No student devices needed. Know more
20 questions
Our "hometown" is a vast, flat, disk-shaped collection of gas, dust, and stars called ___
the Andromeda Galaxy
the Milky Way Galaxy
the Large Magellanic Cloud
the Triangulum Galaxy
How far is it across the Milky Way Galaxy?
100 light years across
1,000 light years across
10,000 light years across
100,000 light years across
How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy?
tens of millions
hundreds of millions
tens of billions
hundreds of billions
Where are we, Earthlings, located in the Milky Way Galaxy?
precisely at the center
near the center
halfway out from the center
at the outer edge
How many major spiral arms are in the Milky Way Galaxy?
one
two
three
four
The elongated, roughly cylindrical bar at the center of our galaxy is composed mostly of ___
young blue stars
old blue stars
young red stars
old red stars
The ancient Greeks called the glowing pathway of stars in the sky "galaxius", which means ___
river
glowing
path of light
milky
Which astronomer discovered that the glowing cloudy Milky Way was actually made up of stars?
Isaac Newton
Tycho Brahe
Galileo Galilei
Johannes Kepler
Early maps of the galaxy, which placed the Sun near the center, didn't account for ___
black holes
interstellar dust
globular clusters
neutron stars
What "spherical balls of stars" helped determine that the Sun wasn't at the center of the galaxy?
globular clusters
Magellanic clouds
open clusters
ball nebula
From inside the Milky Way we see it as a broad line in the sky with a central bulge in the direction of ___
Sagittarius
Cygnus
Orion
Ursa Major
Interstellar dust restricts our view, so the structure of the Milky Way was determined by measuring ___
gravitational waves
x-rays
infrared light
radio waves
The spiral arms of our galaxy can best be thought of as ___
structures
string on a spool
traffic jams
circular wave fronts
How long does our Sun take to orbit the galaxy?
about 25 million years
about 250 million years
about 2 billion years
about 5 billion years
Collisions of nebula in the spiral arms form massive, luminous, hot stars that make the arms appear ___
yellow
red
green
blue
Our Sun is located just outside one of the smaller arms called ___
the Perseus Arm
the Orion Arm
the Centaurus Arm
the Sagittarius Arm
How long is the cylindrical bar of red stars at the center of our galaxy?
20 light years long
200 light years long
2,000 light years long
20,000 light years long
What object sits at the very center of our galaxy?
a protostar
a red hypergiant
a massive black hole
a neutron star
The black hole at the center of our galaxy has a mass of ___
4 times the mass of the Sun
4 thousand times the mass of the Sun
4 million times the mass of the Sun
4 billion times the mass of the Sun
The vast spherical cloud of old stars surrounding the Milky Way is called ___
the crown of light
the aurora
the corona
the halo
Explore all questions with a free account