🚀 Moons, Asteroids & Comets Trivia Questions & Answers
Halley's Comet, the Moon, asteroids and the solar system's small worlds. Below are 30 free moons, asteroids & comets trivia questions with answers — part of Space trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Space quiz — no signup needed to start.
30 Moons, Asteroids & Comets trivia questions
Q1. Dashcams across an entire Russian city captured which meteor exploding in the sky during 2013?
Answer: The Chelyabinsk meteor
💡 The blast released about 30 times more energy than the Hiroshima bomb, from a rock only 18 meters wide.
Q2. In 1994, more than 20 fragments of a shattered comet pummeled which planet over one dramatic week?
Answer: Jupiter
💡 The comet, Shoemaker-Levy 9, had already been torn apart by Jupiter's gravity two years earlier.
Q3. NASA's DART spacecraft rammed the moonlet Dimorphos in 2022 — by how much did its orbit shrink?
Answer: About 33 minutes
💡 DART proved humanity can nudge a space rock — a cheap rehearsal for deflecting a real future threat.
Q4. Halley's Comet swings past the Sun roughly once every how many years, next arriving in 2061?
Answer: 76 years
💡 Its 2061 return should put on a better show than 1986's, since Halley will pass on Earth's side of the Sun.
Q5. Which point in the Moon's lopsided orbit must a full Moon reach to earn the nickname 'supermoon'?
Answer: Perigee
💡 At perigee, a full Moon can look up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the year's faintest 'micromoon.'
Q6. Which comet lander bounced twice across an alien surface in 2014 when its harpoons failed to fire?
Answer: Philae
💡 Despite the rocky landing, Philae still pulled off the first-ever soft touchdown on a comet's nucleus.
Q7. What left the dazzlingly bright patches inside Ceres' Occator crater, spotted by NASA's Dawn probe?
Answer: Evaporated salty brine
💡 The brightest patch, Cerealia Facula, sits inside a crater barely 20 million years old — young for Ceres.
Q8. In what year did a capsule parachute into the Utah desert carrying NASA's asteroid Bennu samples?
Answer: 2023
💡 The capsule came back with about 120 grams of rubble — double NASA's 60-gram goal.
Q9. How close will asteroid Apophis brush past Earth on its rare April 2029 flyby?
Answer: About 32,000 km away
💡 That's closer than many geosynchronous satellites, though NASA confirms there's zero impact risk.
Q10. Rosetta's target comet 67P earned endless jokes for resembling which bath-time toy?
Answer: A rubber duck
💡 Scientists later found the 'duck' shape came from two smaller comets gently merging billions of years ago.
Q11. One giant crater makes Saturn's little moon Mimas an uncanny lookalike for which movie superweapon?
Answer: The Death Star
💡 The crater, named Herschel, stretches nearly a third of the way across Mimas, with walls three miles high.
Q12. Neptune's largest moon is the solar system's only big moon to circle its planet going which way?
Answer: Backward, opposite the spin
💡 Triton is thought to be a captured Kuiper Belt object — a frozen cousin of Pluto now trapped by Neptune.
Q13. Name the Latin-titled lunar 'sea' where Apollo 11's Eagle touched down back in July 1969.
Answer: Mare Tranquillitatis
💡 Armstrong and Aldrin had already picked the nickname 'Tranquility Base' before launch, keeping it secret from everyone except Mission Control's Capcom.
Q14. Which astronomer, watching from Palermo, spotted Ceres — the first asteroid found — in 1801?
Answer: Giuseppe Piazzi
💡 Piazzi first figured he'd found an uncharted star — only realizing it was moving, and therefore not a star at all, when he checked again the next night.
Q15. Nicknamed 'frozen smoke,' what ultralight material did Stardust use to gently trap comet dust?
Answer: Silica aerogel
💡 Stardust flew through comet Wild 2's dust cloud in 2004 and parachuted its haul down to Utah in 2006 — the first comet samples ever brought to Earth.
Q16. On July 4, 2005, NASA fired a probe into which comet to crack open a look at its hidden interior?
Answer: Tempel 1
💡 The impactor slammed in at over 23,000 mph and revealed the comet was surprisingly fluffy inside — about 75% empty space.
Q17. As of 2026, besides its big moon Charon, how many smaller moons does Pluto have?
Answer: Four
💡 Those four tiny moons — Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra — are all named for figures tied to the mythological underworld, just like Pluto.
Q18. Which Jovian moon wears the oldest, most heavily cratered surface known in the solar system?
Answer: Callisto
💡 Callisto's ancient face is about 4 billion years old, so lacking in geologic activity that its craters have simply never been erased.
Q19. As of 2026, which moon is the only one confirmed to generate its very own magnetic field?
Answer: Ganymede
💡 NASA's Galileo spacecraft discovered Ganymede's magnetosphere in 1996 — a moon-sized magnetic bubble that even sparks its own auroras.
Q20. Which moon hides a cliff so tall a dropped rock would fall for about 12 minutes before landing?
Answer: Miranda
💡 Verona Rupes' 20-km vertical drop is about ten times deeper than Earth's Grand Canyon.
Q21. Vesta's south pole hides a colossal crater almost as wide as the asteroid itself — what's it called?
Answer: Rheasilvia
💡 Its central peak rises roughly 20 km, tall enough to rival Mars' Olympus Mons for solar system bragging rights.
Q22. Japan's Hayabusa2 probe found that asteroid Ryugu's silhouette resembles which classic toy?
Answer: A spinning top
💡 Scientists think fast rotation once flung Ryugu's rubble outward, sculpting its odd top-like shape.
Q23. NASA named a mission after asteroid Psyche, thought to be made largely of what unusual material?
Answer: Nickel-iron metal
💡 Scientists suspect Psyche is the exposed metal core of a baby planet stripped bare by ancient collisions.
Q24. Which Saturn moon looks split down the middle, one hemisphere coal-dark and the other icy bright?
Answer: Iapetus
💡 Cassini found Iapetus's ultra-slow 79-day rotation lets sunlight bake ice away, darkening the dusty side further.
Q25. As of 2026, the biggest intact meteorite ever found still lies where it landed — which country?
Answer: Namibia
💡 Hoba tips the scales at over 60 tonnes — so heavy it has never once been moved from the spot where it was found in 1920.
Q26. In 1954, a napping woman in which US state became history's first confirmed meteorite-strike victim?
Answer: Alabama
💡 The grapefruit-sized rock crashed through Ann Hodges' roof, bounced off her radio, and left her with one seriously dramatic bruise.
Q27. Whose spacecraft, Giotto, beamed home the first close-up portrait of a comet's nucleus in 1986?
Answer: ESA
💡 Giotto swooped within about 600 kilometers of Halley's Comet, revealing a nucleus darker than coal and shaped a bit like a potato.
Q28. Which NASA infrared telescope, built to hunt asteroids, found a dazzling new comet in March 2020?
Answer: WISE
💡 The find got folded into the telescope's 'NEOWISE' mission name — and the comet lit up July 2020 skies as the brightest many Northern skywatchers had seen in years.
Q29. What does the Hawaiian name of our first interstellar visitor, 'Oumuamua, roughly translate to?
Answer: A messenger from afar arriving first
💡 'Oumuamua was moving so fast on such a steep path that astronomers had only weeks to study it before it vanished from view forever.
Q30. Which rocket launched Europa Clipper in 2024, the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA ever built?
Answer: Falcon Heavy
💡 Europa Clipper won't reach Jupiter until 2030 — its route swings past Mars and back by Earth for gravity-assist boosts along the way.
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