Space Trivia for Kids, with Answers

From the Super Trivia Kids team · October 28, 2026

Sixty questions about the Sun, every planet, the Moon and the people who have gone to space. There's an easier round for kindergarten through 2nd grade and a harder one for 3rd through 6th, with extra questions on Mars and Jupiter. Tap "Answer" to check.

Could you stand on Jupiter? How many moons does Mars have? These questions are written to be read out loud, a few at a time, and we checked every answer against NASA's own pages, which are listed at the bottom.

Looking for questions kids can answer on their own? Try Super Trivia Kids free in your browser. Every question is read out loud, so even pre-readers can play.

Easier space trivia for kids (K–2)

The Sun

1. Is the Sun a planet or a star?
   Answer

   A star. It's the only star in our solar system.
2. Does the Sun go around Earth, or does Earth go around the Sun?
   Answer

   Earth goes around the Sun. So do all the other planets. The Sun's gravity holds the whole solar system together.

Mercury, Venus and Earth

3. Which planet is closest to the Sun?
   Answer

   Mercury. It's also the smallest planet, only a little bigger than our Moon.
4. Which planet is the hottest: Mercury or Venus?
   Answer

   Venus, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Venus has thick air that traps the heat, like a blanket.
5. Which planet do we live on, and what number is it from the Sun?
   Answer

   Earth, the third planet from the Sun.
6. What makes Earth different from every other planet we know?
   Answer

   It's the only place we know of with living things. It's also the only planet with liquid water on its surface.

Mars

7. Which planet is called the Red Planet?
   Answer

   Mars.
8. Why does Mars look red?
   Answer

   Rusty iron in its dirt and rocks. The dust blows into the air too, so from far away the whole planet looks red.
9. How many moons does Mars have?
   Answer

   Two. Their names are Phobos and Deimos, and they're shaped a bit like potatoes.
10. Could you breathe the air on Mars?
    Answer

    No. The air on Mars is very thin and mostly carbon dioxide.
11. Is Mars hot or cold?
    Answer

    Cold. The average temperature is about minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit, way below freezing.
12. What do we call the robot cars that NASA drives around on Mars?
    Answer

    Rovers. Mars is the only planet we've sent rovers to.

Jupiter

13. What is the biggest planet in our solar system?
    Answer

    Jupiter.
14. Could you stand on Jupiter?
    Answer

    No. Jupiter is a gas giant, made mostly of gas and liquid, so there's no solid ground to stand on.
15. Jupiter has a giant red spot. What is it?
    Answer

    A huge storm, bigger than Earth. People have been watching it for more than 300 years.
16. Does Jupiter have rings?
    Answer

    Yes, but they're very faint and hard to see. Saturn isn't the only planet with rings.

Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

17. Which planet is most famous for its rings?
    Answer

    Saturn. Its rings are made of billions of chunks of ice and rock, some as small as dust and some as big as a house.
18. Which planet spins on its side, like a ball rolling around the Sun?
    Answer

    Uranus.
19. Which planet is farthest from the Sun?
    Answer

    Neptune, the eighth planet.

The Moon

20. Does the Moon make its own light?
    Answer

    No. Moonlight is really sunlight bouncing off the Moon.
21. Do we see a different side of the Moon on different nights?
    Answer

    No. We always see the same side. The Moon spins exactly as fast as it goes around Earth, so the same half always faces us.
22. Why do astronauts bounce when they walk on the Moon?
    Answer

    The Moon's gravity is only one-sixth of Earth's, so every step carries them farther.

Astronauts

23. Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?
    Answer

    Neil Armstrong, on July 20, 1969. Buzz Aldrin stepped out about 20 minutes later.
24. What is the name of the big station where astronauts live while they circle Earth?
    Answer

    The International Space Station. It's bigger inside than a six-bedroom house, and it has a gym.

Harder solar system trivia for kids (3–6)

The Sun

25. About how long does it take sunlight to reach Earth?
    Answer

    About eight minutes. The Sun is about 93 million miles away.
26. About how many Earths would it take to fill up the Sun?
    Answer

    About 1.3 million.
27. Which is hotter: the Sun's surface or its center?
    Answer

    The center, by a lot. The surface is about 10,000°F. The core is about 27 million°F.
28. About how old is the Sun?
    Answer

    About 4.5 billion years old. Scientists think it's a little less than halfway through its life.

