The Solar Family Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mercury

Mercury is the smallest planet and the planet closest to the sun. Because of its proximity to the sun, Mercury can travel around the sun the fastest giving it the nickname of swift planet. The Sumerians wrote about Mercury but believed it was two planets. The Greeks knew it was one planet, and Galileo could barely see the planet through his telescope.

Similar to Earth, Mercury is tilted on its axis and has no seasons because Mercury has no atmosphere. Mercury rotates every 58.6 days. Mercury contains 30% silicate materials and 70% metals. Mercury has more iron in its core than any planet in the solar system and has no moons or satellites.

Answer: Eris

Eris was originally known as Xena by scientists who discovered the dwarf planet in 2005. With the discovery of Eris came the International Astronomical Union's definition of a planet. A year after Eris was discovered, it and Pluto were deemed dwarf planets. Because of the trouble Xena caused with defining planets versus dwarf planets, scientists officially renamed Xena with the name Eris after the Greek goddess of discord.

Eris is one-fifth the size of the Earth and has an unliveable atmosphere due to extreme cold. Eris has one moon which was renamed at the same time the planet was renamed. Eris's moon went from being called Gabrielle to Dysnomia, daughter of the Greek goddess Eris.

Answer: Venus

Venus is nicknamed the morning/evening star because it is the brightest planet and it appears as a star in the sky when the sun sets and is the last star to disappear when the sun rises. It was the first planet to be explored by a spacecraft in 1962.

Venus was identified by the Mayans who used it to set up their own calendar. Venus is known as Earth's evil twin because its atmosphere, unlike Earth's, is not hospitable. The air pressure would crush a human and the air smells like sulfur. Venus has the most circular orbit of all the planets and it rotates backward, unlike Earth.

Venus has a mountain range named Maxwell Montes and a volcano named Maat Mons. Venus has become popular in pop culture as it was mentioned by Greek author Homer as the most beautiful star in the sky, the planet became a song by Frankie Avalon, and Ray the lightning bug fell in love with Venus in the Disney film "The Princess and the Frog".

Answer: Earth

Earth is nicknamed the Blue Marble because the planet is covered by seventy-one percent water. It is the only planet whose name does not come from mythology. Because of the force from the planet's rotation, the Earth is an oblate spheroid meaning it is flat at both ends and bulging at the equator.

The Earth completes one orbit around the sun every three hundred sixty-five days. Earth has one moon. The Earth is the only planet discovered to have a liveable atmosphere.

Answer: Neptune

Neptune was discovered as a planet because of a prediction made by Alexis Bouvard, who realized there was a gravitational anomaly around the planet Uranus that could only be explained by another planet. Galileo saw Neptune two hundred years before Alexis, but noted it as a star and not a planet. Neptune is known as a twin to Uranus because both planets have similar compositions.

Neptune is nicknamed the windy planet because, in 1989, a spacecraft logged the planet's winds at 1,240 miles an hour and blowing opposite the planet's rotation. Neptune has a Great Dark Spot which is an anti-cyclonic storm 8,700 miles long by 4,100 miles wide. The windy planet has six rings and thirteen moons, with Triton being Neptune's largest moon.

Answer: Makemake

Makemake is a dwarf planet found in the Kuiper Belt and is named after the Rapa Nui god of fertility. The dwarf planet takes three hundred and five days to orbit the sun. Makemake and Eris are the reasons the International Astronomical Union decided to classify dwarf planets in the solar system. One moon was found orbiting Makemake in 2016. Makemake has a cold thin atmosphere, mostly made of nitrogen.

Answer: Uranus

When William Herschel first discovered Uranus, he thought it was a comet, but then realized it was indeed a planet. Uranus has twenty-seven identified moons and thirteen rings in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Uranus has the nickname the sideways planet because it rotates on its side due to several collisions by an object larger than the planet Earth. Because of the tilt, Uranus suffers from extreme seasons due to the weather fluctuations.

Answer: Haumea

Haumea was nicknamed Santa by the team that discovered the dwarf planet because it was discovered on December 28, 2004 and is the fastest spinning object in space. The name Haumea came from the Hawaiian goddess of fertility. The Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain took credit for the discovery of the dwarf planet which is unsuitable for life due to the extreme cold. Haumea has rings and two moons named Namaka and Hi'iaka after Haumea's daughters.

Answer: Pluto

Very few places in the solar system have snow but Pluto is a dwarf planet that has a cold, snowy surface which is why it was nicknamed the Ice planet. Pluto was once known as the ninth planet in the solar system until 2006 when it was downgraded to a dwarf planet. Pluto's first identified moon is called Charon.

The first images of Pluto were taken in July 2015 by the spacecraft New Horizons. Pluto's moon Charon is about half the size of Pluto and orbits around the dwarf planet. Pluto has no rings, but does have a heart shaped mark called Tombaugh Regio. The left side of the heart shaped mark on Pluto is 620 miles wide and 1.9 miles deep. The right side of the heart is made up of highlands and glaciers.

Answer: Mars

Mars is known as the red planet because of the layer of rust colored dirt on the planet's surface. The craters on the surface of the planet were caused by meteors bumping into the planet. Mars has ice clouds at both poles. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which may have at one time been asteroids that were pulled into the planet's gravitational pull.

The largest mountain found in the solar system is located on Mars and is called Olympus Mons.

Answer: Ceres

Ceres is the largest of the dwarf planets in the solar system and is located between Mars and Jupiter. In 2015, the spacecraft Dawn flew by Ceres making it the first dwarf planet to get visited by a spacecraft. After being called an asteroid for many years, Ceres was listed as a dwarf planet in 2006.

The name comes for the Roman goddess of the harvest. Ceres has no moons and no rings, but it does have deposits of salt that could be magnesium sulfate.

Answer: Jupiter

Jupiter is nicknamed the king of the planets because it is the largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter is eleven times the size of Earth and has numerous moons. Jupiter is one of the four gas giants which means it is a planet made up mostly of gas. It is shrinking at a rate of two centimeters a year due to the planet's heating and cooling process. Jupiter's rotation is the fastest in the solar system being only ten hours long.

Jupiter's colors are a blend of brown, orange, white and red clouds of ammonia and water floating around in hydrogen and helium. The planet has a Giant Red Spot on it that is an anticyclonic storm made up of high pressure and is between 7,000 to 8,000 miles wide from north to south and 15,000 to 25,000 miles wide from east to west. Of the moons that Jupiter has, the planet has four Galilean moons that were the first to be discovered by Galileo, using a telescope. The planets are Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. Jupiter has a faint ring system.

Answer: Saturn

Saturn is nicknamed the ringed planet because of the number of rings that surround it. It is the second largest planet in the solar system. Saturn has sixty-two moons and the planet's three major moons are Titan, Enceladus, and Mimas.

Saturn has been the focus of movies such as "Wall-E", "Beetlejuice" and "Interstellar". Saturday was named after the planet Saturn.