Quiz of the Day
Space Exploration
Wednesday, 8 April 2026
From Sputnik's first beep to rovers rolling across Mars, humanity has spent seven decades reaching for the stars. How well do you know the story of space exploration?
1. Which country launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, in 1957?
- Germany
- Soviet Union
- United States
- China
Sputnik 1 launched on 4 October 1957 and orbited Earth every 96 minutes, transmitting a simple radio beep. It shocked the West and kicked off the Space Race. The satellite burned up in the atmosphere after three months.
2. Who was the first human to walk on the Moon?
- Michael Collins
- Yuri Gagarin
- Buzz Aldrin
- Neil Armstrong
Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface on 20 July 1969 during Apollo 11. His famous line — 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' — was heard by an estimated 600 million people worldwide. Michael Collins orbited above, alone.
3. Which planet has the most moons in our solar system?
- Saturn
- Jupiter
- Uranus
- Neptune
Saturn overtook Jupiter in 2023 when astronomers confirmed its moon count had reached 146. Many are tiny, irregular captures — chunks of rock and ice snagged by Saturn's gravity. Its largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere and methane lakes.
4. What was the name of the first space station, launched by the Soviet Union in 1971?
- Skylab
- Mir
- Tiangong
- Salyut 1
Salyut 1 launched in April 1971 and hosted the Soyuz 11 crew for 23 days — still a record for the longest stay on a space station at the time. Tragically, all three cosmonauts died during re-entry due to a faulty valve. The station re-entered in October 1971.
5. What is the name of NASA's Mars rover that landed in Jezero Crater in February 2021?
- Spirit
- Perseverance
- Opportunity
- Curiosity
Perseverance carried the Ingenuity helicopter, which became the first powered aircraft to fly on another planet. The rover is hunting for signs of ancient microbial life and collecting rock samples to be returned to Earth in a future mission.
6. Light from the Sun takes approximately how long to reach Earth?
- 8 seconds
- 8 minutes
- 8 days
- 8 hours
Sunlight travels at 299,792 km/s and covers the 150 million km to Earth in about 8 minutes and 20 seconds. This means we see the Sun as it was over 8 minutes ago. By the time you'd notice the Sun disappear, it would already have been gone for 8 minutes.
7. Which telescope, launched in 1990, revolutionised our view of the universe despite an initial mirror flaw?
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Spitzer Space Telescope
- Chandra X-ray Observatory
- James Webb Space Telescope
Hubble launched with a 2.2mm spherical aberration in its mirror, producing blurry images. NASA sent a servicing mission in 1993 to fit corrective optics — effectively giving Hubble 'glasses'. It subsequently produced some of the most iconic images in scientific history.
8. What force keeps planets in orbit around the Sun?
- Gravity
- Dark energy
- Nuclear force
- Electromagnetism
Isaac Newton described gravity in 1687, and Einstein refined the picture in 1915 with general relativity — showing that massive objects curve spacetime, and planets follow those curves. The Sun contains 99.86% of the solar system's mass, dominating the gravitational field.
9. Which company became the first private firm to send astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020?
- Blue Origin
- Virgin Galactic
- SpaceX
- Boeing
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft carried astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS on 30 May 2020 — the first crewed orbital launch from American soil since the Space Shuttle retired in 2011. It marked the dawn of commercial crewed spaceflight.
10. What is the term for the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing — not even light — can escape?
- Schwarzschild radius
- Event horizon
- Photon sphere
- Singularity
The event horizon is the point of no return. The Schwarzschild radius describes its size for a non-rotating black hole. In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope captured the first image of a black hole's shadow — the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy M87.