Astro Trivia Quiz for January

[Raymondhow]

Greetings again TSSers, here's a new Trivia Quiz:
https://forms.gle/RzmBTdBBBjYtq3Yt8

For the short answer questions, spelling does not matter. (I will adjust scores for misspelled answers.)
Remember:
1. No online research allowed, your own pure brain only!
2. On multiple choice questions, feel free to guess. You may get lucky!
3. If you have a comment about a question, please do NOT give away the correct answer.
4. Please do not repeat the quiz, at least not until after I announce the Champs sometime next week.

Enjoy!

[helicon]

I got 14/20.

[bobharmony]

This one was weird for me. I know I answered all the questions, but when I checked my score only half of them were filled in. I got interrupted in the middle of the quiz and went to another browser window - don't know if that was the problem.

Oh well, I'll try again next month.

Bob

[sdbodin]

A hard one, got 14/20. Only one of my four guess were right, no luck either!

Steve

[bobharmony]

I started again and got 14/20. I would have been 16/20 but I spelled the country name wrong, I must have been thinking about food at the time

Bob

[Thefatkitty]

Thanks Raymond, that went well with my coffee this morning. 13/20, not bad I guess...

Looking forward to the February one!

All the best,

[515bonner]

13/20 - that was a tough one!

[KingNothing13]

9/20 - better than I usually do! Not great though.

[Raymondhow]

Thanks all for participating! Total of 11 responses on TSS

The 12 questions scored 20 points.
Overall average score: 10.64 points

And here is your Champion!
One scored 20 points = 100%
KT4HX (Alan)
Hurrah! Hurrah!

===
Answers, stats, comments…

1. Which is the bright orange star in the above image? (1)
Aldebaran. The key is to recognize the Hyades cluster in the background.

2. Tombaugh Regio is a prominent region on the surface of which Solar System body? (1)
Pluto. Imaged by the New Horizons probe, and named after Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto.

3. A “parsec” is a unit of time based on a parallax angle of one arcsecond. (T/F) (1)
False. Parsec is a unit of distance, no matter what Han Solo may say. (Oops, got a little sci-fi in there.)

4. The main asteroid belt of our Solar System lies between which two planets? (1)
Mars and Jupiter.

5. Name the planet of the Solar System whose existence was predicted mathematically. (1)
Neptune. Uranus was deviating from its predicted orbit, showing that an unknown planet was perturbing it.

6. How many constellations are identified in the Almagest, a 2nd century treatise by Claudius Ptolemy? (2)
48

7. Four of the five highest ground-based astronomical observatories are within the borders of which nation? (2)
Chile.

8. The planets make up what percentage of the total mass of our Solar System? (2)
0.135%.

9. Of these lunar craters, which is the oldest? (2)
Clavius. Likely about 4 billion years old; the others are all younger than a billion years.

10. The star Meissa is in the head of which constellation figure? (2)
Orion.

11. About how many times more massive is the star Sirius A than its white dwarf companion Sirius B? (2)
2, I liked this question because the answer surprised me. Sirius B is a dense little fellow..

12. As observed from planet Mars, what is the maximum angular separation between the Earth and the Moon? (2)
17′ or 27′. The recent Jupiter/Saturn conjunction inspired this question, got me thinking that Earth and Moon from Mars would look rather similar. But my mistake was to rely upon a Wikipedia article for the answer, which states, "The maximum angular separation of the Earth and Moon ... is about 17′ when Earth is closest to Mars (near inferior conjunction).. ". This contradicts another Wiki article which gives the value 25′. That figure is close to my own calculation, and to the calculation of our Baron. Since that’s between two of the answer choices (17′ and 27′), I accepted either as correct. I will be fixing that first Wiki page...

[Graeme1858]

Seems I missed this one first time round!

14/20, a bit more respectable than my February poor poor score!

Should have got the parsec one but I must have read the question too quickly!

Regards

Graeme

[Gfamily]

Seems I missed this one first time round!

14/20, a bit more respectable than my February poor poor score!

Should have got the parsec one but I must have read the question too quickly!

Regards

Graeme

Yes, that was sneaky !