Voyage Through Space… Artist rendition

Spaceship Earth, Our Home Satellite Composite

What causes the seasons? A) Earth’s distance from the Sun B) the tilt of Earth’s axis C) variations in the Sun’s output D) the Moon’s gravity

What causes the seasons? B) the tilt of Earth’s axis

Moon

Phases of the Moon

How long does it take for the Moon to orbit Earth? A) One day B) One week C) One month D) One year

How long does it take for the Moon to orbit Earth? C) One month (or “moonth”)

Impacts, Collisions, and Moon Formation

Sol

Distance from the Sun to the Earth = 93,000,000 miles or one AU (Astronomical Unit)

Sun Solar Prominence Magnetic view X-ray view

How fast does light travel through space? A) 1 million miles/hour B) 93 million miles/second C) 186 miles/second D) 186,000 miles/second

) 186,000 miles/second D) 186,000 miles/second How fast does light travel through space?

Mercury Mariner 10 composite images

Mercury Mariner 10 images composite

Venus Magellan spacecraft, 1991

Venus Atmosphere Surface Color-enhanced radar composite image Magellan spacecraft, 1991

Mars

Thin atmosphere Viking spacecraft, composite image

Mars Rover

Surface of Mars Martian crater Martian hills

Asteroid belt A field of space debris orbiting our sun, found between Mars’ and Jupiter’s orbits.

Jupiter Cassini spacecraft, 2002

Jupiter Cassini spacecraft, 2002

Great Red Spot Voyager 2, 1979

Which of Jupiter’s moons is thought to possess underground oceans? A) Amalthea B) Io C) Europa D) Himalia

Which of Jupiter’s moons is thought to possess underground oceans? C) Europa

Europa Galileo spacecraft, 1996

Saturn Hubble telescope

Saturn Hubble telescope

Rings of Saturn Cassini space craft image, 2004 What keeps Saturn’s rings in place?

Uranus Picture by Voyager 2 Spacecraft, 1986

Uranus Picture by Voyager 2 Spacecraft, 1986

Which of the following planets has rings? A) Mercury B) Mars C) Neptune D) Pluto

Which of the following planets has rings? C) Neptune, but they can’t be seen from Earth

Neptune

Voyager 2 spacecraft images, 1989

Pluto

Hubble telescope Pluto Charon

Which of the following objects would appear to streak across the sky? A) A planet B) A comet C) A meteor D) The Moon

Which of the following objects would appear to streak across the sky? C) A meteor

Comet debris causes meteor showers. Meteors (Shooting stars) streak through our atmosphere, while comets orbit the sun. Halley’s comet taken from Hubble

Milky Way Galaxy Artist rendition

Milky Way Galaxy Artist’s rendition from recent observations

Roughly how many stars do astronomers think are in the Milky Way Galaxy? A) 100 thousand B) 1 billion C) billion D) a trillion

Roughly how many stars do astronomers think are in the Milky Way Galaxy? C) billion

Black Hole Hubble telescope photo of center of Milky Way

A place where stars are born is called what? A) a nebula B) an asteroid belt C) a planetary nebula D) Hollywood

A place where stars are born is called what? A) a nebula

Crab Nebula Hubble telescope

N-11, Emulsion Nebulas Hubble telescope

Hourglass Nebula Hubble telescope

Horsehead Nebula Hubble telescope

Planetary Nebulae

What color star is the hottest? A) Red B) Blue C) Yellow D) Green

What color star is the hottest? B) Blue, while red stars are the “coolest.”

By comparison, the Sun has a surface temperature of about 11,000 degrees, F. Filtered telescope

The hottest blue-white stars may have surface temperatures as hot as 72,000 degrees, F. “Cool” red stars have surface temperatures of about 5000 degrees, F.

The Pleiades Telescope

Betelgeuse

Which of the following will the Sun become when it grows old? A) A black hole B) A red dwarf C) A white dwarf D) A blue giant

Which of the following will the Sun become when it grows old? C) A white dwarf

Supernova Supernova remnant Hubble telescope

Who discovered that the galaxies are moving apart? A) Enrico Fermi B) Carl Sagan C) Albert Einstein D) Edwin Hubble

Who discovered that the galaxies are moving apart? D) Edwin Hubble...

…after whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named.

Universe Hubble’s deepest view of space and first galaxies

Astrobiology First Color View of Titan's Surface What are we doing to find out if there is life out there in the universe?

Exploration Buzz Aldrin Apollo 8 launch

Cassini spacecraft Artist’s renditions Mars rover Galileo spacecraft

Photo of International Space Station from space shuttle First photo of extrasolar planet, Hubble telescope New Discoveries…

How many planets outside our solar system have been found so far? A) less than 20 B) 3 C) 1, but it blew up D) about 80

How many planets outside our solar system have been found so far? D) about 80...

…many of these “extrasolar planets,” as they’re called, were discovered by Drs. Geoffrey Marcy & Paul Butler of the University of California at Berkeley.

What was most significant about the lunar voyage Was not that humans set foot on the moon But that we set eye on the Earth

Hubble telescope view into Sagittarius