Category: Science

The 1990s produced some of the most memorable quiz questions of recent decades, and science and technology supply a large share of them. This guide covers five milestones, each documented by the institution responsible: NASA, CERN and the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Dates matter in a decade round, so each section gives the date the institution itself records.

1990: the Hubble Space Telescope launches

NASA lists the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope as 24 April 1990, with the telescope placed in low Earth orbit. NASA says that since its launch Hubble has changed humanity’s fundamental understanding of the universe, from determining the atmospheric composition of planets around other stars to discovering dark energy. Its design, technology and serviceability have made it one of NASA’s most transformative observatories.

1989 to 1993: the World Wide Web takes shape

Quiz writers often disagree about when the Web began, so it helps to know the CERN timeline. CERN states that Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working at CERN, and wrote the first proposal in March 1989. It was formalised with the Belgian systems engineer Robert Cailliau as a management proposal in November 1990. By the end of 1990 the first Web server and browser were running at CERN.

The 1990s then brought the key public steps, according to CERN:

• March 1991: the software became available to colleagues using CERN computers.
• August 1991: Berners-Lee announced the software on Internet newsgroups, and interest spread around the world.
• December 1991: the first Web server in the US came online at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
• 30 April 1993: CERN made the source code available on a royalty-free basis, making it free software.
• 1994: described by CERN as the “Year of the Web”, with the first International World Wide Web conference held at CERN in May.

CERN records that by the end of 1994 the Web had 10,000 servers, 2,000 of them commercial, and 10 million users.

1996: Dolly the sheep is born

The Roslin Institute states that Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was born on 5 July 1996 at the Institute. She was cloned from a cell taken from the mammary gland of a six-year-old Finn Dorset sheep and an egg cell from a Scottish Blackface sheep, and was born to a Scottish Blackface surrogate mother. Her white face was one of the first signs that she was a clone.

The Institute is careful about one detail that catches out quiz players: Dolly was not the first ever cloned mammal. That honour belongs to a sheep cloned from an embryo cell and born in 1984 in Cambridge, UK. What made Dolly special was that she had been made from an adult cell. She was announced to the world on 22 February 1997, timed to coincide with the publication of the scientific paper describing the experiments. After her death, Dolly’s body was donated to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where she is one of the museum’s most popular exhibits.

1997: Mars Pathfinder lands

NASA’s mission page says Mars Pathfinder launched on 4 December 1996 and landed on 4 July 1997 at Ares Vallis on Mars. It demonstrated a new way to land safely on the Red Planet and delivered the first-ever robotic rover, Sojourner, to the Martian surface. The mission ended on 27 September 1997. Pathfinder was designed originally as a technology demonstration, which makes it a neat example of a small mission with a lasting legacy.

1998: the first module of the International Space Station

NASA calls the Zarya module the first component launched for the International Space Station. It was launched on 20 November 1998 on a Proton-K vehicle. Zarya, which means “Sunrise” in English, was built by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in Moscow under a subcontract to Boeing for NASA. On 4 December 1998 the Unity module followed, and on 6 December the crew of space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-88 captured Zarya with the shuttle’s robotic arm and mated it to Unity.

Using the milestones in a 1990s round

When a question asks for a date, look for the institution’s own record. The Web has several “birthdays” (the 1989 proposal, the 1991 release and the 1993 royalty-free decision), and Dolly has two dates (her birth in 1996 and her announcement in 1997). Knowing which event a question means is half the battle.

To test your knowledge of the decade, try one of the site’s tiers:

• The 1990s Quiz: Easy
• The 1990s Quiz: Medium
• The 1990s Quiz: Legendary

The bottom line

The 1990s put a telescope into orbit, opened the Web to the world, cloned a mammal from an adult cell, landed a rover on Mars and began building a space station. Each of those milestones has a precise date in its institution’s records, and those precise dates are what separate a good guess from a correct quiz answer.

Sources

• Hubble Space Telescope (science.nasa.gov)
• A short history of the Web (home.cern)
• Dolly (vet.ed.ac.uk)
• The Life of Dolly (vet.ed.ac.uk)
• Mars Pathfinder (science.nasa.gov)
• Zarya Module (nasa.gov)
• 25 Years Ago: NASA, Partners Begin Space Station Assembly (nasa.gov)

Solar system questions look easy until a quiz asks which planet is hottest, which has the shortest day or which could float. NASA’s planetary fact pages answer all of these, and the real answers are often not what people expect. Here are seven facts, each taken from NASA’s own science pages, that regularly catch out quiz players.

