129 Space & Astronomy Quiz Questions & Answers

Below are 129 space & astronomy quiz questions with the correct answer and a short explanation for each. Use them to revise, host a quiz night, or prepare for competitions — then challenge yourself with the timed, interactive version on QuizOxa.

Space & Astronomy Quiz Questions and Answers

1. Q1. What is the closest planet to the Sun?

   ✅ Answer: Mercury

   💡 Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun at an average distance of 58 million km, with surface temperatures ranging from -180°C to 430°C.

2. Q2. How many planets are in our solar system?

   ✅ Answer: 8

   💡 There are 8 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.

3. Q3. What is the largest planet in our solar system?

   ✅ Answer: Jupiter

   💡 Jupiter is the largest planet, with a mass more than twice that of all other planets combined and a diameter of 139,820 km.

4. Q4. What is the Sun made mostly of?

   ✅ Answer: Hydrogen and helium

   💡 The Sun is composed of about 73% hydrogen and 25% helium, with nuclear fusion converting hydrogen to helium at its core.

5. Q5. Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?

   ✅ Answer: Neil Armstrong

   💡 Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969, during NASA's Apollo 11 mission.

6. Q6. What is a black hole?

   ✅ Answer: A region where gravity is so strong nothing can escape

   💡 A black hole is a region of spacetime with gravitational pull so strong that nothing — not even light — can escape once past the event horizon.

7. Q7. What is the Milky Way?

   ✅ Answer: Our galaxy

   💡 The Milky Way is our galaxy — a spiral galaxy containing 100-400 billion stars, including our Sun and solar system.

8. Q8. How long does it take sunlight to reach Earth?

   ✅ Answer: About 8 minutes

   💡 Sunlight takes approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel the 150 million km from the Sun to Earth at the speed of light.

9. Q9. What causes seasons on Earth?

   ✅ Answer: The tilt of Earth's axis

   💡 Seasons are caused by Earth's 23.5° axial tilt — as Earth orbits the Sun, different hemispheres receive varying amounts of direct sunlight.

10. Q10. What is the International Space Station (ISS)?

    ✅ Answer: A habitable satellite orbiting Earth

    💡 The ISS is a modular space station in low Earth orbit, serving as a microgravity laboratory. It orbits Earth every 90 minutes at 408 km altitude.

11. Q11. What planet is known as the 'Red Planet'?

    ✅ Answer: Mars

    💡 Mars is called the Red Planet due to iron oxide (rust) on its surface giving it a reddish appearance. It has two small moons.

12. Q12. What is a supernova?

    ✅ Answer: The explosive death of a massive star

    💡 A supernova is the powerful explosion of a massive star at the end of its life, briefly outshining entire galaxies and seeding space with heavy elements.

13. Q13. How old is the universe estimated to be?

    ✅ Answer: 13.8 billion years

    💡 The universe is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old, determined by observations of cosmic microwave background radiation and expansion rate.

14. Q14. What is the largest moon in our solar system?

    ✅ Answer: Ganymede

    💡 Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, is the largest moon in the solar system — even larger than the planet Mercury.

15. Q15. Which planet has the most moons?

    ✅ Answer: Saturn

    💡 Saturn has the most confirmed moons with over 140 natural satellites, surpassing Jupiter's count.

16. Q16. What is a light-year?

    ✅ Answer: The distance light travels in one year

    💡 A light-year is the distance light travels in one year — approximately 9.46 trillion km. It's used to measure vast cosmic distances.

17. Q17. What is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter?

    ✅ Answer: A giant storm

    💡 The Great Red Spot is a massive, persistent anticyclonic storm on Jupiter, larger than Earth, observed for at least 350 years.

18. Q18. Which planet rotates on its side?

    ✅ Answer: Uranus

    💡 Uranus has an extreme axial tilt of 98°, effectively rotating on its side — likely caused by a massive ancient collision.

19. Q19. What is a constellation?

    ✅ Answer: A pattern of stars as seen from Earth

    💡 A constellation is a group of stars forming a recognizable pattern as viewed from Earth. There are 88 officially recognized constellations.

