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Exoplanets and Alien Life

Thousands of worlds circle other suns, and someone may be listening. Tune your radio telescope and find out how ready you are for first contact.

🪐 Space hard 20 questions ~8 min

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What this quiz asks

Scientists who scan the skies for radio signals from beings like this one call their field by which acronym?
What exactly is an exoplanet?
The 'Goldilocks zone' around a star is a nickname for what?
In 1995 Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz found the first planet orbiting a Sun-like star. What is it called?
The first confirmed exoplanets were found orbiting a dead star called a pulsar, not an ordinary star.
What was NASA's Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009, watching for as it stared at one patch of sky?
What do astronomers mean by a 'hot Jupiter'?
A planet lying inside its star's habitable zone is certain to have liquid water on its surface.
Is Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, known to have at least one planet?
In 2017 astronomers announced seven roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting which small, cool star?
Select ALL of these that appear on the plaques carried by the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes.
In 1974 the Arecibo radio telescope beamed a message into space. Towards what?
The famous 'Wow!' signal of 1977 was picked up by which radio telescope?
Many SETI searches listen near the radio line given off by cold hydrogen gas. What is its wavelength, in centimetres?
Order these stars from nearest to Earth to farthest away.
Select ALL of these that are factors in the Drake equation, first presented by Frank Drake in 1961.
What is the Fermi paradox about?
On a 2007 satellite mission, which tiny animals survived exposure to the vacuum and radiation of open space?
HD 209458 b was the first exoplanet whose atmosphere was detected, by Hubble in 2001. Which element was found?
In 2008, the first direct image showing several planets orbiting another star revealed which system?