The big picture: how many worlds?

NASA states that the solar system includes the Sun, eight planets, five officially named dwarf planets, hundreds of moons and thousands of asteroids and comets. It also says the whole system orbits the centre of the Milky Way galaxy and takes about 230 million years to complete one orbit. Quiz setters sometimes ask how many planets there are, and the current NASA answer is eight, with Pluto counted among the dwarf planets.

1. Venus: a day longer than its year

According to NASA, a Venus “day” lasts 243 Earth days, which is longer than a Venus year of 225 Earth days. Venus also spins backward compared with Earth, so the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east. NASA describes Venus as the hottest planet in the solar system, with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead at about 467 degrees Celsius (872 degrees Fahrenheit), caused by a runaway greenhouse effect in its thick atmosphere.

2. Mercury: closest to the Sun, but not the hottest

A classic trick question. NASA’s Mercury page confirms that Mercury is the smallest planet and the one nearest the Sun, yet it is not the hottest. That title belongs to Venus because of its dense atmosphere. Mercury has no atmosphere to hold heat, so NASA gives daytime highs of about 430 degrees Celsius and night-time lows of about minus 180 degrees Celsius. It is also the fastest planet, orbiting the Sun every 88 Earth days.

3. Mars: home to the biggest volcano

NASA says Mars hosts the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons. It stands more than 25 miles (about 40 kilometres) tall from base to summit, far above Mount Everest at 8,848 metres, and its base covers an area as large as the US state of Arizona. NASA also notes that Mars is the only planet on which rovers have been sent to roam the surface. Its canyon system, Valles Marineris, is another record-holder: NASA says it extends about 2,400 miles (3,870 kilometres) and is more than 10 times longer and wider than Earth’s Grand Canyon.

4. Jupiter: biggest planet, shortest day

Jupiter is the largest planet: NASA says that if it were a hollow shell, 1,000 Earths could fit inside. It also has the shortest day in the solar system, spinning once on its axis in about 9.9 hours. NASA reports that the Great Red Spot, a swirling oval of clouds twice as wide as Earth, has been observed for more than 300 years.

5. Saturn: lighter than water

NASA calls it hard to imagine, but Saturn is the only planet in the solar system with an average density less than water. In NASA’s words, the giant gas planet could float in a bathtub if such a colossal thing existed. Saturn is also 9 times wider than Earth at its equator and takes about 29.4 Earth years to orbit the Sun.

6. Neptune: the planet nobody can see unaided

Neptune is the only planet not visible to the naked eye, according to NASA. It was discovered in 1846, and in 2011 it completed its first 165-year orbit since that discovery. NASA adds that sunlight on Earth is roughly 900 times as bright as sunlight on Neptune, so high noon there would seem like dim twilight.

7. Earth: still the only known home for life

NASA’s list of ten solar system facts ends with a reminder: so far, Earth is the only place in the solar system where life has been found. NASA says that more than 300 robotic spacecraft have left Earth’s orbit and that 24 US astronauts have travelled to the Moon.

Bonus: Uranus, the sideways planet

For a tie-breaker, NASA explains that Uranus rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. That tilt makes it appear to spin sideways, orbiting the Sun like a rolling ball. NASA also records that Uranus was the first planet found with the aid of a telescope, discovered in 1781 by the astronomer William Herschel, who at first thought it was either a comet or a star.

How to use these facts in a quiz

The best quiz answers come from understanding the reason behind each fact. Venus is hottest because of its atmosphere, not its distance. Jupiter is biggest yet spins fastest. Saturn is huge but made mostly of light gases. If a question seems to have an obvious answer, check whether it is one of these exceptions.

Ready to test the knowledge? The site offers three difficulty levels:

• Solar System Quiz: Easy
• Solar System Quiz: Medium
• Solar System Quiz: Legendary

The bottom line

NASA’s planetary pages turn up surprises at every step: a Venus day longer than its year, a Mercury cooler than Venus, a Saturn that is less dense than water and a Neptune that cannot be seen without a telescope. Learn the reasons behind these facts, and solar system rounds become much easier to win.

Sources

• Our Solar System (science.nasa.gov)
• Venus Facts (science.nasa.gov)
• Mercury Facts (science.nasa.gov)
• Mars Facts (science.nasa.gov)
• Jupiter Facts (science.nasa.gov)
• Saturn Facts (science.nasa.gov)
• Neptune Facts (science.nasa.gov)
• Uranus Facts (science.nasa.gov)