20. Q20. What agency conducted the Apollo Moon missions?

    ✅ Answer: NASA

    💡 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) conducted the Apollo program, successfully landing 12 astronauts on the Moon between 1969-1972.

21. Q21. What is the closest star to Earth after the Sun?

    ✅ Answer: Proxima Centauri

    💡 Proxima Centauri is the closest star to Earth (after the Sun) at about 4.24 light-years away, part of the Alpha Centauri system.

22. Q22. What is the Hubble Space Telescope?

    ✅ Answer: A space telescope orbiting Earth

    💡 The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, orbits Earth and has captured some of the most detailed images of distant galaxies and nebulae.

23. Q23. What is a comet?

    ✅ Answer: An icy body that releases gas and dust near the Sun

    💡 A comet is an icy body that, when near the Sun, heats up and releases gases forming a visible tail that can stretch millions of kilometers.

24. Q24. What is the Kuiper Belt?

    ✅ Answer: A ring of icy bodies beyond Neptune

    💡 The Kuiper Belt is a region beyond Neptune containing millions of icy objects, including dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris.

25. Q25. What is the name of the first satellite launched into space?

    ✅ Answer: Sputnik 1

    💡 Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, was the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth, sparking the Space Race.

26. Q26. What are Saturn's rings made of?

    ✅ Answer: Ice particles and rocky debris

    💡 Saturn's rings are made of billions of particles of ice, rock, and dust, ranging in size from tiny grains to house-sized chunks.

27. Q27. Who was the first person in space?

    ✅ Answer: Yuri Gagarin

    💡 Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first human in space on April 12, 1961, completing one orbit of Earth in Vostok 1.

28. Q28. What is a nebula?

    ✅ Answer: A giant cloud of dust and gas in space

    💡 A nebula is a massive cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium, and plasma in space. Stars are born within nebulae through gravitational collapse.

29. Q29. What is the Drake Equation used for?

    ✅ Answer: Estimating the number of intelligent civilizations

    💡 The Drake Equation estimates the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.

30. Q30. Which rover is currently exploring Mars?

    ✅ Answer: Perseverance

    💡 NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microbial life.

31. Q31. What is a dwarf planet?

    ✅ Answer: A celestial body orbiting the Sun but not clearing its orbit

    💡 A dwarf planet orbits the Sun and has enough mass for a round shape but hasn't cleared its orbital neighborhood. Pluto, Eris, and Ceres are examples.

32. Q32. What is the Chandrayaan-3 mission?

    ✅ Answer: India's successful Moon landing mission

    💡 Chandrayaan-3 was ISRO's successful Moon mission that soft-landed near the lunar south pole on August 23, 2023 — making India the 4th country to land on the Moon.

33. Q33. What is the event horizon of a black hole?

    ✅ Answer: The boundary beyond which nothing can escape

    💡 The event horizon is the boundary of a black hole beyond which the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light — a point of no return.

34. Q34. What is a solar eclipse?

    ✅ Answer: Moon blocks the Sun

    💡 A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting a shadow on Earth and briefly blocking sunlight.

35. Q35. What is the Oort Cloud?

    ✅ Answer: A theoretical cloud of icy objects surrounding the solar system

    💡 The Oort Cloud is a hypothetical spherical cloud of icy objects at the outermost edge of our solar system, the source of long-period comets.

36. Q36. Which space telescope succeeded Hubble?

    ✅ Answer: James Webb Space Telescope

    💡 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in 2021, is the most powerful space telescope ever built, observing in infrared wavelengths.

37. Q37. What is SpaceX?

    ✅ Answer: A private aerospace company founded by Elon Musk

    💡 SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, develops reusable rockets (Falcon 9, Starship) and operates the Starlink satellite internet system.

38. Q38. What is a meteor shower?

    ✅ Answer: Earth passing through debris left by a comet

    💡 A meteor shower occurs when Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet, causing many meteors ('shooting stars') to appear.

39. Q39. How far is the Moon from Earth?

    ✅ Answer: 384,400 km

    💡 The Moon is approximately 384,400 km from Earth on average. Light takes about 1.28 seconds to travel this distance.

