Astro Quiz 2025

To explain the remarkably uniform temperature of the cosmic microwave background, despite vast distances between regions, cosmologists invoked an ultra-brief yet monumental expansion.

What theory addresses this early “smoothing” of the universe?

• Quantum tunneling

• Cosmic inflation

• Big Crunch

• String cosmology

When a star slightly larger than the Sun dies, its end isn't explosive but elegant. It exhales glowing gas shells, leaving a dense core behind.

What do we call this brief luminous phase during stellar death?

• Nova

• Coronal ejection

• Planetary nebula

• Red supergiant bloom

In the infant universe, just minutes old, nuclear fusion began stitching atomic nuclei. Yet only certain light elements formed in appreciable amounts before the universe cooled too much.

Beyond hydrogen, which element emerged in significant abundance during this primordial nucleosynthesis?

• Lithium

• Helium

• Oxygen

• Carbon

As a white dwarf accumulates mass from a binary companion, a critical threshold exists beyond which electron degeneracy pressure can no longer support it. Surpassing this mass doesn't merely increase its size , it triggers catastrophic collapse.

What is this theoretical mass boundary known as?

• Roche limit

• Schwarzschild radius

• Chandrasekhar limit

• Hawking boundary

During the Planck epoch, the universe existed at extreme temperatures and densities, where known laws of physics break down. Around 10⁻⁴³ seconds after the Big Bang, a key event is believed to have occurred that marked the end of this epoch and the beginning of a more structured universe .What is this pivotal event?

• Onset of stellar nucleosynthesis

• Gravity decoupling from the other fundamental forces

• Formation of the first galaxy clusters

• Reionisation of the intergalactic medium

Astronomers observe a certain type of star that, after a long quiet phase, suddenly flares up dramatically brightening by many magnitudes almost overnight. Over the following weeks to years, it slowly dims back to its usual faint state. This explosive event involves material accreting onto a white dwarf in a binary system, triggering a runaway nuclear reaction on its surface.

What four-letter word, starting with N, describes this stellar phenomenon?

• Neap

• Node

• Nova

• Nuke

At the heart of our galaxy, an invisible force anchors stars in tight, rapid orbits, despite emitting no visible light. Known only through its gravitational influence and faint radio emissions, this enigmatic object defies direct observation. Which of the following best explains what lies at the center of the Milky Way?

• A massive neutron star cluster

• A dormant quasar

• A supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*

• A dark matter core

In 2015, scientists recorded faint distortions in space-time itself—ripples generated by the violent merger of two black holes over a billion light-years away. This historic first direct detection of gravitational waves validated a century-old prediction by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. What was this groundbreaking event known as?

•  WMAP

• LISA Pathfinder

•  Hubble Constant

• GW150914 (LIGO Detection)

.‘X’ was a planet Galileo initially mistook for a star. The irregular orbit of ‘Y’ puzzled astronomers until mathematicians applied ‘Z’ to predict ‘X’'s existence years before it was visually confirmed by telescopes. This discovery challenged classical astronomy and reshaped planetary science. Identify X, Y, and Z

• X: Uranus, Y: Saturn, Z: Kepler’s Laws

• X: Neptune, Y: Uranus, Z: Newton’s Law of Gravitation

• X: Pluto, Y: Neptune, Z: General Relativity

• X: Jupiter, Y: Earth, Z: Tidal Theory

In the 1930s, while most astronomers were focused on expanding universe theories and white dwarf physics, two scientists proposed a bold idea: that supernova explosions could compress matter so densely that electrons and protons would merge to form neutrons, creating an entirely new type of stellar remnant. Though the concept lacked observational backing and seemed extreme compared to white dwarfs or black holes, it laid the foundation for what we now call neutron stars. Who were the first to propose this groundbreaking theory in 1934?

• Edwin Hubble & Georges Lemaître – known for expanding universe theory

• Max Planck & Niels Bohr – pioneers of quantum and atomic structure

• Walter Baade & Fritz Zwicky – theorized neutron stars from supernovae

• Arthur Eddington & Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – known for stellar structure and mass limits