31. The planets on either side of the Earth are
Correct Answer:-D ( Mars and Venus )
Description:- Earth is the third planet from the Sun in the following order from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal.
32. Which planet looks reddish in the night sky ?
Correct Answer:-C ( Mars )
Description:- Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the seventh largest. The planet probably got this name due to its red color; Mars is sometimes referred to as the Red Planet as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance.
33. Isohels are the isopleths of
Correct Answer:-A ( sunshine )
Description:- An isohel is line drawn on a map connecting points that receive equal amounts of sunlight. It is derived from helios, meaning ‘Sun.’
34. Which one of the following is the largest planet ?
Correct Answer:-A ( Jupiter )
Description:- Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined.
35. The mass of Jupiter is approximately
Correct Answer:-B ( one thousandth of the solar mass )
Description:- Jupiter’s radius is about 1/10 the radius of the Sun, and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of the Sun. Jupiter’s mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined—this is so massive that its barycenter with the Sun lies above the Sun’s surface at 1.068 solar radii from the Sun’s center.
36. The planet nearest to the Sun is :
Correct Answer:-B ( Mercury )
Description:- Mercury is the innermost planet (nearest to the Sun) in the Solar System. It is also the smallest, and its orbit is the most eccentric (that is, the least perfectly circular) of the eight planets. It orbits the Sun once in about 88 Earth days, completing three rotations about its axis for every two orbits.
37. The planet that takes 88 days to make one revolution of the sun is :
Correct Answer:-A ( Mercury )
Description:- In the solar system, the orbit of Mercury is the most eccentric (that is, the least perfectly circular) of the eight planets. It orbits the Sun once in about 88 Earth days, completing three rotations about its axis for every two orbits.
38. ‘Super nova’ is
Correct Answer:-C ( an exploding Star )
Description:- A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. During this short interval a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun is expected to emit over its entire life span. The explosion expels much or all of a star’s material at a velocity of up to 30,000 km/s (10%’ of the speed of light).
39. Which planet in our solar system is nearly as big as the earth ?
Correct Answer:-C ( Venus )
Description:- Venus is sometimes called as Earth’s twin planet, in terms of size and composition. Like the earth, Venus is covered with thick clouds and has an atmosphere. There is almost the same amount of gravity on Venus but the pressure on the planet is about 100 times bigger than on Earth.
40. Which of the following is called “Blue Planet” ?
Correct Answer:-B ( Earth )
Description:- Earth is the Blue Planet because of the vast encompass of oceans on its surface. From space the oceans combined with the atmosphere makes the planet look blue. The abundance of water on Earth’s surface is a unique feature that distinguishes the “Blue Planet” from others in the Solar System.
41. Which planet in our solar system is nearly as big as the earth ?
Correct Answer:-C ( Venus )
Description:- Venus is often referred to as our sister planet because of similarities in size, mass, density and volume. It is believed that both planets share a common origin forming at the same time out of a condensing nebulosity around 4.5 billion years ago.
42. Which planets do not have satellites revolving around them ?
Correct Answer:-B ( Mercury and Venus )
Description:- Of the nine planets, only Venus and Mercury have no known natural satellites. A total of 139 moons, or natural satellites, can be found in the vast solar system.
43. The planet which has the highest surface temperature is
Correct Answer:-D ( Venus )
Description:- Venus has a maximum surface temperature of 462°C (862°F) making it the hottest planet in the solar system. The high temperature is because of its dense cloud layer.
44. Light from the Sun reaches us in nearly
Correct Answer:-A ( 8 min )
Description:- The sun’s light takes about 8 minutes to reach the Earth after it has been emitted from the sun’s surface. The time it takes for light to reach planets in our Solar System varies from about 3 minutes for Mercury, to about 5.3 hours for Pluto.
45. A spinning neutron star is known as
Correct Answer:-C ( Pulsar )
Description:- Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that have jets of particles moving almost at the speed of light streaming out above their magnetic poles. These jets produce very powerful beams of light.
46. When the moon completely covers the sun, it is known as
Correct Answer:-B ( the Umbra )
Description:- A solar eclipse occurs when the moon crosses the path between the sun and the earth. The darkest shadow (where the sun is completely covered) is called the umbra. The umbra is narrow at the distance of the Earth, and a total eclipse is observable only within the narrow strip of land or sea over which the umbra passes. The partial shadow is called the penumbra.
47. The darkest portion of the shadow cast during an eclipse is
Correct Answer:-B ( Umbra )
Description:- The umbra (Latin for “shadow”) is the innermost and darkest part of a shadow, where the light source is completely blocked by the occluding body. An observer in the umbra experiences a total eclipse.
48. The total number of planets revolving around the sun is
Correct Answer:-B ( Eight )
Description:- There are 8 planets of the solar system that revolve around the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto was stripped of its planetary status and categorized as a ‘dwarf planet’ by the International Astronomical Union in 2005.