40. Q40. What is a pulsar?

    ✅ Answer: A rapidly rotating neutron star emitting beams of radiation

    💡 A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its poles.

41. Q41. What is dark matter?

    ✅ Answer: Invisible matter making up ~27% of the universe

    💡 Dark matter is an invisible substance that doesn't emit, absorb, or reflect light but exerts gravitational effects — making up about 27% of the universe.

42. Q42. What is the Goldilocks Zone?

    ✅ Answer: The habitable zone around a star where liquid water could exist

    💡 The Goldilocks Zone (habitable zone) is the distance from a star where conditions are 'just right' for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface.

43. Q43. What is the Big Bang Theory?

    ✅ Answer: The prevailing model for the origin of the universe

    💡 The Big Bang Theory states the universe began as an extremely hot, dense singularity about 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since.

44. Q44. What is a galaxy?

    ✅ Answer: A massive system of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter

    💡 A galaxy is a massive gravitationally bound system of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter. The observable universe contains approximately 2 trillion galaxies.

45. Q45. What is the speed of light?

    ✅ Answer: 300,000 km/s

    💡 The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 299,792 km/s (about 300,000 km/s) — the universal speed limit in physics.

46. Q46. What is a red giant star?

    ✅ Answer: A dying star that has expanded and cooled

    💡 A red giant is an aging star that has exhausted its hydrogen fuel, causing it to expand enormously and cool, giving it a reddish color. Our Sun will become one.

47. Q47. What is gravitational lensing?

    ✅ Answer: Light bending around massive objects due to gravity

    💡 Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive object's gravity bends the path of light from a more distant object, as predicted by Einstein's general relativity.

48. Q48. Which planet has the longest day?

    ✅ Answer: Venus

    💡 Venus has the longest day of any planet — one Venus day (243 Earth days) is actually longer than its year (225 Earth days).

49. Q49. What is SETI?

    ✅ Answer: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

    💡 SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a scientific effort using radio telescopes to detect signals from intelligent alien civilizations.

50. Q50. What will happen to our Sun in about 5 billion years?

    ✅ Answer: It will become a red giant, then a white dwarf

    💡 In about 5 billion years, the Sun will exhaust its hydrogen fuel, expand into a red giant engulfing Mercury and Venus, then shed its outer layers and become a white dwarf.

51. Q51. Which planet is closest to the Sun?

    ✅ Answer: Mercury

    💡 Mercury orbits the Sun in just 88 Earth days.

52. Q52. Which planet is known as the Red Planet?

    ✅ Answer: Mars

    💡 Iron oxide (rust) in its soil gives Mars its reddish colour.

53. Q53. What is the hottest planet in the solar system?

    ✅ Answer: Venus

    💡 Venus’s thick carbon dioxide atmosphere traps heat, reaching about 465°C.

54. Q54. Which planet is famous for its prominent ring system?

    ✅ Answer: Saturn

    💡 All four giant planets have rings, but Saturn’s are by far the brightest and largest.

55. Q55. In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as what?

    ✅ Answer: A dwarf planet

    💡 The International Astronomical Union decided Pluto had not cleared its orbit of other objects.

56. Q56. Roughly how long does sunlight take to reach Earth?

    ✅ Answer: 8 minutes

    💡 At about 150 million km away, sunlight takes around 8 minutes 20 seconds.

57. Q57. What is the giant storm on Jupiter called?

    ✅ Answer: The Great Red Spot

    💡 The Great Red Spot is a storm larger than Earth that has been observed continuously since at least the 1830s.

58. Q58. Which planet rotates on its side, with an axis tilted about 98 degrees?

    ✅ Answer: Uranus

    💡 Uranus may have been knocked over by a huge collision long ago.

59. Q59. How many planets are in our solar system?

    ✅ Answer: Eight

    💡 Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

60. Q60. What is the largest moon in the solar system?

    ✅ Answer: Ganymede

    💡 Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is even larger than the planet Mercury.

61. Q61. Which planet has the shortest day, spinning once in about 10 hours?

    ✅ Answer: Jupiter

    💡 Jupiter rotates faster than any other planet despite its size.

