Astrophysics for Kids! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Star

Astrophysics is a word that comes from the Greek. Astro means star, and physics comes from the Greek word physis, which means nature.

Answer: Brightness

Astrophysicists study a lot of things about space. One of the things they learn about is the luminosity of stars. Luminosity is a word at means brightness. That means that a star that is very luminous is very bright.

Answer: Big Bang Theory

According to many scientists, the universe began billions of years ago as a small, very dense, ball of energy. It is widely believed that this ball blew up, and expanded into the universe. Some think the universe is still expanding.

Answer: Jupiter

Jupiter is one of four "gas giants" in the solar system. What that means is that there is no hard surface to stand on. The planet is made up of a giant ball of gas, as is Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. You could easily stand on Mars, Mercury, or Venus. Of course, the atmospheres on those planets might be full of gases that make you unable to breathe, but you could still stand on them. Scientists do not even know if there is a solid core to some of these gas giants.

They can't reach inside the planet to find out!

Answer: Blue star

Stars are giant balls of energy, and the surface temperature (and therefore the color that we see) is affected by how much energy that star contains. A huge, blue star has a lot of energy inside the core, which creates a lot of heat on the outside. However, these stars use so much energy so quickly that they do not last nearly as long as the colder, redder stars.

These emit very low amounts of energy, so, though they are a bit cooler than blue stars, they also last much longer.

Answer: Saturn

Water has a density of one. Anything with a density greater than one will sink in water, and anything with a lower density will float. Saturn has a density of less than 0.7, so it will float in water.

Answer: Milky

The Greek word for galaxy is "galaxias", which actually means 'milky'. The word is in direct reference to the galaxy we live in; the Milky Way Galaxy.

Answer: Black hole

A black hole is something in space that has such strong gravity that nothing can escape, not even light. Even though a black hole has such intense gravity, which crushes everything inside, some black holes are actually not very dense; and would float on water!

Answer: No

The Sun is not even close to being the largest star. In fact, it is actually quite a small star. The largest known star is VY Canis Majoris. This star is so large that a total of 9,200,000,000 (over nine BILLION) suns can fit inside of it.

Answer: Titan

Titan is the largest of Saturn's known moons (and there are at least 60). It is not, however, the largest known moon of any planet in our solar system, as Ganymede is larger. Ganymede, Io, and Europa all belong to Jupiter.