Science Trivia Quiz #13

Wrong! Correct answer is A. Interesting Info: Comets are often referred to as "dirty snowballs." They consist primarily of ice, with a little space dust and even some organic molecules mixed in!

Wrong! Correct answer is A. Interesting Info: The asteroid belt separates the inner, terrestrial planets from the outer, Jovian planets.

Wrong! Correct answer is C. Interesting Info: People tend to forget that the sun is a star! As stars go, it's pretty small and weak.

Wrong! Correct answer is B. Interesting Info: Mercury is closer to the sun, but it has no atmosphere to trap heat. Venus is covered with a thick blanket of clouds, which insulates it very well. Temperatures often rise over 400 degrees Fahrenheit!

Wrong! Correct answer is D. Interesting Info: Saturn isn't the only planet with rings- it just has the most visible ones. All the "gas giant" planets- Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus- have ring systems.

Wrong! Correct answer is A. Interesting Info: Basalt is a heavy igneous rock. It is volcanic in origin.

Wrong! Correct answer is B. Interesting Info: These gases fuel the immense fires of the sun. When they eventually burn out, the sun will "die." Luckily, that isn't predicted to happen for a few billion years yet!

Wrong! Correct answer is D. Interesting Info: Astronauts took mirrors to the moon and set them up so that laser beams from earth could strike them and reflect back to earth. The time that this took was measured, and, since the laser beam traveled at the speed of light, a distance could be calculated.

Wrong! Correct answer is B. Interesting Info: An ellipse is a stretched oval.

Wrong! Correct answer is A. Interesting Info: The Mount Palomar Observatory is visited by thousands of people every year- although you can't look through the telescope! At the time it was cast in 1936, the 200-inch mirror in the telescope was the largest in the world.