62. Q62. Where is the main asteroid belt located?

    ✅ Answer: Between Mars and Jupiter

    💡 The belt contains millions of rocky bodies, including the dwarf planet Ceres.

63. Q63. Which moon of Saturn has a thick atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane?

    ✅ Answer: Titan

    💡 Titan is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere and stable surface liquids.

64. Q64. Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system, is on which planet?

    ✅ Answer: Mars

    💡 Olympus Mons rises about 22 km, roughly two and a half times the height of Everest.

65. Q65. Which planet was discovered in 1846 using mathematical predictions?

    ✅ Answer: Neptune

    💡 Astronomers predicted Neptune’s position from irregularities in Uranus’s orbit.

67. Q66. What are Mars’s two small moons called?

    ✅ Answer: Phobos and Deimos

    💡 The names mean “fear” and “dread”, after the sons of the Greek war god Ares.

68. Q67. Which planet has the most extreme winds in the solar system, over 2,000 km/h?

    ✅ Answer: Neptune

    💡 Neptune’s winds are the fastest measured on any planet.

69. Q68. A day on Venus is longer than its year. True or false?

    ✅ Answer: True

    💡 Venus takes about 243 Earth days to spin once but only 225 to orbit the Sun.

70. Q69. What is the name of the boundary region where the Sun’s solar wind meets interstellar space?

    ✅ Answer: The heliopause

    💡 Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, becoming the first spacecraft in interstellar space.

71. Q70. Which mission first landed humans on the Moon in 1969?

    ✅ Answer: Apollo 11

    💡 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on 20 July 1969 while Michael Collins orbited above.

72. Q71. Which Apollo mission suffered an oxygen tank explosion but returned its crew safely?

    ✅ Answer: Apollo 13

    💡 The crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat to get home in April 1970.

73. Q72. Which space telescope was launched in 1990 and later repaired by astronauts?

    ✅ Answer: Hubble

    💡 A flaw in Hubble’s mirror was fixed by a shuttle servicing mission in 1993.

74. Q73. Which spacecraft is the farthest human-made object from Earth?

    ✅ Answer: Voyager 1

    💡 Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is more than 24 billion km away.

75. Q74. What is the name of the NASA rover that landed on Mars in 2021 carrying a small helicopter?

    ✅ Answer: Perseverance

    💡 Its helicopter, Ingenuity, made the first powered flight on another planet.

76. Q75. Which space telescope, launched in 2021, observes mainly in infrared light?

    ✅ Answer: James Webb Space Telescope

    💡 Webb orbits about 1.5 million km from Earth and can see some of the earliest galaxies.

77. Q76. Which spacecraft made the first flyby of Pluto in 2015?

    ✅ Answer: New Horizons

    💡 New Horizons revealed Pluto’s heart-shaped nitrogen-ice plain, Sputnik Planitia.

78. Q77. The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since which year?

    ✅ Answer: 2000

    💡 The first long-term crew arrived on 2 November 2000.

79. Q78. Which NASA mission orbited Saturn for 13 years before diving into the planet in 2017?

    ✅ Answer: Cassini

    💡 Cassini also dropped the Huygens probe onto Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005.

80. Q79. Which space shuttle broke apart on re-entry in 2003?

    ✅ Answer: Columbia

    💡 Damage to Columbia’s wing from launch debris caused the disaster; Challenger was lost in 1986.

81. Q80. Which is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune?

    ✅ Answer: Voyager 2

    💡 Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989.

82. Q81. What was the name of the Soviet space station that orbited from 1986 to 2001?

    ✅ Answer: Mir

    💡 Mir was home to cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov’s record 437-day stay in space.

83. Q82. Which private company’s Crew Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to carry astronauts to the ISS, in 2020?

    ✅ Answer: SpaceX

    💡 The Demo-2 mission flew NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

84. Q83. Which country’s Chandrayaan-3 mission made the first landing near the Moon’s south pole in 2023?

    ✅ Answer: India

    💡 India became the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon.

