Q 01/05

From which language do the roots of the word 'telescope' come, meaning 'far' and 'to look'?

A) Latin

B) Arabic

C) Greek

D) Dutch

Answer · why

C) Greek

Greek. Tele means 'far' and skopos 'watcher'; the name is said to have been coined in 1611 at Rome's Lincean Academy, for an instrument its new member...

Q 02/05

Galileo's telescope revealed four moons circling which planet in January 1610?

A) Saturn

B) Mars

C) Jupiter

D) Venus

Answer · why

C) Jupiter

Jupiter. Galileo first took the points of light beside it for fixed stars, then saw that they had moved by the next night and concluded they were circ...

Q 03/05

Edwin Hubble showed in the 1920s that other galaxies exist after spotting a pulsing star in which one?

A) The Whirlpool Galaxy

B) The Sombrero Galaxy

C) The Andromeda Galaxy

D) The Cigar Galaxy

Answer · why

C) The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy. On photographs from the 100-inch telescope, Hubble found a star whose steady pulsing gave away its distance, far too great for i...

Q 04/05

Which Middelburg spectacle-maker filed the earliest known telescope patent application in 1608?

A) Zacharias Janssen

B) Hans Lippershey

C) Jacob Metius

D) Cornelis Drebbel

Answer · why

B) Hans Lippershey

Hans Lippershey. He never got his patent, yet the States General paid him handsomely to make several versions of the instrument built for both eyes.

Q 05/05

The twin Keck telescopes stand near the summit of which Hawaiian volcano?

A) Mauna Loa

B) Haleakalā

C) Hualālai

D) Mauna Kea

Answer · why

D) Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea. Each 10-metre mirror is made of 36 hexagonal segments, which computers nudge back into line twice a second as the telescope turns.