Twenty questions about the people, planets and spacecraft of space exploration, from Yuri Gagarin and Laika to Voyager 1 and the James Webb Space Telescope.
The Soviet cosmonaut orbited Earth once aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, a flight of 108 minutes.
Question 2
Who was the first woman in space?
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Valentina Tereshkova
Tereshkova flew Vostok 6 in June 1963 and orbited Earth 48 times. Sally Ride was the first American woman, 20 years later.
Question 3
What is the name of the galaxy that contains our solar system?
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The Milky Way
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy. Andromeda is the nearest large galaxy, about 2.5 million light-years away.
Question 4
Which planet has a giant storm called the Great Red Spot?
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Jupiter
The storm is wider than Earth and has been observed for at least 150 years, though it has been shrinking.
Question 5
What is the largest moon in the solar system?
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Ganymede
Jupiter's moon Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury. Saturn's Titan is second.
Question 6
Titan, the moon with a thick atmosphere and methane lakes, orbits which planet?
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Saturn
The Huygens probe landed on Titan in 2005, the farthest landing ever made from Earth.
Question 7
Which space telescope, launched in December 2021, observes mainly in infrared light?
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James Webb Space Telescope
Webb orbits about 1.5 million km from Earth. Its mirror is 6.5 meters across, nearly three times Hubble's.
Question 8
NASA's program to send astronauts back to the Moon is named after which Greek goddess?
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Artemis
In Greek myth Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo, the name of the program that first landed people on the Moon.
Question 9
About how long does the Moon take to orbit Earth once?
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About 27 days
One orbit takes about 27.3 days. A full cycle of phases takes about 29.5 days, because Earth moves around the Sun meanwhile.
Question 10
What was the name of the dog that became the first animal to orbit Earth, in 1957?
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Laika
Laika flew on Sputnik 2. Belka and Strelka were the first dogs to orbit and return alive, in 1960; Ham was a chimpanzee.
Question 11
Which planet is farthest from the Sun?
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Neptune
Neptune orbits about 4.5 billion km from the Sun. Pluto, farther out on average, is classed as a dwarf planet.
Question 12
What does a light-year measure?
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Distance
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 9.5 trillion kilometers.
Question 13
Which spacecraft is the farthest human-made object from Earth?
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Voyager 1
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012 and is still sending data back.
Question 14
Which planet has the shortest day?
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Jupiter
Jupiter spins once in just under 10 hours, despite being the largest planet.
Question 15
What causes the phases of the Moon?
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How much of the Moon's sunlit half we can see from Earth
Half the Moon is always lit by the Sun. As it orbits, we see more or less of that half. Earth's shadow causes eclipses, not phases.
Question 16
The main asteroid belt lies between which two planets?
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Mars and Jupiter
It holds millions of rocky bodies. The largest, Ceres, is classed as a dwarf planet.
Question 17
About how high above Earth does the International Space Station orbit?
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About 400 km
At around 400 km up, the station circles Earth about every 90 minutes, so its crew sees about 16 sunrises a day.
Question 18
What was the call sign of the Apollo 11 lunar module that landed on the Moon?
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Eagle
"The Eagle has landed," Neil Armstrong reported on July 20, 1969. Columbia was the command module that stayed in orbit.
Question 19
What type of star is the Sun?
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A yellow dwarf (G-type main-sequence star)
The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, roughly halfway through its life as a main-sequence star.
Question 20
Which planet was found in 1846 after mathematicians predicted where it should be?
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Neptune
Urbain Le Verrier calculated its position from wobbles in Uranus's orbit, and Johann Galle spotted it within a degree of the prediction.
Key numbers
Questions
20
Format
Multiple choice, 4 options
Explanations
Every question
Answers
Hidden until you open them
People and firsts
Space history is full of firsts that make great trivia: the first person in space, the first woman, the first animal to orbit Earth, the lunar module that landed in 1969. The explanations add the detail that usually comes up as a follow-up, like how long Gagarin's flight lasted or which two dogs were the first to come home alive.
Planets, moons and how the sky works
The rest of the set covers the solar system beyond the basics in our science trivia: the largest moon, the planet with the shortest day, the one found by calculation before anyone saw it, and what really causes the Moon's phases. That last one is the question people most often get wrong, because it's easy to confuse phases with eclipses.
Records about space keep changing as missions fly and telescopes find new moons, so we only ask about things that are settled: who went first, what a mission was called, how the planets move.
Using it in class or at a quiz night
For a space round, pair these questions with the space section of our fun facts, which has tiebreakers like Saturn floating in water. The guide to the planets in order has a table of sizes, distances and moon counts for anyone who wants to study first.
Questions people ask
What are good space trivia questions?
Questions about famous firsts, such as the first person and first woman in space, mixed with planet facts like the largest moon and the planet with the shortest day. This set has both.
Who was the first person in space?
Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union, who orbited Earth once on April 12, 1961, in a flight of 108 minutes.
What is the farthest spacecraft from Earth?
Voyager 1, launched in 1977. It entered interstellar space in 2012 and is still sending back data.