85. Q84. What was the name of NASA’s 2022 uncrewed test flight around the Moon?

    ✅ Answer: Artemis I

    💡 Artemis I tested the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule.

86. Q85. Which mission deliberately crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in 2022 to change its orbit?

    ✅ Answer: DART

    💡 NASA’s DART hit the moonlet Dimorphos and shortened its orbit, a first test of planetary defence.

87. Q86. Which rover operated on Mars for over 14 years after a planned 90-day mission?

    ✅ Answer: Opportunity

    💡 Opportunity landed in 2004 and last contacted Earth in 2018.

88. Q87. What did the Golden Records aboard the Voyager probes contain?

    ✅ Answer: Sounds and images of life on Earth

    💡 The records include greetings in 55 languages, music and natural sounds.

89. Q88. Which space agency launched the Rosetta mission that landed the Philae probe on a comet?

    ✅ Answer: European Space Agency

    💡 Philae touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014.

90. Q89. In which year did Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, launch?

    ✅ Answer: 1957

    💡 The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957.

91. Q90. What is the name of the galaxy we live in?

    ✅ Answer: Milky Way

    💡 The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy containing an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars.

92. Q91. What is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun?

    ✅ Answer: Proxima Centauri

    💡 Proxima Centauri is about 4.2 light-years away.

93. Q92. What is a light-year a measure of?

    ✅ Answer: Distance

    💡 A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 9.46 trillion km.

94. Q93. What is the nearest large spiral galaxy to the Milky Way?

    ✅ Answer: Andromeda

    💡 Andromeda is about 2.5 million light-years away and is expected to merge with the Milky Way in billions of years.

95. Q94. What is the brightest star in the night sky?

    ✅ Answer: Sirius

    💡 Sirius, in Canis Major, is bright because it is both luminous and relatively close.

96. Q95. What is the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing can escape called?

    ✅ Answer: Event horizon

    💡 Not even light can escape once it crosses the event horizon.

97. Q96. What will our Sun eventually become at the end of its life?

    ✅ Answer: A white dwarf

    💡 The Sun is not massive enough to explode; it will swell into a red giant and leave a white dwarf.

98. Q97. Which star is also known as the North Star?

    ✅ Answer: Polaris

    💡 Polaris sits almost directly above Earth’s North Pole, so it barely moves in the night sky.

99. Q98. What is a huge cloud of gas and dust where stars are born called?

    ✅ Answer: Nebula

    💡 The Orion Nebula is a famous stellar nursery visible to the naked eye.

100. Q99. In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope released the first image of what?

     ✅ Answer: A black hole’s shadow

     💡 The image showed the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy M87.

101. Q100. What is the name of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way?

     ✅ Answer: Sagittarius A*

     💡 Sagittarius A* has about four million times the mass of the Sun.

102. Q101. Which constellation contains the three stars known as the Belt?

     ✅ Answer: Orion

     💡 Orion’s Belt is formed by the stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

103. Q102. What is the explosive death of a massive star called?

     ✅ Answer: Supernova

     💡 A supernova can briefly outshine an entire galaxy.

104. Q103. Approximately how old is the universe?

     ✅ Answer: 13.8 billion years

     💡 Measurements of the cosmic microwave background give an age of about 13.8 billion years.

105. Q104. Which famous group of stars, part of Ursa Major, is called the Plough in the UK?

     ✅ Answer: The Big Dipper

     💡 Two of its stars point towards Polaris, the North Star.

106. Q105. What colour are the hottest stars?

     ✅ Answer: Blue

     💡 Blue stars can exceed 30,000°C at their surface; red stars are the coolest.

107. Q106. What is a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system called?

     ✅ Answer: An exoplanet

     💡 Thousands of exoplanets have been confirmed since the first around a Sun-like star was found in 1995.

108. Q107. Which red supergiant in Orion is expected to explode as a supernova within the next 100,000 years?

     ✅ Answer: Betelgeuse

     💡 Betelgeuse dimmed noticeably in 2019–20, probably because of a cloud of dust it ejected.

