Twenty Questions About Earth Trivia Quiz

Answer: 24

Actually, it is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.

Answer: Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy, who wrote the Almagest. He was born about 85 A.D. in Egypt and died about 165 in Alexandria, Egypt. The Almagest gives in detail the mathematical theory of the motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. His geocentric theory stood unchallenged for about 1400 years.

Answer: Copernicus

Nicolas Copernicus was born on Feb. 19, 1473 in Torun, Poland and he died on May 24, 1543 in Frombork, Poland. Copernicus is considered to be the founder of modern astronomy. Aristarchus of Samos, Greece who lived around 300 BC, did have ideas similar to those more fully developed by Copernicus but they were rejected in favor of the geocentric or earth-centered theory.

Answer: 23.5 degrees

The axial tilt of the Earth gives us the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. While the Northern hemisphere is enjoying Spring, the Southern hemisphere is having Autumn. An interesting but generally unknown fact is that the Earth is closer to the Sun during the Northern hemisphere's Winter, and further during the Summer.

Answer: 12,756

That's about 7,900 miles, making the Earth the fifth largest planet, after the Jovian (gas) giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).

Answer: One

The Earth's only satellite is called the Moon. Twelve humans have walked on the surface of the Moon from 1969 to 1972. Over 840 pounds of lunar rocks were returned by these six missions.

Answer: Pangaea

Pangaea eventually broke up to form the seven continents we know today. The land masses sit on the tectonic plates. A tectonic plate is a mass of solid rock, consisting of both continental and oceanic lithosphere.

Answer: True

North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Antarctica. Greenland is the largest island.

"National Geographic" explains "continents" as follows:

By convention there are seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Antarctica. Some geographers list only six continents, combining Europe and Asia into Eurasia. In parts of the world, students learn that there are just five continents: Eurasia, Australia, Africa, Antarctica and the Americas.

To some geographers, however, "continent" is not just a physical term; it also carries cultural connotations. For example, Europe and Asia are physically part of the same landmass, but the two areas are culturally diverse. (That is, the various cultural groups in Asia have more in common with one another than with those of Europe.)

Answer: True

Earth's density is 5.52 that of water, next would be Mercury at 5.43. (You would have known this one if you took the quiz on Mercury and the one on Venus first!)

Answer: 149,597,000

This equates to 93,000,000 miles (on average). Since the Earth's eccentricity of orbit is 0.017, the Earth is sometimes closer to the Sun than other times.

Answer: third

Answer: terrestrial

The Earth is the largest of the terrestrial worlds, Mercury, Venus and Mars being the other three.

Answer: Oxygen and nitrogen

While oxygen and hydrogen (H2O) do form water, they make up the oceans and rivers, not the atmosphere. There are other trace elements in Earth's atmosphere.

Answer: Lunar

When the Moon is in the middle, it is called a solar eclipse. The reason that we have solar eclipses at all is because the Sun is 400 times further away and 400 times larger than the Moon. Eventually, we will only have annular eclipses (of the Sun) as the Moon is continuing to move further and further away from the Earth.

Answer: 67,000

Now how fast are you moving on the Earth? If you are standing on the equator you are traveling at 1,000 miles an hour on the Earth. Earth's circumference is about 24,000 miles, the Earth turns in 24 hours, do the math!

Answer: True

The solid inner core is believed to be surrounded by a liquid outer core, then the mantle, then the crust upon which sits the tectonic plates on which sits the continents and the oceans. The inner and outer core together are about 4,300 miles in diameter. There has been no direct analysis, with scientists basing their calculations on other available data.

Answer: Vredefort Ring

The Vredefort Ring is in Africa and is 186 miles in diameter. It is estimated that the meteor impacted some two billion years ago! The crater is barely discernible by aircraft. Clearwater Lakes (Canada) dual craters are about 40 and 15 miles in diameter. Barringer Crater (also known as Meteor Crater) is only about 1 mile wide.

The Caloris basin is a large 810 mile impact crater, but it is on the planet Mercury.

Answer: Everest

Mt. Everest, Nepal is 29,035 feet high and it was formed approximately 60 million years ago. In Nepal, it is called Sagarmatha, which means goddess of the sky. Mt. Everest used to be known as peak 15. It is named after Sir George Everest, the British surveyor. Mountain height is measured from sea level, not from the bottom of the ocean.

Answer: K2

K2 was first climbed in 1954 by Achille Compagnoni and
Lino Lacedelli. K2 is on the China-Pakistan border is 28,250 feet high, and Mt. McKinley, Alaska is 20,320 feet high. Mauna Kea, Hawaii is 13,792 feet high.

Answer: Marianas Trench

The Marianas Trench is an elongated depression on the Pacific Ocean floor, some 35,798 feet deep and is located 210 miles SW of Guam. A U.S. Navy bathyscape reached the bottom of the trench in 1960. The Puerto Rico Trench is 28,231 feet deep and is in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Java Trench is 25,344 feet deep and is in the Indian Ocean. The Eurasia basin is 17,881 feet deep and is in the Arctic Ocean.