Solar System Jeopardy

Planets, moons, and comets for young astronomers - a solar system review board that is free to copy and plays with phones or tablets as buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

The Sun

$200
All the planets in our solar system orbit around this giant ball of hot gas at the center.
What is the Sun?
$400
This is the Sun's outer atmosphere, visible as a glowing ring during a total eclipse.
What is the corona?
$600
This is the main gas that makes up most of the Sun.
What is hydrogen?
$800
These dark, cooler patches sometimes appear on the surface of the Sun.
What are sunspots?
$1,000
This process, occurring in the Sun's core, fuses hydrogen into helium and releases enormous energy.
What is nuclear fusion?

Rocky Planets

$200
This is the smallest planet in the solar system and the one closest to the Sun.
What is Mercury?
$400
Nicknamed the Red Planet because of the iron oxide dust covering its surface.
What is Mars?
$600
This is the third planet from the Sun, the one we live on.
What is Earth?
$800
This term describes the four planets closest to the Sun, which all have solid, rocky surfaces.
What are terrestrial planets?
$1,000
Stretching roughly 2,500 miles across Mars, this is the largest known canyon system in the solar system.
What is Valles Marineris?

Gas Giants

$200
This is the largest planet in the solar system.
What is Jupiter?
$400
Famous for its wide rings of ice and rock, this is the second-largest planet.
What is Saturn?
$600
This planet appears blue-green from methane in its atmosphere and rotates almost on its side.
What is Uranus?
$800
This is the farthest known planet from the Sun and one of the windiest places in the solar system.
What is Neptune?
$1,000
This giant storm on Jupiter, wider than Earth, has been raging for hundreds of years.
What is the Great Red Spot?

Marvelous Moons

$200
This is Earth's only natural moon.
What is the Moon?
$400
Orbiting Jupiter, this is the largest moon in the solar system, even bigger than the planet Mercury.
What is Ganymede?
$600
This moon of Saturn is famous for its lakes and seas of liquid methane.
What is Titan?
$800
This icy moon of Jupiter is believed to hide a liquid water ocean beneath its frozen crust.
What is Europa?
$1,000
This moon of Saturn shoots geysers of water vapor and ice out of cracks near its south pole.
What is Enceladus?

Comets and Asteroids

$200
This term describes a small, rocky object that orbits the Sun but is too small to be called a planet.
What is an asteroid?
$400
This region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter contains millions of asteroids.
What is the asteroid belt?
$600
This icy object grows a glowing tail as it nears the Sun and its ice turns to gas.
What is a comet?
$800
Visible from Earth roughly every 76 years, this famous comet was last seen in 1986.
What is Halley's Comet?
$1,000
This dwarf planet, the largest object in the asteroid belt, was studied up close by NASA's Dawn spacecraft.
What is Ceres?

Space Exploration

$200
This NASA astronaut was the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969.
Who is Neil Armstrong?
$400
This NASA program landed twelve astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972.
What is the Apollo program?
$600
This reusable NASA vehicle, retired in 2011, launched like a rocket and landed like a glider.
What is the space shuttle?
$800
This NASA rover has explored the surface of Mars, searching for signs of ancient life, since landing in 2012.
What is Curiosity?
$1,000
Launched in 1977, this NASA spacecraft became the first human-made object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space.
What is Voyager 1?

Final Jeopardy — Hot Stuff

Thanks to a runaway greenhouse effect under its thick clouds, this planet is the hottest in the solar system even though it is not closest to the Sun.

What is Venus?

How to run this board

Rocky planets and gas giants each get a category of their own, which quietly teaches the solar system's most useful sorting rule while students think they are just answering trivia about Mars and Jupiter.

The Space Exploration column sticks to missions and firsts that are settled history, so nothing on the board will be out of date next year.

For younger grades, read every clue aloud rather than relying on the screen, and consider awarding half points for close answers like naming the right planet but the wrong moon; it keeps hands on buzzers instead of heads on desks.

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