109. Q108. Which astronomer showed in the 1920s that the universe is expanding?

     ✅ Answer: Edwin Hubble

     💡 Hubble found that more distant galaxies are moving away faster.

110. Q109. The Pleiades, also called the Seven Sisters, are an example of what?

     ✅ Answer: An open star cluster

     💡 The Pleiades are a group of young stars in the constellation Taurus.

111. Q110. Who was the first human to travel into space, in 1961?

     ✅ Answer: Yuri Gagarin

     💡 Gagarin orbited Earth once aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961.

112. Q111. Who was the first woman in space?

     ✅ Answer: Valentina Tereshkova

     💡 Tereshkova flew on Vostok 6 in June 1963.

113. Q112. What were Neil Armstrong’s famous words on stepping onto the Moon?

     ✅ Answer: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

     💡 “The Eagle has landed” was said earlier, after touchdown; “magnificent desolation” was Buzz Aldrin.

114. Q113. Who was the second person to walk on the Moon?

     ✅ Answer: Buzz Aldrin

     💡 Aldrin followed Armstrong onto the surface about 19 minutes later.

115. Q114. Who was the first American to travel into space?

     ✅ Answer: Alan Shepard

     💡 Shepard made a suborbital flight in May 1961; John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.

116. Q115. Who performed the first spacewalk, in 1965?

     ✅ Answer: Alexei Leonov

     💡 Leonov spent about 12 minutes outside Voskhod 2 and nearly could not get back in because his suit had ballooned.

117. Q116. How many people have walked on the Moon?

     ✅ Answer: Twelve

     💡 Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon during six Apollo landings between 1969 and 1972.

118. Q117. Who was the first American woman in space, in 1983?

     ✅ Answer: Sally Ride

     💡 Ride flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7.

119. Q118. Who was the last person to walk on the Moon, in December 1972?

     ✅ Answer: Eugene Cernan

     💡 Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, was the last to climb back into the lunar module.

120. Q119. Which animal became the first to orbit Earth, aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957?

     ✅ Answer: Laika the dog

     💡 Laika did not survive the flight; Belka and Strelka returned safely in 1960.

121. Q120. Who was the first person from the United Kingdom in space, in 1991?

     ✅ Answer: Helen Sharman

     💡 Chemist Helen Sharman flew to the Soviet space station Mir.

122. Q121. Who was the first Indian citizen to travel to space, in 1984?

     ✅ Answer: Rakesh Sharma

     💡 Rakesh Sharma flew aboard Soyuz T-11 and spent about eight days on the Salyut 7 station.

123. Q122. Mae Jemison made history in 1992 as the first what?

     ✅ Answer: African American woman in space

     💡 Jemison flew aboard Endeavour on mission STS-47.

124. Q123. Who became the first space tourist, paying to visit the ISS in 2001?

     ✅ Answer: Dennis Tito

     💡 Dennis Tito, an American businessman, spent nearly eight days in orbit.

125. Q124. Which cosmonaut holds the record for the longest single spaceflight, about 437 days?

     ✅ Answer: Valeri Polyakov

     💡 Polyakov lived aboard the Mir space station from January 1994 to March 1995.

126. Q125. In which year did China send its first astronaut, Yang Liwei, into space?

     ✅ Answer: 2003

     💡 China became the third country to launch a person into orbit on its own rocket.

127. Q126. Which Canadian astronaut recorded a viral version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on the ISS?

     ✅ Answer: Chris Hadfield

     💡 Hadfield commanded the ISS in 2013 and became famous for sharing life in orbit.

128. Q127. Who was the first person to fly into space twice?

     ✅ Answer: Gus Grissom

     💡 Grissom flew Mercury’s Liberty Bell 7 in 1961 and commanded Gemini 3 in 1965.

129. Q128. Which Apollo astronaut hit golf balls on the Moon?

     ✅ Answer: Alan Shepard

     💡 Shepard hit two balls with a makeshift club during Apollo 14 in 1971.

130. Q129. The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to do what, in December 1968?

     ✅ Answer: Orbit the Moon

     💡 Apollo 8 orbited the Moon ten times and took the famous “Earthrise” photograph.

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