Stars on the Red Carpet Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sun

It would take a jet plane 18 years to fly to the sun. The sun contains 99.8% of the solar system mass. It is made up of 70% hydrogen and 28% helium, although the proportions change gradually, with the conversion of hydrogen to helium. The other 2% is made up of metals. The sun's layers are the photosphere, chromosphere, corona and core.

Answer: Lalande 21185

Lalande 21185 is the fourth largest red dwarf star closest to the sun. It is located 8.3 light years away. Lalande 21185 has 46% of the sun's mass and diameter, but lacks when it comes to brightness. Lalande 21185 was named after the man that discovered it, Joseph Jerome Lefrancais de Lalande.

He also has the distinction of being the first man to categorize the stars into variations of brightness using Flamsteed numbers.

Answer: Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star closest to the sun. The star is one-fifth light years away from Alpha-Centauri and four light years away from Earth. It is too faint to see without a visual aid. It has one-eighth the mass of the Sun. Astronomers refer to Proxima Centauri as a flare star because on occasions it brightens and then dims.

Answer: Pollux

Pollux is a star included in the Gemini constellation. It has an orange hue and is the brightest star in the constellation. It is 35 light years from Earth. Pollux has a temperature of 8,360 degrees Fahrenheit. Pollux is considered the seventeenth brightest star in the sky.

Answer: Kruger60

Kruger 60 is a binary star located in the constellation Cepheus. Because it is only 13.15 light years from the sun, Kruger 60 is a close neighbor to Earth. It is also known as a red dwarf star. The stars revolve around each other every 44.6 years. Due to Kruger 60's low solar mass, it is one of the lightest stars known in astronomy.

Answer: Vega

Vega is the largest and brightest star in the constellation Lyra. It is 25 light years away from Earth. Vega was the first star to be photographed by astronomer William Bond and photographer John Whipple. Vega was also the first star to have a test done on it called a spectrogram so that Vega could be seen in a light spectrum. Because of this photograph and the spectrogram, Vega is known as the second most important star in the sky. The sun is the first. Vega has a dust-like substance surrounding it which comes from the after effects of objects colliding into each other near the star.

Answer: Castor

Castor is the second brightest star in the constellation Gemini. Castor consists of three binary stars revolving around each other. If all six stars were put together, their mass would be greater than the mass of the sun. Castor is the fainter of the "twins" with Pollux being the brighter. Castor is named for one of the twins in Greek mythology.

Answer: Alpha Arietis

Alpha Arietis is the brightest star in the constellation of Aries. Because Aries is represented by the sign of the ram, Alpha Arietis is commonly known as Hamal, Arabic for ram. Alpha Arietis is 66 light years from Earth and is considered a giant star that could host its own planet greater than Jupiter.

The three brightest stars in the Aries constellation are Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis. Alpha Arietis was discovered by Johann Bayer, an astronomer. Alpha Arietis is marked with a Bayer designation, meaning it is given a Greek letter according to its brightness. Alpha is the brightest star according to the Bayer designation.

Answer: Groombridge 1618

Stephen Groombridge was a British astronomer who began researching and compiling information for a book on stars of nine and ten magnitude. His book "A Catalogue of Circumpolar Stars" was published in 1838, after his death in 1832. Groombridge 1618 is a star named for him in the constellation Ursa Major.

It is found in his book under the entry number 1618. It is an orange dwarf star measuring 15.9 light years away from the sun.

Answer: Barnard's Star

Barnard's star is a low red dwarf star. It is the fourth closest star to the Sun. It is found in the constellation Ophiuchus. Barnard's star is named after E.E. Barnard, who was not the first to discover the star, but the first man to properly measure its proper motion. Barnard's star was the target for Project Daedalus, a British project from the 1970s which proposed sending a spacecraft to explore the star.