49. In a solar or lunar eclipse, the region of earth’s shadow is divided into
Correct Answer:-D ( Three parts )
Description:- An eclipse occurs when a star (such as Sun) aligns with two celestial bodies, such as a planet and a moon. The closer body casts a shadow that intersects the more distant body. This means that “things get dark.” The region of shadow is divided into an umbra, where the light from the star is completely blocked, and a penumbra, where only a portion of the light is blocked. Beyond the end of the umbra is a region called the antumbra. For an observer inside the antumbra of a solar eclipse, for example, the moon appears smaller than the sun, resulting in an annular eclipse.
50. Day and Night are equal at the:
Correct Answer:-D ( Eqator )
Description:- The equator receives equal day and night throughout the year because it does not tilt in relation to the sun’s location. Because of the tilted axis of the Earth, the poles and locations away from the equator lean towards or away from the sun as an orbit is completed, while the equator stays in essentially the same location relative to the sun.
51. Name the first Asian country to Orbit Mars.
Correct Answer:-D ( India )
Description:- India is the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, and the first nation in the world to do so in its first attempt. Its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It has been orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014.
52. Which of the following Scientist proved that the path of each planet around the Sun is elliptical?
Correct Answer:-A ( Kepler )
Description:- According to Kepler’s First law (Law of Orbits), each planet revolves around the sun in an elliptic orbit, the sun occupying one of the Foci. The elliptical shape of the orbit is a result of the inverse square force of gravity. Kepler’s laws were derived for orbits around the sun, but they apply to satellite orbits as well.
53. Which of the following is an alternative theory to the Big Bang theory developed in 1948, stating that the universe does not change even though it is expanding over time ?
Correct Answer:-B ( Steady State Universe )
Description:- The Steady State theory (also known as the Infinite Universe theory or continuous creation) was developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory. In the steady-state theory, the density of matter in the expanding universe remains unchanged due to a continuous creation of matter. It asserts that the observable universe is basically the same at any time as well as at any place.
54. The constellation ‘Sapta Rishi’ is known to Westerners as the
Correct Answer:-C ( Big Dipper )
Description:- The Big Dipper is an asterism consisting of the seven brightest stars of the constellation Ursa Major. In Hindu astronomy, it is referred to as the “Collection of Seven Great Sages” (Saptarshi Mandal), as each star is named after a mythical Hindu sage.
55. Which of these is a dwarf planet?
Correct Answer:-C ( Eris )
Description:- Eris is the most massive and second-largest dwarf planet known in the Solar System. It is 27%’ more massive than dwarf planet Pluto. Eris is the ninthmost- massive known body directly orbiting the Sun, and the largest known body in the Solar System not visited by a spacecraft.
56. Stars twinkle but planets do not twinkle because
Correct Answer:-D ( they are nearer to the earth and hence we receive a greater amount of light and therefore minor variations in intensity are not noticeable )
Description:- Stars twinkle because they are point light sources. Passing through the atmosphere, the small beam of light constantly shifts by bouncing off particles in the air. The much closer planets appear instead as tiny disks in the sky. Their apparent sizes are usually larger than the pockets of air that would distort their light, so the effects of scintillation are negligible. Being closer, planets appear as discs, with the shifting of light from one side cancelling out the other.
57. The outermost layer of sun is called
Correct Answer:-D ( Corona )
Description:- The corona is the outermost layer of the Sun, starting at about 1300 miles (2100 km) above the solar surface (the photosphere). The temperature in the corona is 500,000 K (900,000 degrees F, 500,000 degrees C) or more, up to a few million K. The corona cannot be seen with the naked eye except during a total solar eclipse. The corona does not have an upper limit.
58. On which date is India likely to experience the shortest day?
Correct Answer:-A ( 43456)
Description:- 21-23 December, also known as winter solstice, is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. India, being in the northern hemisphere, experiences its shortest day and longest night on this very day. The winter solstice occurs at the moment when the North Pole is tilted furthest away from the sun.
59. When does solar eclipse take place ?
Correct Answer:-C ( When the moon is between the sun and earth )
Description:- A solar eclipse occurs when the moon gets between Earth and the sun, and the moon casts a shadow over Earth. A solar eclipse can only take place at the phase of new moon, when the moon passes directly between the sun and Earth and its shadows fall upon Earth’s surface.
60. When does the sun shine vertically on the Equator ?
Correct Answer:-C ( Twice a year )
Description:- When the Sun is vertically above the equator, the day is of equal length all over Earth. This happens twice a year, and these are the “equinoxes” in March and in September. Between the two tropic zones, which includes the equator, the Sun is directly overhead twice per year. Outside the tropic zones, whether to the south or north, the Sun is never directly overhead.
61. If a star is bigger than Sun, but not more than twice as big, it will turn into a _______.
Correct Answer:-A ( Pulsar )
Description:- If the star is about the mass of the Sun or less than that, it will turn into White Dwarfs. If the star is bigger than the Sun but not more than twice as big, it will turninto a Neutron Star or Pulsar. If the star is many times bigger than the Sun, it will turn into what is called a Black Hole.
