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Aug 11th, 2013
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  1. -----
  2.  
  3. Tonight's trivia session is all about SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE! Let's start with simple definition and location. We live on a small, rocky planet we like to call Earth, surrounded and sustained by a thin layer of atmosphere. Not very far up lies the Kármán line, the boundary between what we call home and outer space proper. Approximately how far above sea level does this line lie?
  4.  
  5. Answer: 100 km (62 miles)
  6.  
  7. -----
  8.  
  9. Now that we've made it off our doorstep, let's look at our nearest neighbor. The moon is near enough to cause the tides, but still so far that it takes light more than a full second to travel from here to there or vice versa. It is also the only body apart from Earth that we have ever visited in person. Due to a quirk of nature, it always has the same face toward us. What is this phenomenon called?
  10.  
  11. Answer: Synchronous rotation (tidal locking is acceptable)
  12.  
  13. -----
  14.  
  15. We found lots of interesting things on our trips to the moon. Possibly the oddest was that we found amino acids there--the building blocks of proteins. Cosmic radiation should ensure that they would be broken down, so even if they were deposited a long time ago, they shouldn't still be there. It was thought that perhaps some odd chemistry involving the azide-based fuels the rockets were using might have been involved, so the astronauts even went a good distance away from their landing site and rolled a boulder over to get more soil samples that should be free from this 'contamination.' It turned out that there were actually higher amounts of amino acids in these samples than the exposed ones nearer the craft. To this day, no one knows where these amino acids come from or how they're being replenished or maintained in the lunar soil, which consists of tiny, glassy particles with jagged edges. What is this soil called?
  16.  
  17. Answer: Lunar regolith (just regolith is acceptable)
  18.  
  19. -----
  20.  
  21. Now that we've gotten to know a little bit about our closest neighbor, let's look around the rest of the neighborhood. There are an awful lot of things flying around out there, including over 3,000 known comets; over 400 known satellites; and countless thousands of asteroids, centaurs, and trans-Neptunian objects. As everyone knows, there are 8 known full-fledged planets as well, but how many known planets are there when you include dwarf planets as well?
  22.  
  23. Answer: Thirteen (13)
  24.  
  25. -----
  26.  
  27. While we're on the subject of dwarf planets, everyone knows about Pluto and pretty much none of the others. There are four more besides Pluto. One, Ceres, is located in the asteroid belt. The other three are far out in the outer solar system. Two of those, Haumea and Makemake, are named after deities in the pantheons of the native Hawaiians and the Rapanui of Easter Island, respectively. The last, situated furthest out on average, has a moon named Dysnomia and is named after a goddess of discord and strife. What is it called?
  28.  
  29. Answer: Eris
  30.  
  31. -----
  32.  
  33. Returning to the 8 primary planets in our system, most of those more than 400 satellites we mentioned earlier lie in the outer solar system. Jupiter, which is about two and a half times more massive than all the other planets put together, and Saturn, arguably the most stylish planet with its ring system, have no less than 129 known satellites between them alone! Which of these two is currently in the lead, having the greatest number of known satellites?
  34.  
  35. Answer: Jupiter
  36.  
  37. -----
  38.  
  39. Speaking of satellites, many of them are very interesting in their own right. One of Jupiter's moons, the largest satellite in the solar system, is larger than the planet Mercury, and is also the only one known to have a magnetosphere. What is it called?
  40.  
  41. Answer: Ganymede
  42.  
  43. -----
  44.  
  45. This moon also happens to be in orbital resonance with two of the other four major satellites of Jupiter. Consequently, they all experience a significant amount of tidal heating, which results in varying amounts of tectonic activity from the warping of their shape by gravitational forces. In fact, this resonance causes one of them to be the most geologically active object in the solar system, with over 400 active volcanoes. What is its name?
  46.  
  47. Answer: Io
  48.  
  49. -----
  50.  
  51. The major Jovian satellite which does not participate in this resonance is tidally locked with Jupiter, and has, due to its substantially lower levels of radiation, generally been regarded as the most suitable choice for a base for further human exploration of the Jovian system. Which moon is this?
  52.  
  53. Answer: Callisto
  54.  
  55. -----
  56.  
  57. Not to be outdone, Saturn has interesting satellites as well. One of them, the second-largest satellite in the solar system, has a thick atmosphere, which, coupled with its low gravity, means humans could probably fly there under their own power. It also has lakes and possibly oceans made of hydrocarbons like methane concealed beneath its dense, opaque, mostly-nitrogen atmosphere. What satellite am I describing?
  58.  
  59. Answer: Titan
  60.  
  61. -----
  62.  
  63. Now let's take a look at a somewhat wider area--the larger neighborhood. We live in the Milky Way Galaxy, a barred spiral galaxy. How many spiral arms do astronomers typically organize our galaxy into?
  64.  
  65. Answer: Four (4)
  66.  
