Space Quiz

The Final Frontier: Space Science

The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, beginning with the Big Bang - A rapid expansion from an extremely hot, dense state. Our solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a cloud of gas and dust. The Sun is a medium-sized star about 1.39 million kilometers in diameter, containing 99.86% of the solar system's total mass. Light from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth, while light from the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri) takes over 4 years.

The Space Age began on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. On July 20, 1969, NASA's Apollo 11 mission successfully landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon - The most significant achievement in space exploration history. The International Space Station (ISS) has been continuously inhabited since November 2000. Private space companies like SpaceX have revolutionized access to orbit with reusable rockets. Try the Science Quiz for broader scientific knowledge, or test yourself with the Physics Quiz for the science underlying space.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a barred spiral galaxy containing an estimated 100 - 400 billion stars. The Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor, is on a collision course with the Milky Way - It will merge with us in approximately 4.5 billion years. Black holes are regions of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is called Sagittarius A* and has a mass of about 4 million times that of the Sun.