Edexcel GCSE Astronomy Topic 12 Formation of planetary systems overview quiz quiz

Only planetary ring systems, with no effect at all on how the planets actually move

Only the internal heating of moons by tidal squeezing

Nothing measurable at the scale of the Solar System

Regular orbital motion, holding bodies in their orbits

Effects such as ring systems and the internal heating of moons

Only the regular orbits of planets and their moons, nothing more

The nuclear fusion reactions taking place in the core of the Sun

The changing phases of the Moon seen from the Earth

The distance marking the outer edge of the entire Solar System

The distance within which tidal forces overcome a body's own gravity

The closest distance a comet can get to the Sun before the heat of sunlight makes it break apart

The largest possible size that a single rocky planet can reach

It clumps together to form a single large moon

It is gradually pulled inwards and falls into the planet

It stays as a ring because a moon would be torn apart

It is flung outwards and escapes from the Solar System entirely

By photographing the distant planet directly through a very large ground-based optical telescope

By detecting the faint heat given off by the orbiting planet itself

By listening for artificial radio signals coming from the planet

By seeing a small regular dip in the star's brightness as the planet crosses it

By the star's wobble shifting its spectral lines

By the planet briefly blocking some of the star's light as it transits

By directly measuring the changing surface temperature of the distant star

By detecting the gentle gravitational pull the exoplanet exerts on the Earth

The region of the asteroid belt lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter

The range of distances from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet

The dense central bulge at the very centre of a spiral galaxy like our own

The cold outer edge of the Solar System, far beyond the orbit of Neptune

Mercury

The Sun

Europa

Pluto

The total age of the observable Universe since the Big Bang occurred

The combined mass of the Sun and all the planets orbiting around it

The distance from the Earth to the nearest star beyond our own Sun

The number of communicating civilisations in the Galaxy

Radio signals from other civilisations

Newly discovered exoplanets orbiting distant stars

Comets approaching the inner Solar System

Invisible dark matter spread across the Galaxy

We can always see the orbiting planet directly through a telescope

We detect the planet's effect on its star, not the planet itself

Exoplanets do not really exist and cannot ever be found at all

We can only ever detect them by picking up their radio emissions