Six Days, Seven Nights Quiz | By The Numbers

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. One of nature's most beautiful sights is that of a rainbow. As long as there are water droplets in the air, a rainbow can appear. You know there is much debate as to whether there are seven colors in a rainbow, or if there are only six. But tell me, scientifically, how many colors ARE in the rainbow?

Answer: more than 7

Technically, there are hundreds of thousands of colors in a rainbow, thus the answer is "greater than seven" (>7). Contrary to what many believe, there are no bands in a rainbow. It is a continuous "spectrum" of colors. However, there are seven main colors that are clearly visible, which are commonly remembered with the acronym "ROY G. BIV", which stands for "Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet". Many believe that indigo is not a color of the rainbow, however. This is because most people cannot quite distinguish shades of blues and purples.

It is interesting to know, though, that in the late 17th century, when Isaac Newton first named the colors of the rainbow, there were five. These were red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. It wasn't until later that he added orange and indigo. However, the colors he knew back then were different from the colors we know now. His "blue" would be our "cyan", and his "indigo" would be our "blue". Therefore, today, indigo would not be a color in the rainbow, and cyan would be.

2. You look up into the beautiful night sky and see dozens of constellations. One of them is Taurus. You recognize the Pleiades star cluster. The common name for this involves a number. What number is this?

Answer: 7

Pleiades is a star cluster that is found within the Taurus constellation. The common name for Pleiades is the Seven Sisters. It consists of, oddly, nine stars to make up the cluster. It is named for the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology. These sisters are Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygete, Celaeno, and Alcyone.

The other two stars from Pleiades are their father, Atlas, and their mother, Pleione. But the Seven Sisters is what the star cluster is most known as, even if there are really nine stars.

3. As you are staring up into the night sky, you see Ursa Major. You know that the Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major. The Big Dipper is made up of the brightest stars of Ursa Major. My question to you is: how many main stars does the Big Dipper contain?

Answer: 7

The Big Dipper includes the seven brightest stars of Ursa Major. There are four stars that make up the bowl of the Big Dipper, or Plough, and three stars make up the handle. The names of the stars are Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid. Alioth is the brightest of these stars.

4. These are not exactly found in the sky, but most of them have been known to come from the sky. How many elements of nature are there? And no, I do not mean the Periodic Table of Elements.

Answer: <6

There are four elements which are commonly considered the elements of nature. These are fire, water, earth, and air. The fifth is space, or heaven, or sky.

5. There are a total of 27 moons of Uranus. However, these moons are divided into three groups. How many major moons does Uranus have?

Answer: <6

Uranus has a total of 27 moons, although only five of these are considered major moons (hence "less than six"). These moons are all round, which I mention because there is a group of moons that are not! The five moons include, from smallest to largest, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Oberon and Titania.

It is interesting to note that all of the moons of Uranus are named after characters from plays by Alexander Pope and William Shakespeare.

6. We know that Earth is the third rock from the sun, and Mercury is the first. But what rank does Saturn hold?

Answer: 6

Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun. The first planet is Mercury, followed by Venus, Earth, and then Mars. These make up the four small inner planets. The asteroid belt separate Mars from the fifth planet, one of the four gas giants, Jupiter. Jupiter is followed by Saturn, and Uranus and Neptune finish off the eight main planets. Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

It is now considered a dwarf planet, along with Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.

7. In 2006, when Pluto was re-classified as a dwarf planet, how many dwarf planets were recognized in our solar system?

Answer: <6

Pluto was known as a planet for nearly a century, but in 2006, it was determined to be known only as a dwarf planet. This made the total number of planets only eight, and increased the number of dwarf planets to five. The five known dwarf planets are Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Eris, and Haumea. Of these five, only Pluto and Ceres have been studied enough to know for a fact that they are dwarf planets.

The other three are not entirely known to be dwarf planets or not.