  67. -----
  68.  
  69. The area our solar system is located in is also referred to as an arm, though it is not included in the count from the previous question. What is this area called?
  70.  
  71. Answer: The Orion-Cygnus Arm
  72.  
  73. -----
  74.  
  75. A very massive object lies at the center of our galaxy, and similar objects are thought to exist at the center of most, if not all, other galaxies. What sort of object am I referring to?
  76.  
  77. Answer: A supermassive black hole (just black hole is not good enough)
  78.  
  79. -----
  80.  
  81. And what is the name of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way?
  82.  
  83. Answer: Sagittarius A* (must be A*, as Sagittarius A is a larger phenomenon, of which Sagittarius A* is only a part)
  84.  
  85. -----
  86.  
  87. Even the whole galaxy, while enormous beyond our power to comprehend, is still just our little neighborhood. The Milky Way is part of a larger structure composed of over 50 galaxies referred to simply as the Local Group. This, in turn, is a part of an even larger structure composed of over 100 galaxy groups and clusters that is sometimes called the Local Supercluster. What is the other name used to refer to this supercluster?
  88.  
  89. Answer: The Virgo Supercluster
  90.  
  91. -----
  92.  
  93. Speaking of other galaxies, one of our neighbors, and the largest galaxy in the Local Group, is expected to collide with the Milky Way in about 3.75 billion years. What galaxy am I talking about?
  94.  
  95. Answer: The Andromeda Galaxy
  96.  
  97. -----
  98.  
  99. Not to worry, though. These galactic 'collisions' are more like merging into a larger galaxy, and little, if any, actual collision is involved. The collision between us and the Andromeda Galaxy will leave behind a large elliptical galaxy. These events are also a lot more common than you might think. Sometimes when one of the galaxies involved is much smaller, it is essentially consumed by the larger one. In fact, there are no less than four small galaxies currently merging with our own. Name one of them.
  100.  
  101. Answers: Virgo Stellar Stream (Virgo Overdensity acceptable), Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, Ursa Major II Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
  102.  
  103. -----
  104.  
  105. These are just a few of over a dozen satellite galaxies just around our own. The universe tends to be organized this way, with clumps of matter divided by large empty spaces, such that it resembles something like a patchwork of bubbles. These clumps of matter form massive, thread-like formations that usually range from 50 to 80 megaparsecs in length. What are these structures called?
  106.  
  107. Answers: Galaxy filaments (or just filaments), supercluster complexes, or great walls
  108.  
  109. -----
  110.  
  111. And what are the empty spaces between the filaments known as?
  112.  
  113. Answer: Voids
  114.  
  115. -----
  116.  
  117. Many of these voids are known, and there is currently one whose existence is disputed, but if it is confirmed, it will dwarf all previously known voids at a diameter of about 150 megaparsecs. What is its ostensible name?
  118.  
  119. Answer: The Eridanus Supervoid
  120.  
  121. -----
  122.  
  123. One of the largest voids aside from this is about 250 million light-years in diameter. The Hercules Supercluster forms part of its near edge, and it has been said that, were the Milky Way in the center of this void, we would not have known of the existence of other galaxies until the sixties. Of which void am I speaking?
  124.  
  125. Answer: The Boötes Void
  126.  
  127. -----
  128.  
  129. Speaking of distant deep-space structures, remember how supermassive black holes lie at the centers of galaxies? Well, looking at objects far away also means looking into the distant past, since it takes billions of years for the light to reach us from things that are billions of light-years away. Consequently, we have, for some time, been able to observe at very great distances, these active galactic nuclei with their supermassive black holes as they existed in the very early universe, when galaxies were first forming. The black holes in the center were still surrounded by massive accretion discs and emitting massive amounts of energy. When they were first observed, astronomers had no idea what they were, as the existence of supermassive black holes, never mind their homes in the middle of galaxies, were unknown at the time. Whether black holes existed at all was still speculative, in fact. What were these objects called?
  130.  
  131. Answer: Quasars
  132.  
  133. -----
  134.  
  135. They are still called quasars today, in fact. Where was this name derived from?
  136.  
  137. Answer: Quasi-stellar radio source
  138.  
  139. -----
  140.  
  141. Returning to the massive forms of the structure of the universe from our questions about voids, with a brief side trip through quasars, the second largest structure in the universe is a huge wall of galaxies that measures 1.38 billion light-years in length, about 1/60 the diameter of the observable universe. Its discovery was announced in 2003. What is its name?
  142.  
  143. Answer: The Sloan Great Wall
  144.  
  145. -----
  146.  
  147. The Sloan Great Wall slipped to number two after the largest known structure was discovered in 2012. It consists of a group of 73 quasars stretching some 4 billion light years across. What is this structure?
  148.  
  149. Answer: The Huge-LQG (Huge Large Quasar Group)
  150.  
  151. -----
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