Mercury, Venus and Earth

29. A year is one trip around the Sun. How long is a year on Mercury?
    Answer

    88 Earth days. Mercury is the fastest planet.
30. On Venus, which is longer: one day or one year?
    Answer

    A day. Venus takes 243 Earth days to spin once, but only 225 to go around the Sun. It also spins backward, so the Sun would rise in the west.
31. What causes Earth's seasons?
    Answer

    Earth's tilt. For part of the year your half of the planet leans toward the Sun (summer), and for part of the year it leans away (winter).
32. Why do we have a leap year every four years?
    Answer

    A trip around the Sun takes about 365 and a quarter days. Four leftover quarters add up to one extra day, February 29.

Mars fun facts for kids

33. The biggest volcano in the whole solar system is on Mars. What is it called?
    Answer

    Olympus Mons. It's more than 25 miles tall from bottom to top. Mount Everest rises about 5½ miles above sea level. NASA says the volcanoes on Mars are extinct now.
34. Mars also has the biggest canyon in the solar system. About how long is it?
    Answer

    About 2,400 miles, long enough to stretch from California to New York. It's called Valles Marineris, and it's more than 10 times longer than the Grand Canyon.
35. A day on Mars has a special name. What is it?
    Answer

    A sol. One sol is 24.6 hours, just a little longer than a day on Earth.
36. How long is one year on Mars?
    Answer

    687 Earth days, almost twice as long as a year on Earth.
37. If Earth were the size of a nickel, how big would Mars be?
    Answer

    About the size of a raspberry. Mars is about half as wide as Earth.
38. What color would the sky look if you stood on Mars?
    Answer

    Hazy and reddish, because of the dust in the air. Mars also gets dust storms big enough to cover most of the planet.
39. In 2021, something flew on Mars for the first time. What was it?
    Answer

    A small helicopter named Ingenuity. On April 19, 2021, it made the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. It was supposed to fly up to five times and ended up flying 72.

Jupiter fun facts for kids

40. If Jupiter were hollow, about how many Earths could fit inside?
    Answer

    About 1,000. If Earth were a grape, Jupiter would be about the size of a basketball.
41. Which planet has the shortest day?
    Answer

    Jupiter. It spins all the way around in about 10 hours.
42. Who discovered Jupiter's four biggest moons, and about when?
    Answer

    Galileo Galilei, in 1610, with an early telescope. They were the first moons ever found beyond Earth's. Their names are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
43. What is the biggest moon in the solar system?
    Answer

    Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. It's even bigger than the planet Mercury.
44. Which of Jupiter's moons is the most volcanically active place in the solar system?
    Answer

    Io.
45. Scientists think one of Jupiter's moons has an ocean hidden under its ice. Which one?
    Answer

    Europa. It's one of the likeliest places to look for life beyond Earth.
46. Jupiter is made mostly of the same two gases as the Sun. Name either one.
    Answer

    Hydrogen and helium. Jupiter has the same ingredients as a star, but it never got big enough to start shining.

Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto

47. Which planet is so light for its size that it could float in a giant bathtub?
    Answer

    Saturn. It's the only planet whose average density is less than water's.
48. Which planet has the most known moons?
    Answer

    Saturn. As of 2026, NASA's Saturn page lists 274 confirmed moons, a count from March 2025, with more waiting to be confirmed. This number keeps changing, so check NASA's page if it matters.
49. Which planet was the first one discovered with a telescope?
    Answer

    Uranus, by William Herschel in 1781. At first he thought it was a comet or a star.
50. Uranus and Neptune look blue. What gas gives them that color?
    Answer

    Methane. It soaks up the red part of sunlight, so the light that bounces back looks blue.
51. Which planet was found using math before anyone saw it?
    Answer

    Neptune. Uranus wasn't moving quite the way astronomers expected, so a mathematician worked out where another planet must be. An astronomer found Neptune there on his first night of looking, in 1846.
52. Which planet is the windiest?
    Answer

    Neptune. Its winds can blow more than 1,200 miles per hour.
53. Pluto used to be called the ninth planet. What is it called now, and since when?
    Answer

    A dwarf planet, since 2006. The name Pluto was suggested in 1930 by a schoolgirl named Venetia Burney.

The Moon

54. If Earth were the size of a nickel, how big would the Moon be?
    Answer

    About the size of a coffee bean.
55. How long does it take the Moon to go through all its phases, from full moon to full moon?
    Answer

    About 29 days, which is about a month. (The Moon actually circles Earth in 27 days, but Earth is moving around the Sun at the same time, so the phases take a little longer.)
56. How many people have walked on the Moon?
    Answer

    Twelve, all during NASA's Apollo missions.