8. When talking about the diameter of the planets, the Sun is 9.7 times bigger around than Jupiter. In other words, if you could unwrap Jupiter and place it on the sun as a flat surface, it would take almost ten Jupiters to make one complete "circle" around the largest part of the sun. It would take two of Mars to wrap around the Earth, nearly ten Earths to wrap around Saturn, and two and a half of Neptune to wrap around Saturn. With this in mind, how many of Mars would be needed to wrap around Neptune?

Answer: >7

Actually, it would take about 7.3 Marses to wrap around Neptune. Mars is 6,792 kilometers in diameter, and Neptune is 49,528 kilometers in diameter. Doing the math (I recommend a calculator), we get approximately 7.3. Earth is twice the size of Mars, because it takes two Marses to wrap around Earth. Almost ten Earths wrap around Saturn, so we know that almost twenty Marses would wrap around Saturn. I told you that two and a half Neptunes would wrap around Saturn. Since it would take almost twenty Marses to wrap around Saturn, you can assume that it would take 2.5 times less to wrap around Neptune.

The diameters of all the planets are below, in case you care to find out how many of any planet goes into any other planet.

Mercury - 4,879 km
Venus - 12,104 km
Earth - 12,756 km
Mars - 6,792 km
Jupiter - 142,984 km
Saturn - 120,536 km
Uranus - 51,118 km
Neptune - 49,528 km
Pluto - 2,302 km
Sun - 1,392,000 km

There are, of course, other dwarf planets besides Pluto, but most are just an estimate as to the size. Ceres is 950 km and Haumea is estimated to be 350 km.

9. Ok, so maybe this is not in the sky, exactly, but it does relate to the sky in some way. And besides, you may see it above you. If you are in Australia, and you look up on a flag pole, how many stars might you see on the national flag?

Answer: 6

The Australian flag is mainly blue and has the Union Jack in the top left corner, similar to a lot of world flags. On the blue field there are six stars. The largest, in the bottom left, represents the Commonwealth Star. The four medium sized stars make up the Crux constellation, with the Delta, Beta, and Alpha 1 Crux stars. The smallest star is the Epsilon Crux. The Crux constellation is called the Cross. The four stars make a cross pattern, and it is known as the crucifix, which is what is commonly believed that Jesus was sacrificed on.

Australia is not the only flag that has the Crux constellation on it. Samoa, for example, has the four larger stars and the one smaller star on the upper left corner of the flag. New Zealand also has the Crux constellation on it. The New Zealand flag looks almost identical to the Australia flag, although the Epsilon Crux and the Commonwealth Star do not appear on the flag. Also, the stars are red with a white outline, as opposed to Australia's all white stars.

10. Many people probably know what their "sign" is in astrology. But what about the houses that each sign rules? What is the number of the house that Virgo rules?

Answer: 6

Virgo is the virgin, and those born from August 24 to September 23 fall under this sign. Virgo rules the sixth house, known as the house of health, and it is also ruled by Mercury.

Here is a complete list of all twelve houses. The first part is what the house is called, then the number of the house, and what rules that house.

House of self - 1st - Aries, the ram - Mars
House of possessions - 2nd - Taurus, the bull - Venus
House of communication - 3rd - Gemini, the twins - Mercury
House of family and home - 4th - Cancer, the crab - Moon
House of pleasure - 5th - Leo, the lion - Sun
House of health - 6th - Virgo, the virgin - Mercury
House of partnerships - 7th - Libra, the scales - Venus
House of sex - 8th - Scorpio, the scorpion - Mars and Pluto
House of philosophy - 9th - Sagittarius, the archer - Jupiter
House of social status - 10th - Capricorn, the goat - Saturn
House of friendships - 11th - Aquarius, the water bearer - Saturn and Uranus
House of self-conscious - 12th house - Pisces, the fish - Jupiter and Neptune

Source: Author salami_swami

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

Six Days, Seven Nights Trivia Quiz

These answers will mostly deal with numbers in the sky. Be warned, this quiz may be a little "mathy" for some. Player discretion is advised.

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