Asteroids, Comets & Meteors

28 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.Which asteroid is the brightest asteroid, sometimes visible to the naked eye?
- A. Psyche
- B. Itokawa
- C. Quaoar
- D. Vesta
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Vesta
Did you know? Vesta is the second most massive body in the asteroid belt.
2.Which comet was the bright comet of 1997, visible to the naked eye for months?
- A. Comet Encke
- B. the comet nucleus
- C. Hale-Bopp
- D. Comet 67P
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Hale-Bopp
Did you know? Hale-Bopp stayed visible for a record span for a comet.
3.Which impact event injured about 1,500 people in Russia in 2013?
- A. the Chicxulub impactor
- B. Barringer Crater
- C. the Chelyabinsk meteor
- D. the Tunguska event
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the Chelyabinsk meteor
Did you know? The Chelyabinsk airburst shattered windows across the city.
4.Which meteor shower is the August meteor shower radiating from Perseus?
- A. the Orionids
- B. the Geminids
- C. the Perseids
- D. the Leonids
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the Perseids
Did you know? Perseid meteors are grains shed by comet Swift-Tuttle.
5.Which comet broke apart and struck Jupiter in 1994?
- A. Shoemaker-Levy 9
- B. 'Oumuamua
- C. the comet nucleus
- D. Comet 67P
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Shoemaker-Levy 9
Did you know? The 1994 impacts left Earth-sized scars in Jupiter's clouds.
6.Which impact event left the crater linked to the dinosaurs' extinction?
- A. the Chicxulub impactor
- B. Barringer Crater
- C. the Chelyabinsk meteor
- D. the Tunguska event
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the Chicxulub impactor
Did you know? The Chicxulub crater lies under Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.
7.Which comet is the icy "dirty snowball" heart of a comet?
- A. Comet 67P
- B. 'Oumuamua
- C. Swift-Tuttle
- D. the comet nucleus
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the comet nucleus
Did you know? Comet nuclei are mixtures of ice, dust and rocky grains.
8.Which comet was orbited by the Rosetta spacecraft from 2014?
- A. Hale-Bopp
- B. Comet 67P
- C. Comet Encke
- D. the comet nucleus
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Comet 67P
Did you know? Rosetta mapped Comet 67P's twin-lobed nucleus in detail.
9.Which asteroid has an extremely stretched, distant orbit beyond Neptune?
- A. Psyche
- B. Sedna
- C. Bennu
- D. Juno
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Sedna
Did you know? Sedna's orbit takes it thousands of times farther than Earth.
10.Which comet has the shortest known orbital period of any comet?
- A. Shoemaker-Levy 9
- B. 'Oumuamua
- C. Comet Encke
- D. Swift-Tuttle
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Comet Encke
Did you know? Comet Encke circles the Sun in about 3.3 years.
11.Which eclipse leaves a ring of Sun when the Moon sits far in its orbit?
- A. a total eclipse
- B. a lunar eclipse
- C. a partial eclipse
- D. an annular eclipse
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an annular eclipse
Did you know? Annular eclipses happen when the Moon's disk looks slightly small.
12.Which impact event flattened Siberian forest in 1908 without leaving a crater?
- A. the Tunguska event
- B. the Chicxulub impactor
- C. the Chelyabinsk meteor
- D. Barringer Crater
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the Tunguska event
Did you know? The Tunguska object likely exploded in the air.
13.Which meteor shower are famous for storm bursts about every 33 years?
- A. the Geminids
- B. the Leonids
- C. the Orionids
- D. the Perseids
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the Leonids
Did you know? The 1833 Leonid storm produced tens of thousands of meteors.
14.Which meteor term is the point in the sky where a meteor shower appears to originate?
- A. the radiant
- B. a micrometeorite
- C. a bolide
- D. a fireball
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the radiant
Did you know? Shower meteors all streak away from the radiant.
15.Which asteroid is a centaur object showing both asteroid and comet behavior?
- A. Vesta
- B. Psyche
- C. Chiron
- D. Ida
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Chiron
Did you know? Centaurs orbit between Jupiter and Neptune.
16.Which comet is the parent comet of the Perseid meteor shower?
- A. Swift-Tuttle
- B. Hale-Bopp
- C. Shoemaker-Levy 9
- D. 'Oumuamua
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Swift-Tuttle
Did you know? Swift-Tuttle last visited the inner solar system in 1992.
17.Which meteor term is an exceptionally bright exploding meteor?
- A. a micrometeorite
- B. a bolide
- C. a fireball
- D. the radiant
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a bolide
Did you know? Bolides can briefly outshine the Moon.
18.Which asteroid became the first asteroid known to have its own moon?
- A. Ida
- B. Sedna
- C. Eros
- D. Vesta
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Ida
Did you know? Ida's tiny moon Dactyl was seen by Galileo in 1993.
19.Which comet was the first known interstellar visitor through the solar system?
- A. the comet nucleus
- B. Shoemaker-Levy 9
- C. Comet 67P
- D. 'Oumuamua
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'Oumuamua
Did you know? 'Oumuamua was detected in 2017 and left the solar system again.
20.Which asteroid is a Kuiper Belt dwarf-planet candidate found to have a ring?
- A. Ryugu
- B. Bennu
- C. Psyche
- D. Quaoar
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Quaoar
Did you know? Quaoar's ring sits outside the expected limit for rings.
21.Which asteroid is the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft?
- A. Psyche
- B. Arrokoth
- C. Chiron
- D. Ida
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Arrokoth
Did you know? New Horizons flew past Arrokoth in 2019.
22.Which asteroid was sampled by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2020?
- A. Psyche
- B. Eros
- C. Bennu
- D. Ryugu
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Bennu
Did you know? OSIRIS-REx delivered Bennu samples to Earth in 2023.
23.Which asteroid was the third asteroid ever discovered?
- A. Bennu
- B. Psyche
- C. Juno
- D. Arrokoth
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Juno
Did you know? Juno was found in 1804, three years after Pallas.
24.Which meteor shower is the December shower fed by an asteroid, not a comet?
- A. the Leonids
- B. the Orionids
- C. the Perseids
- D. the Geminids
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the Geminids
Did you know? The Geminids come from rocky asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
25.Which asteroid gave Japan's Hayabusa2 mission its second asteroid sample?
- A. Ida
- B. Bennu
- C. Itokawa
- D. Ryugu
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Ryugu
Did you know? Hayabusa2 returned Ryugu fragments to Earth in 2020.
26.Which asteroid was the first asteroid orbited and landed on by a spacecraft?
- A. Eros
- B. Psyche
- C. Bennu
- D. Juno
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Eros
Did you know? NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros in 2001.
27.Which asteroid is a metal-rich asteroid that may be a broken planet core?
- A. Eros
- B. Psyche
- C. Ida
- D. Sedna
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Psyche
Did you know? Psyche is the target of a NASA mission launched in 2023.
28.Which asteroid provided the first asteroid samples returned to Earth?
- A. Itokawa
- B. Juno
- C. Eros
- D. Sedna
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Itokawa
Did you know? Japan's Hayabusa probe returned Itokawa grains in 2010.

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