Zoom! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Voyager 1

As the story goes, as Voyager 1 made its way out of our solar system, Carl Sagan asked technicians to turn the space probe around in midflight to snap the photo of the 'Pale Blue Dot'. Puts everything into a bit of perspective, eh?

There may be no better place to start zooming in on Earth-- forty Astronomical Units away from home. It took twelve years of space flight to take the picture and, considering the distance, it took five and a half hours to transmit back to Earth via radio waves. Smile for the camera!

Answer: From a spacecraft in orbit around the moon

Those able to recall their space photography history may recognize "Earthrise" as being taken during the manned Apollo 8 mission in 1968 by American astronaut William Anders. While the spacecraft circled the moon, it rewarded the spacemen with the iconic shot, one which would spark environmental concerns worldwide.

Apollo 8 was the first mission to send men in into outer space to orbit the moon and then return. As such, the three men onboard were the first in human history to see the 'dark side' of the moon, let alone an Earthrise over the moon's surface. They spent close to six days in space before splashing back down.

Answer: An oblate spheroid

The image you're looking at is actually a photo taken in 1972 by the final Apollo space crew-- Apollo 17-- upon their return from the sixth moon landing. Depicting a perfect front-on view of the Earth, the photo, better known as "The Blue Marble", is timeless.

Speaking of Earth, the planet isn't a perfect sphere. Shocking, right? Looking at it head-on would seem to say otherwise to the naked eye, but it's actually flatter on two sides by a marginal amount, meaning that the planet is an oblate spheroid. Despite this, it's been said that if Earth were pared down to scale, it would have the smoothness of a billiard ball despite its geological dips and grooves.

Answer: No

While it is a classic myth that you can, in fact, see the Great Wall from space, it's not true without some sort of aid (for instance, a zoom feature). The snaking wall, stretching more than twenty-one thousand kilometers through Central China, would be too thin to be visible from beyond the atmosphere. In the same way you can't see a highway from space, you can't see the Great Wall.

That's not to say you can't see major geological features from space though. At this distance you can make out all of the coastlines and major waterways of the world and, in some cases, major cities can be seen (due to their light pollution) at nighttime.

Answer: Melody

The ISS, a joint-effort between several countries exploring space in low-Earth orbit, two hundred fifty kilometers up. It's possible to see the ISS from Earth with the naked eye (at night, and only if you're looking, of course). Destiny, Harmony, and Unity are all major components of the station installed over the years.

Unity was the first to be added to the Russian-built Zarya block and was built to connect other nodes to the station over time, supplying them with essentials needed to sustain crew and station alike.

Destiny came next. Built by the U.S. as a lab for performing experiments on payloads in space, it's been one of the most vital components for researchers.

Harmony was the last of these three, acting as another power-supply node and acting as a connection between labs from other countries (specifically the Japanese Kibo lab and the European Columbus lab).

Answer: Stratocumulus

The clouds here are stratocumulus. Why? Well, appearing lower in the atmosphere, these clouds are quite typical on an everyday front. They typically don't produce precipitation, instead floating through the sky in shallow bunches. From above they can look to extend quite a ways (especially in the picture) but often provide breaks of sunlight below.

Cumulonimbus are typical rainclouds. Big and poofy, these clouds stretch high and billow into the sky, bringing with them a towering storm. Cirrus, often seen as wispy clouds way up high, are some of the highest in altitude of all clouds and often indicate oncoming rain systems. Altostratus clouds usually form as a near-opaque sheet of cover.

Answer: It varies depending on the aircraft

Not only does cruising altitude rely heavily on the specific aircraft being flown, it also depends on the direction the aircraft is flying (so as to avoid collisions with other aircraft sharing the skies); all of this is monitored by air traffic controllers.

While many commercial flights will fly above 30,000 feet and vary in altitude (eastbound traveling on odd thousands and westbound traveling on evens), some, like the Concorde, could fly even higher. Of course, altitude affects air pressure, and if turbulence were experienced in a flight, clearance could be given to rise or descend depending on the issue.

There is no universal exact amount.

Answer: No

Again, we're overshooting with myth. While, at 102 stories up, the top-most observation deck of the Empire State Building reaches 1,250 feet, it wouldn't create a killer coin if dropped. In fact, severe updrafts would likely send the coin far off-course.

Wind aside, since the penny has too little mass and surface area and has an odd shape, it can't reach a maximum velocity fast enough to cause any problems. You may have watched "Mythbusters" if you knew this.

Dropping a penny from the Voyager 1 probably wouldn't make it to New York City street level either. Just sayin'.

Answer: Dead skin

Dandruff is a normal occurrence for people, but higher-than-normal amounts are usually what people find when they have a dandruff problem. This can occur for a variety of reasons but most of those lead to a case of dry skin causing flaking. Dandruff doesn't hurt; it's usually a shedding of the top layer of skin on the scalp.

It may, however, cause a bit of a social issue to show up somewhere covered in specks of dandruff on a dark shirt. Nothing a little bit of specialized shampoo won't fix though! It can be prevented or held back with general hygiene.

Answer: Pinch

Popularized by iPhones and held as a standard for several handheld devices, zooming out on a touchscreen is often done by pinching fingers together across the screen, focusing the fingers on the point from which you want to pull away. The opposite is done to zoom in-- your fingers start pinched and scroll outward to focus more intently on a photo. Fortunately, for anyone not savvy with the workings of handheld devices, many phones, tablets, etc. have additional functions used for such actions. iPhone and iPads, for instance, typically use a scroll bar to zoom in and out from the center of the frame.