Solar System's formation.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Ceres is unique as both the largest object in the asteroid belt and the only dwarf planet located within the inner Solar System. It's massive enough for its own gravity to have pulled it into a spherical shape. The Dawn spacecraft extensively studied Ceres, revealing a surprisingly active world with potential subsurface water.
Photo: Justin Cowart, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 crossed the edge of the Sun's bubble in 2012 and now flies through interstellar space, more than 25 billion kilometres from Earth. Its radio signals take almost a whole day to reach us. Its twin, Voyager 2, is far out there too, but a few billion kilometres closer.
Photo: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Pluto's reclassification by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 sparked much debate. It was demoted because it failed to meet the new criterion of 'clearing its orbit' of other debris, unlike the eight major planets. This decision led to the formal definition of a 'dwarf planet' and the inclusion of other similar bodies.
Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Inst, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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The Great Red Spot is a giant storm, bigger than Earth, that astronomers have watched for nearly 200 years. Its winds blow at around 430 km/h, and although it has been shrinking in recent decades, it is still the best-known feature of Jupiter's stormy atmosphere.
Photo: Kevin Gill from Los Angeles, CA, United States, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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