Solar System

This quiz is designed to test your knowledge of our Solar System. The answers to all nine questions can be found somewhere on this website.

Select the multiple choice answers for each question by clicking on the buttons below, then click the Mark Test button to see how you did.

1. Which planet in the Solar System spins in the opposite direction to all the others?

a) Venus
b) Pluto
c) Earth
d) Jupiter

2. What is the most obvious feature of Mercury's landscape?

a) Oceans
b) Dense cloud
c) Volcanoes
d) Craters

3. What material are Saturn's rings made from?

a) Rock
b) Ice
c) Metal
d) Ammonia

4. Beagle 2 is scheduled to rendezvous with which planet early in the next millennium?

a) Venus
b) Neptune
c) Mercury
d) Mars

5. What is the temperature on the surface of Pluto?

a) -60�C
b) -180�C
c) -230�C
d) -270�C

6. What is responsible for the Earth's aurora?

a) Particles from the solar wind
b) The Earth's rapid spin rate
c) Heat from the centre of the Earth
d) Radio waves sent to satellites

7. Which astronomer discovered the planet Uranus?

a) Galileo Galilei
b) Nicholas Copernicus
c) William Herschel
d) Jean Cassini

8. Triton is a moon of which planet?

a) Saturn
b) Neptune
c) Pluto
d) Jupiter

9. What chemicals make up Jupiter's atmosphere?

a) Water, ozone and benzene
b) Hydrogen, methane and ammonia
c) Ammonia and sulphuric acid
d) Helium, oxygen and carbon dioxide