How much do you know about Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids? Test your knowledge by taking the Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids quiz. All you need to do is click on an answer
for each question. Have fun!

1: What is a meteor?
a) A star moving quickly across the sky
b) A piece of space rock burning up in Earth’s atmosphere
c) A piece of the Sun heading for Earth

3: What are most asteroids shaped like?
a) Bananas
b) Starfish
c) Lumpy potatoes

5: Where is the asteroid belt?
a) Between Mercury and the Sun
b) Between Mars and Jupiter
c) Between Uranus and Neptune

7: Which of these space objects is the largest asteroid
in the solar system?
a) Vesta
b) Pluto
c) Ceres

9: What is a space object called when it lands on Earth?
a) A meteoroid
b) A meteorite
c) A meteor

11: Which statement is true?
a) Pieces of the asteroid Vesta have landed on Earth.
b) Meteorites are large balls of ice mixed with rocks and dust.
c) Meteorites break off of mountains on Earth.

13: What do scientists think may have killed the dinosaurs?
a) The impact of a huge space object with Earth
b) The fiery tail of a comet passing near Earth
c) Fright, caused by seeing meteors in the sky

15: What are comets?
a) Shooting stars
b) Large balls of ice mixed with rocks and dust
c) The smallest dwarf planets

17: What happens to a comet as it gets close to the Sun?
a) It forms long tails made of gas and dust.
b) It melts and disappears.
c) It explodes.

19: Which statement is true?
a) Comets are colder the farther they get from the Sun.
b) Comets are hotter the farther they get from the Sun.
c) Comets become asteroids when they are far from the Sun.

2: What is an asteroid?
a) A giant snowball in space
b) A miniature star
c) A large rock that is orbiting the Sun

4: What is the asteroid belt?
a) A ring of asteroids orbiting the Sun
b) A ring of asteroids orbiting Earth
c) An area in space where comets come from

6: What is Vesta?
a) A comet
b) A dwarf planet
c) An asteroid

8: Which of these statements is false?
a) Ceres is both a dwarf planet and an asteroid.
b) Ceres is almost as wide as Texas.
c) Ceres is the same size as Earth.

10: How big is the Hoba meteorite?
a) As big as a car
b) As wide as Texas
c) As big as a basketball

12: Which statement is false?
a) Ceres and Vesta are both in the asteroid belt.
b) Pluto is in the asteroid belt.
c) The asteroid belt contains millions of asteroids.

14: Which statement is true?
a) Asteroids never leave the asteroid belt.
b) Asteroids can be as small as cars or larger than mountains.
c) Asteroids that leave the asteroid belt become dwarf planets.

16: Which statement is false?
a) Most comets travel in egg-shaped orbits around the Sun.
b) The head of a comet can be the size of a small town.
c) Most comets travel around the Sun in perfect circles.

18: How long is a comet’s tail?
a) Hundreds of miles long
b) Thousands of miles long
c) Millions of miles long

20: What did the space probe Rosetta do?
a) It landed on an asteroid.
b) It chased a meteorite.
c) It studied and landed on a comet.

Click to download a pdf
version of these questions.