Q 01/05

The Kuiper Belt lies 30 to 50 AU out, where one AU is the Sun's distance from which planet?

A) Mercury

B) Earth

C) Jupiter

D) Neptune

Answer · why

B) Earth

Earth's average distance from the Sun defines the astronomical unit; at 30 to 50 times that, the belt's bodies are so faint that it went undetected un...

Q 02/05

The Kuiper Belt is a far larger, more distant cousin of which band of rubble?

A) Saturn's rings

B) The asteroid belt

C) Jupiter's Trojans

D) The zodiacal cloud

Answer · why

B) The asteroid belt

The asteroid belt never gathered into a planet because Jupiter's gravity kept stirring it; both bands are leftovers from the Solar System's birth that...

Q 03/05

Unlike rocky asteroids, most Kuiper Belt objects are composed largely of what?

A) Frozen ices like methane and water

B) Iron and nickel alloys

C) Silicate rock and dust

D) Solid carbon and graphite

Answer · why

A) Frozen ices like methane and water

Frozen ices like methane and water stay solid in the deep cold so far from the Sun, whereas the asteroids formed close enough in that mostly rock and ...

Q 04/05

Gerard Kuiper, the astronomer the belt is named for, was born and educated in which country?

A) Germany

B) Netherlands

C) Switzerland

D) Belgium

Answer · why

B) Netherlands

Netherlands-born Kuiper left Leiden for America in 1933 and in 1964 predicted the Moon's surface would feel like crunchy snow underfoot, as Neil Armst...

Q 05/05

Which Irish astronomer proposed a disc of small bodies beyond Neptune in the 1940s, lending the belt its other name?

A) William Parsons

B) Kenneth Edgeworth

C) John Dreyer

D) Agnes Clerke

Answer · why

B) Kenneth Edgeworth

Kenneth Edgeworth reasoned in 1943 that matter so far out was spread too thin to build planets and formed countless small bodies instead, hence the na...