Astro quiz finals 2015

Astro Quiz Finals Amateur Astronomy Club

Dries-Clockwise

7 questions Infinite Bounce +10 on direct and bounce +10/-5 on pounce

1. FITB

Lyrics to a song titled _______ X1 by Canadian progressive rock band Rush.

Invisible to telescopic eyeInfinity, the star that would not die

All who dare to cross her courseAre swallowed by her fearsome force

Through the voidTo be destroyedOr is there something more?Atomized...at the core?Or through the Astral Door?To soar...

I set a course just east of LyraAnd northwest of PegasusFlew into the light of DenebSailed across the Milky WayOn my ship, the 'Rocinante'Wheeling through the galaxiesHeaded for the heart of ________Headlong into mystery

The x-ray is her siren songMy ship cannot resist her longNearer to my deadly goalUntil the black holeGains control...

Just FITB.

Safety Slide

1. Answer

Cygnus

2. ID X

The site BadAstronomy, famed for bashing sci-fi movies (such as Armageddon (1998)) about science blunders, praised the movie X for being comedic yet surprisingly accurate when it comes to astronomy facts.

X is the title of the organisation which “protects the earth from the scum of the universe”

Safety Slide

2. Answer

Men In Black

3. ID

Safety Slide

3. Answer

Galle Crater

4.

The Mercury capsule, flown by astronaut Gus Grissom for 15 minutes in space on July 21, 1961 [2nd manned space mission by USA]. Following the splashdown of “X″, the hatch, which had explosive bolts, blew off prematurely, letting water into the capsule and into Grissom’s suit. Grissom nearly drowned but was rescued by helicopter, while the spacecraft sank in deep water. Grissom maintained he did nothing to set off the explosives to blow the hatch, and NASA officials agreed. The craft was recovered in 1999 but there was no evidence of how the hatch had been opened. The sinking was a bit of a black eye on the career of Grissom, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.

It was named after which iconic American symbol/structure?

Safety Slide

4. Answer

Liberty Bell

5.

Her surname originates from the Latin word for “left” or “to the left”. The most probable explanation for this is that most planets rotate counter-clockwise (from right to left). It is also the name of a star in the constellation Ophiuchus.

Her first name is probably derived from a phenomenon which occurs when solar winds interact with the Earth’s magnetic field. It was initially supposed to be Aurelia, but was later changed.

Who are we talking about?

Safety Slide

5. Answer

Madam Aurora Sinistra - The Astronomy Professor at Hogwarts

6. Put Funda

Safety Slide

6. Answer

The yeast to brew the beer is sent to space for a momentary 4 minutes and is then recovered. There is hardly any change in such a short duration and it’s best a fad.

7. What theory?

The total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919 was one of the most awaited ones. The eclipse was the only chance to “turn off” the light from the Sun in order to observe the stars near it.

The observation of light deflection was performed by Arthur Eddington and his collaborators by noting the change in position of stars as they passed near the Sun on the celestial sphere.

What theory was being tested?

Safety Slide

General Theory of Relativity

List It

The title is self explanatory xP +2 for each correct answer. +5 if u

get all of ‘em

List It- 1

ISRO Chairmen

Answers

Vikram Sarabhai M G K Menon Satish Dhawan U R Rao Kasturirangan G Madhavan Nair K Radhakrishnan Shailesh Nayak A S Kiran Kumar (incumbent )

List It – 2

Dwarf Planets recognised by IAU

Answers

Ceres Pluto Haumea Eris Makemake

Dries AntiClockwise

6 questions Infinite Bounce +10 on direct and bounce +10/-5 on pounce

1. ID X and Y

The contents of X were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Y of Cornell University. A message from US President Jimmy Carter, printed on X reads, “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

Y noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the X played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”

Safety Slide

1. Answer

X- Voyager Golden Record Y- Carl Sagan

2. Put Funda

Safety Slide

2. Answer

Snoopy is the safety mascot for NASA’s manned missions.

Petting Snoopy’s nose for luck before launch.

3. ID the photographic technique and from where is it taken?

Safety Slide

3. Answer

Star Trail Photography ISS

4.

Why were these words in the headlines used in the USA during Dec 1957? Flopnik Kaputnik Oopsnik Stayputnik

Safety Slide

4. Answer

Failure of USA’s satellite Vanguard TV3 which was launched two months after Russian satellite Sputnik 1

5. What technique?

The cartoon depicts a technique or concept that can be used to increase or decrease the speed of a spacecraft and/or redirect its path.

Safety Slide

5. Answer

Gravity Slingshot

6.

ID this former NASA scientist and why was he in the news in 2013?

Safety Slide

6. Answer

Donald Kessler Kessler Syndrome- A chain reaction

of collisions between orbital technology

Gravity

7. What is this?

7. Answer

Zero gravity cocktail glass

+30/-15 on the first clue +20/-10 on the second clue +10/0 on the third clue

1.

ID the movie. Plot is given below Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr. lived in a small coal

mining town in West Virginia named Coalwood. Sonny, after seeing the Russian satellite Sputnik, decides to join the American team of rocket engineers called the Missile Agency when he graduates from school

His group called the “Rocket Boys” also won a National Science Fair Gold medal for their rockets, for their project titled "A Study of Amateur Rocketry Techniques".

Rocket Boys was made into a film in 1999, titled __________ (an anagram of "Rocket Boys")

October Sky

2.

X is a retired Canadian astronaut who was the first Canadian to walk in space. X was responsible for a crew of five astronauts and helped to run dozens of scientific experiments dealing with the impact of low gravity on human biology. During the mission he also gained popularity by chronicling life aboard the space station and taking pictures of the earth and posting them through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Tumblr to a large following of people around the world.

2. Answer

Chris Hadfield

3. ID X.

X was a science writer, undersea explorer and inventor. Later in his life, X migrated to Sri Lanka to pursue his interests in scuba diving and discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee. X was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.

X’s first sold short story was the "Rescue Party“, published in Astounding Science Fiction in May 1946.

X popularized space travel and several futuristic ideas including a proposal for satellite communication in 1954 that won him the Stuart Ballantines Medal. He was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize, an award for popularizing science and earned the moniker ‘Prophet of the space age’ .

4. What are we talking about?

4. Answer

SETI

5. What phenomenon?

This occurs when accelerated charged particles, mainly electrons, interact with the plasma medium. Magnetic reconnection (you don’t need to know exactly what that is :P) is responsible for the acceleration of the charged particles. 

A ______ ______ is a sudden flash of brightness observed over a star’s surface which is interpreted as a large energy release (about 6x1025 joules of energy).

5. Answer

Solar flare

6. ID X and Y

Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book The God Delusion to X and wrote on X’s death, "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender.”

Y is X’s most iconic literary work.

Y is "trilogy" that sold more than 15 million copies in X’s lifetime and generated a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film.