The Amazing Colossal Science Quiz -- Starring You!

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. You've grown until you are more than twenty feet tall. You're taller than the tallest living animal that normally lives on Earth. What animal is it?

Answer: Giraffe

Adult giraffes are usually somewhere between 14 and 18 feet tall. The tallest giraffe on record, a male named George, arrived at the Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom in 1959. He was 19 feet tall. The adult African elephant is usually between 10 and 12 feet tall.

The Indian elephant is shorter, usually between 8 and 10 feet tall. The okapi, a rare animal only known to science since 1901, is about 5 feet tall, but it has the distinction of being the closest living relative to the giraffe.

2. Height isn't everything. You put on a lot of weight as you keep growing. Soon you weigh more than fifteen tons. You are now the heaviest living land animal. What animal is it?

Answer: African Elephant

Adult male African elephants can weigh as much as 14 tons. Indian elephants are lighter, with the males reaching weights up to 11 tons. A hippo might reach a weight of 8 tons. The rhino only reaches a weight of about 5 tons.

3. Forget about animals! Now you're more than five hundred feet tall. You're taller than the tallest tree in recorded history. What kind of tree was it?

Answer: Australian Eucalyptus

Records from the nineteenth century indicate that an Australian Eucalyptus at Watts River, Victoria, reached a height of about 500 feet. Don't feel bad if you guessed Coast Redwood; it currently holds the world record for living trees, with a specimen near Ukiah, California, reaching a height of 367.5 feet. Douglas firs aren't far behind, with the tallest reaching well over 300 feet.

The tallest known bristlecone pine is only about 60 feet high, but that species is famous for its lifespan, with some specimens being nearly 5000 years old.

4. You continue to grow until your head reaches the lower part of the stratosphere, at the level of the highest clouds in the atmosphere. Which one of the following cloud types is found at such a high altitude?

Answer: Cirrus

Cirrus clouds are high-altitude clouds composed of ice and look like long, thin, wispy streamers. The other three types of clouds are found at lower altitudes. Cumulus clouds are tall, white, and puffy. Stratus clouds are flat and look like fog. Nimbostratus clouds are dark and have a ragged base.

5. You're so big now that you're able to jump right off the Earth. (Fortunately, the mysterious ray gave you the ability to survive in space.) As you head off into the void, you get a good look at all sides of the Moon. What is the name of the largest impact crater you see?

Answer: South Pole-Aitken Basin

The South Pole-Aitken Basin, located on the side of the Moon which always faces away from the Earth, is more than 1300 miles wide. It was caused when an asteroid, or some other large object, crashed into the Moon. In fact, it is the largest known impact crater in the entire solar system. Copernicus and Tycho are much smaller impact craters, but they may be better known because they are visible from Earth. Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") is not an impact crater at all, although it is the largest physical feature on the Moon.

It is the largest of the so-called "seas" on the Moon, which are actually basaltic plains formed by ancient volcanic eruptions.

6. Off you go into the asteroid belt. Which one of these asteroids is the largest?

Answer: Ceres

Ceres is somewhat less than 600 miles in diameter. (Like all asteroids, its shape is irregular.) Pallas and Vesta are both more than 350 miles in diameter, with Pallas being slightly larger. Eros is only 20 miles long. It is notable for being one of the asteroids not located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Instead, it has an orbit which takes it much nearer to the Earth, making it one of the so-called "Near Earth Objects." On February 20, 2001, the unmanned NASA spacecraft NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendevous) landed on Eros.

7. Growing even larger, you begin to head out of the solar system. You find yourself in a region full of thousands of small objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. Astronomers believe this region is the source of short-period comets. Where are you?

Answer: The Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper Belt is named after Gerard Kuiper, who suggested that such a region existed in 1951. Jane Luu and David Jewitt discovered the first Kuiper Belt object in 1992. The Oort Cloud is much larger than the Kuiper Belt, extending as far as 3 light-years from the sun.

It has never been observed directly, but it is believed to be the source of long-period comets. The Van Allen Belt is a region of electrically charged particles in orbit around the Earth. The Trojan Points are places on the orbit of Jupiter, 60 degrees ahead or behind the planet, where asteroids are found, due to the gravitational stability of objects that reach these areas.

8. Off you go into interstellar space, getting bigger all the time. Directly ahead of you is the brightest star (other than the sun) visible from Earth. What star are you looking at?

Answer: Sirius

Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, is located in the constellation Canis Majoris ("The Greater Dog.") Vega is in the constellation Lyrae ("The Lyre"), Arcturus is in the constellation Bootis ("The Bear Driver"), and Capella is in the constellation Aurigae ("The Charioteer").

9. Now you're really getting gigantic. You're starting to head towards the galaxy that's nearest to our own Solar System. What is it called?

Answer: Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy

Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is 25,000 light years away from our Solar System. The Large Magellanic Cloud is 179,000 light-years away. The Small Magellanic Cloud is 210,000 light-years away. The Andromeda galaxy is much further away; it's about 2.9 million light-years from the Milky Way.

10. One last jump in size before you return to normal. You are so big now that you can observe the patterns of galaxies in the universe. You can see the largest known structure in the universe, a sheet of galaxies 500 million light-years long, 200 million light-years wide, and 15 million light-years thick. It was first observed by astronomers Margaret Geller and John Huchra in 1989. What nickname did they give this immense structure?

Answer: The Great Wall

Before gigantic structures like the Great Wall were known to exist, astronomers assumed that, on a very large scale, matter was evenly distributed throughout the universe. The discovery of these structures poses a mystery yet to be solved.

Source: Author VickiSilver

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

Oh, no! A mysterious ray from outer space strikes you and you start growing at an incredible rate. Can you answer these ten questions about big things in science before you get too big to answer at all?

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