The Sky Quiz #6

What does NASA stand for?

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

When was NASA established?

July 1958

What organization did NASA replace?

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

What motivated the founding of NASA? 

USSR’s Sputnik launch

When was Sputnik launched?

1957

What was the first spacecraft to connect with a celestial body, and when?

Soviet Luna 2, 1959

What administrator currently runs NASA?

Sean Duffy

What was the result of Apollo 1?

blew up, 3 astronauts killed

What was put in space in 1990?

Hubble Telescope

What is the Hubble Telescope?

space-based observatory

How many missions has the Space Shuttle Program facilitated?

135

What was special about the spacecraft in the Space Shuttle Program? 

reusable

What did the Space Shuttle Program create in space?

International Space Station

What was the first object from Earth to travel into interstellar space?

Voyager 1

What three missions ended in astronaut deaths?

Apollo 1 1967, Challenger 1968, Columbia 2003

Which mission televised a teacher’s death to her students?

Challenger 1968

Why did the Challenger disintegrate?

improper seal let hot air in

What are two programs in progress from NASA right now?

Artemis Program and Landsat Satellites

What was the significance of the Apollo 11 mission?

first people to land on the moon

Who was the first man on the moon?

Neil Armstrong

Who was the commander on the Apollo 11 mission?

Neil Armstrong

Who was the lunar module pilot in the Apollo 11 mission?

Buzz Aldrin

Who was the command module pilot in the Apollo 11 mission?

Michael Collins

What are the three parts of the Apollo 11 spacecraft?

Columbia command module, service module, Eagle lunar module

What was the name of the rocket that launched the Apollo 11 spacecraft?

Saturn V

When was the moon landing?

July 20, 1969

What was the only part of the Apollo 11 spacecraft that made it back to Earth?

Columbia command module

How much fuel was left at the Columbia landing for the Apollo 11 mission?

30 seconds worth

How far away was the Eagle from their target landing site?

4 miles

Where did the Eagle land?

Sea of Tranquility

What did Aldrin use to fix the circuit breaker in the lunar module?

felt-tipped pen

Where did the astronauts of Apollo 11 stay immediately after getting back to Earth?

Mobile Quarantine Facility

What did we find out from the moon rocks gathered in the Apollo 11 mission?

chemical composition and how the moon was formed

What technology was made more accessible to this day because of the Apollo 11 mission?

smaller computers

What two things did the Eagle measure?

solar wind and moon surface

When was the moon formed?

4.5 billion years ago

What was the Co-Accretion theory of the moon?

the moon formed at the same time as the Earth by combining space debris

What was thought to be evidence of the Co-Accretion theory?

relative size of the moon and chemical composition

What was the Fission theory of the moon?

the Earth spun so fast that material shed and formed the moon

What does “proto-earth” mean?

Earth’s early molten state

Who proposed the Fission theory of the moon?

George Darwin

What was thought to be explained by the Fission theory of the moon?

chemical composition and spinning speed

Where did the Fission theory of the moon say the moon came from, in current Earth geography?

Pacific Ocean

What disproved the Fission theory of the moon?

non-equatorial orbit and lack of elements from Earth’s mantle

What was the Captured Body theory of the moon?

moon was captured by Earth’s gravity

What disproves the Captured Body theory?

Earth’s gravity is not strong enough and the moon has too similar chemical makeup

What is the predominant theory on the formation of the moon?

Giant Impact Theory

Who first proposed the Giant Impact Theory?

Reginald Daly

When and why did the Giant Impact Theory gain popularity?

1974 after Apollo 11

What does the Giant Impact Theory call the body that impacted the Earth?

Theia

What are volatile elements?

elements and compounds that readily turn into gas or vapor

What angle does the Earth orbit the Sun?

23.4 degrees

What fraction of Earth’s gravity describes the moon?

1/6

What system Annie Jump Cannon credited for?

Harvard Classification Scheme

What was the name of the catalogue where Cannon published her findings?

Henry Draper Catalogue

Who hired Cannon as a woman computer?

Edward Pickering

What is spectroscopy?

study of stars using electromagnetic radiation

What does a spectrogram do?

separates light by wavelength

What are spectral lines?

absorption bands left when an atom absorbs photons and raises the electrons to a higher energy level

Which scientists’ ideas did Cannon synthesize when making the Harvard Classification Scheme?

Fleming and Maury

What element spectral lines did the Harvard Classification Scheme originally use?

hydrogen

What is the pneumonic for OBAFGKM?

oh be a fine girl kiss me

What class of the Harvard Classification Scheme is hottest?

O

What class of the Harvard Classification Scheme is coolest?

M

Approximately how many stars did Cannon classify?

300,000

How many stars could Cannon classify in an hour by the end of her career?

200

Who used Cannon’s work to discover the makeup of stars?

Cecilia Payne