Jack Names the Planets Quiz | Thematic Fun

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In naming Mercury after the messenger to the gods, the Romans were following the Greeks who themselves had named it Hermes. Hermes, however, was merely the name the Greeks gave to Mercury in its evening aspect. Which theatrical name did they give it in its morning aspect?

Answer: Apollo

One clue might have been that Apollo is the only deity amongst the options. The Greeks and Romans named all of the visible planets after their gods and Apollo was one of the most important gods in both the Greek and Roman pantheons. One of the areas with which he was associated was that of music and the arts. This led to the name attaching to theatres, cinemas and other arts venues, largely in the United Kingdom and USA.

Tivoli (or Tiber) is an ancient Italian town. The Eighteenth Century Jardin de Tivoli in Paris was based upon the gardens at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, themselves commissioned two centuries before by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este. Subsequently, other European gardens created for recreation and entertainment were named after the Parisian one and over time the name attached to theatres, dancehalls, cinemas and similar entertainment complexes.

Odeon comes from the Greek word for a building in which musical or singing events took place. The Odeon chain of cinemas borrowed the word and claimed their own derivation as an acronym based upon the founder's name - 'Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation'.

Drama is the Greek word for a play, originally deriving from the related verb meaning 'to take action'.

2. Only two planets (excepting Earth) are recorded in the Bible. One is Venus. Which is the other planet, to which reference is made in the book of Amos?

Answer: Saturn

It hopefully helped you that Saturn was the only one of the options visible with the naked eye.

The Hebrew text of Amos 5 v. 26 refers to Kaiwan and Sakkuth. Kaiwan was the name given to Saturn by the Babylonians and Sakkuth was the god associated with the planet. The word Kaiwan means steadfast and reflects the fact that, watched from Earth, Saturn is the slowest of the planets.

Most scholars take the reference to helal in Isaiah 14 v. 12 (translated as "morning star") as an allusion to the planet Venus.

(Source : New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia)

3. How would you like to name a planet? An 11 year-old girl was responsible for naming a planet. Which of the following did she name?

Answer: Pluto

'The planet was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona although it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Many possible names were suggested including the name Pluto from an 11-year-old English girl called Venetia Burney.

Her suggestion reached the Observatory via her grandfather who was a retired Oxford librarian and Herbert Hall Turner, a leading British astronomer. Pluto was the unanimous choice of those voting. The discovery and naming of the planet also spawned a certain cinematic dog created by Walt Disney in its honour.

4. One of the planets, after it was discovered, could have been called Janus, Oceanus or Le Verrier before it arrived at its present name? Which one?

Answer: Neptune

Neptune was discovered in 1846 on the basis of predictions set down by the Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier although there is evidence from Galileo's drawings that he observed it but failed to recognise it as a planet. The naming process led to an Anglo-French tussle before Le Verrier's suggestion of Neptune was finally adopted.

5. For the Aztecs, the god Quetzacoatl under the more formal title of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli represented which planet, famed for its morning aspect?

Answer: Venus

The brightness of Venus in the sky means that it has been known by almost every culture. To the Babylonians it was Ishtar. To the Egyptians it was Tioumoutiri (morning) and Ouaiti (evening). To the Greeks it was Phosphoros (morning) and Eosphoros (evening).

The Latin version of Phosphoros is Lucifer and the planet came to be associated with the Satanic fallen angel - "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!" (Isaiah 14 v.12 - NIV translation)

6. In Hindu thinking, which planet was named Mangala or Angaraka, the latter meaning "red in colour"?

Answer: Mars

Indian astronomers had also observed the visible planets and given them names based upon their gods. These were Budha (Mercury), Shukra (Venus), Mangala (Mars), Brihaspati (Jupiter) and Shani (Saturn).

Mars is well-known as the 'Red Planet' due to the colour of its surface.

7. In 2005, American astronomers announced the discovery of a 10th planet in the Solar System and named it after the Greek goddess of discord and rivalry. It therefore seems ironic that, the following year, the International Astronomical Union took away its planetary status and renamed it a 'dwarf planet' alongside Pluto. Who was the god that this 'planet' was named after?

Answer: Eris

The goddess Eris is the deity central to the modern religion of Discordianism established in the late 1950s by Macalypse the Younger aka Gregory Hill based upon his book "Principia Discordia". The online encyclopedia Wikipedia states that it is difficult to calculate the number of adherents because "there is an encouragement to form schisms and cabals". (Source : Wikipedia)

By contrast, Eirene is the Greek goddess of peace. Exit10 is not a goddess but a Funtrivia editor who likewise has nothing to do with discord. An Erratum is an error and is normally used in the context of that error having been corrected.

8. The 3,000 year-old Babylonian creation myth "Enuma Elis" makes reference to Nibiru. Most scholars associate Nibiru with which large planet?

Answer: Jupiter

The Babylonians believed that Nibiru was fixed in the sky by Marduk, one of the most important of their gods.

Nibiru has also given its name to a doomsday theory stating that Earth will be devastated by a collision with a large planetary body, possibly in 2012.

9. In 1781, a new planet was discovered by William Herschel, the first not to be visible to the naked eye. Herschel wanted the planet to be named "Georgium Sidus" after King George III. Others named it Herschel after its discoverer. It wasn't until 1850 that it definitively arrived at its present name, which is what?

Answer: Uranus

What criteria do you use to name a new planet when all the previous names have been handed down to you from antiquity? That was the problem that the world faced upon the discovery of Uranus. Herschel supported his choice on the basis that the Romans had used the names of their heroes so why shouldn't he! Some proposed that new planets should be named after their discoverers. It was a German astronomer called Johann Bode who suggested the name of the Greek god Uranus based on the fact that Ouranos (Roman version) was the father of Saturn who was the father of Jupiter. Uranus is therefore the only one of the planets to be named after a Greek rather than a Roman god.

Just as a cinematic dog was named in honour of the newly discovered Pluto so too, in this case, was a newly discovered element - Uranium.

10. Earth was not formally named until the Middle Ages because it wasn't until then that it came to be recognised as a planet alongside the others. The name is Germanic in origin and it thus escapes being named after a Roman or Greek god. The Greeks, however, did name it after one of their goddesses and this name has returned to public consciousness in recent years. Which name is this?

Answer: Gaia

Gaia was the mother goddess who personified the Earth. She was born from the Greek god Chaos and in turn bore Uranus, the god of the sky. She then slept with Uranus and bore Oceanus, the god of the oceans.

Public awareness of the name has dramatically increased recently alongside the growth of the New Age and Environmental movements.

Source: Author glendathecat

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Exit10 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Jack Names the Planets Trivia Quiz

For millennia humans have gazed up at the planets. We look to the Romans for many of our present names but other cultures had their alternatives. Here's a quiz about the naming of our planets (+Pluto). With apologies to Ash for stealing their song title.

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>