Science fiction or scientific fact? The following quiz will help you test your knowledge, and separate imagination from reality - at least in regards to time travel and the search for life in outer space.
Avi Blizovsky and Beni Ran
Science fiction or scientific fact? The following quiz will help you test your knowledge, and separate imagination from reality - at least in regards to time travel and the search for life in outer space.
are we alone
1. There is solid evidence that the solar system is not the only one - there are other suns with stars orbiting them.
Scientific fact
Improved telescopes and detectors have helped discover dozens of solar systems in the last decade, including several multi-star systems.
A big step for bacteria
2. Certain organisms are able to survive in space for many years - without any protective suit.
Scientific fact
A small colony of the common bacteria Streptococcus remained for three years on the unmanned spacecraft Survivor 3, which landed on the moon in 1967. The crew of Apollo 12 discovered the organisms and returned them to Earth under sterile conditions. The accidental discovery proved that certain microorganisms are able to survive for years under conditions of exposure to radiation, vacuum and freezing temperatures - without food, water or energy sources.
greenhouse conditions
3. Organisms were found to live happily in boiling water, at a temperature of no less than 113 degrees Celsius.
Scientific fact
Over 50 heat-loving microorganisms, known as hyperthermophiles, have been found to thrive at very high temperatures in places such as hot springs or warm underwater currents. Some of these strains grow ideally at a temperature of 105 degrees Celsius, and can survive at a temperature of up to 113 degrees Celsius.
Has ET called home yet?
4. There is already evidence that there is a certain form of life, even if primitive, outside the earth.
Science Fiction
Many scientists do speculate that life exists outside the earth, but at the moment there is no conclusive proof of this. The spacecrafts that will go to Mars and Europa's moon in the future, as well as future space telescopes, will help to find more definitive answers to the eternal question.
To infinity and beyond!
5. Technology already exists that makes it possible to send astronauts to other star systems within a reasonable amount of time. The only problem is the high price.
Science Fiction
Even the unmanned Voyager spacecraft, which left the solar system many years ago at a breathtaking speed of about sixty thousand kilometers per hour, will fly for 76,000 years until it reaches the nearest star. Since we are talking about such great distances, a journey between star systems has to be done at the speed of light, or at least close to it, if we want it to last a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, there is currently no technology that allows this - even with an unlimited budget.
The Fellowship of the Ring
6. All the giant gas stars in our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) have rings.
Scientific fact
Saturn's rings are the most visible, but they are certainly not the only ones.
May the force be with you
7. In the "Star Wars" movies, the battle spaceships of the Empire, known as TIE (Twin Ion Engines), are equipped with ion engines. Although these are fictional spaceships, there are also ion spaceships in reality.
Scientific fact
In recent years, the ion engines, which have starred in many science fiction stories, have become a reality in several unmanned spacecraft - the most famous of which is NASA's Deep Space 1. It was launched in 1998, met with a distant asteroid and a comet, and proved that an ion engine could indeed be used for interstellar travel.
A question of weight
8. There is no gravity in outer space.
Science Fiction
If this claim were true, then the moon would have fallen to the earth and our entire solar system would have dispersed. It is true that the force of gravity weakens as the distance increases, but it is not possible to escape it completely - and it does not matter how far you go in space. Astronauts experience "zero gravity" only because they are in a state of prolonged free fall relative to Earth.
Send me, Scotty!
9. The familiar teleportation from the TV series "Star Trek" is theoretically possible. In fact, scientists have already succeeded in launching atoms in a quantum state from one place to another.
Scientific fact
In the early nineties, scientists proved that information could be sent using photons, but the photons were absorbed by the surface where they were received. Physicists from the University of Innsbruck in Austria and the Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado were then able, for the first time, to launch individual atoms using the principle of quantum entanglement. The experts believe that this technology will eventually make it possible to develop extremely fast quantum computers. The bad news, at least as far as sci-fi fans are concerned, is that apparently humans can't be launched this way either.
Good morning, the sun is shining
10. Tatooine, the homeland of Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" films, has two suns. Astronomers call this a "binary star system" and recently scientists discovered that stars can indeed exist in such a system.
Scientific fact
Systems of two suns are indeed common in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Some of the more than a hundred planets discovered in recent years are found in binary systems (the fictional Tatooine is not one of them).
For the original article on the NASA website
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