Astronauts

57. On Apollo 11, Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon. What did the third astronaut, Michael Collins, do?
    Answer

    He flew the command module, Columbia, in orbit around the Moon. Armstrong and Aldrin flew back up to meet him, and all three came home together.
58. Who was the first American woman in space?
    Answer

    Sally Ride, on June 18, 1983, aboard the space shuttle Challenger. Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space in 1992, aboard the shuttle Endeavour.
59. The space station goes around Earth about every 90 minutes. How many sunrises do the astronauts get in one day?
    Answer

    Sixteen. That's 24 hours divided by 1½ hours per trip.
60. In April 2026, four astronauts flew around the Moon. What was the mission called?
    Answer

    Artemis II. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian astronaut, launched on April 1, 2026. It was the first crewed trip around the Moon in more than 50 years.

Why a few questions a night works better than all sixty

When a child gets excited about space, it's tempting to read the whole list in one go. Another option is five or six at bedtime, then on the next night a couple of new ones plus a couple from before. Here's what the research says about which is better for remembering.

Spreading it out helps it stick. Psychologists call this the spacing effect: practice spread over several days is remembered better than the same amount of practice crammed into one sitting. A big review pulled together the earlier experiments on it (Cepeda et al., 2006), but most of those were adults in a lab, memorizing words.

It has been tested with young kids, in small studies. In one, 5- to 7-year-olds had short science lessons either spaced out or back to back. The kids with spaced lessons were better at applying what they learned to new examples (Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012). That one had 36 children. In another, fifth graders who learned new vocabulary in two sessions a week apart remembered more five weeks later than kids who learned it in one session (Sobel, Cepeda & Kapler, 2011). That one had 39 children and only covered vocabulary.

Let them guess before you tell them. Trying to pull an answer out of your head helps you remember it later, more than just hearing it again. That's called retrieval practice, and it has been shown with kids around 10 years old (Karpicke, Blunt & Smith, 2016). There's more on it in Does quizzing kids actually help them learn?

None of these studies used space trivia, and none tested a bedtime routine. They're small, and applying them at home is a stretch. But asking "how many moons does Mars have?" again on Thursday costs nothing.

Try it at home: a week of space questions

Every family is different, so treat these as options to try for a week, not rules.

• Five or six at bedtime. A mix of new questions and two or three from earlier in the week. Let your kids pick which planets to come back to.
• An older sibling asks the younger one. An older child can read the K–2 round to a younger one. The rule: wait while they think, and don't blurt the answer. That waiting is its own kind of practice.
• Look things up together. When a question leads to another one you can't answer, go to NASA's site and find it. That's technology as a tool you pick up on purpose, for a reason, and then put down.
• Skip the scary stuff. NASA's pages are full of facts about what would happen to a person on Venus. Younger kids may not need those yet.

A common pitfall: one big "space quiz night" with scores. A child who falls behind can get upset, and cramming is the opposite of spacing it out. If your kids like the ocean or animals more than planets, there are lists for ocean trivia and animal trivia too.

Common questions

What are some fun facts about Jupiter for kids?

Jupiter is the biggest planet, and about 1,000 Earths could fit inside it if it were hollow. It has the shortest day, about 10 hours. Its Great Red Spot is a storm bigger than Earth that has lasted more than 300 years. It has faint rings, and its moon Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury.

What are some fun facts about Mars for kids?

Mars looks red because of rusty iron in its dirt. It has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, and the biggest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, more than 25 miles tall. A day there is 24.6 hours, a year is 687 Earth days, and in 2021 a NASA helicopter made the first powered flight on another planet there.

What is good solar system trivia for kindergartners?

Stick to big, simple ideas a 5 year old can picture: the Sun is a star, Earth goes around it, Mars is red, Jupiter is the biggest planet, and the Moon reflects sunlight rather than making its own. Read the question out loud and give them time to guess. Skip the big numbers until 2nd or 3rd grade, when they start to mean something.

How many space trivia questions should I ask at once?

A handful at a time seems to work better than a long list. Research on the spacing effect finds that practice spread over several days is remembered better than the same practice crammed together, including in small studies of 5- to 7-year-olds and fifth graders. Nobody has found an ideal schedule for young kids, so a few a night is a reasonable guess.

Sources

• NASA Science. Sun: Facts. science.nasa.gov/sun/facts
• NASA Science. Mercury: Facts. science.nasa.gov/mercury/facts
• NASA Science. Venus: Facts. science.nasa.gov/venus/facts
• NASA Science. Facts About Earth. science.nasa.gov/earth/facts
• NASA Science. Mars: Facts. science.nasa.gov/mars/facts
• NASA Space Place. All About Mars. spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-mars
• NASA Science. Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/ingenuity-mars-helicopter
• NASA Science. Jupiter Facts. science.nasa.gov/jupiter/facts
• NASA Science. Jupiter Moons. science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons
• NASA Space Place. All About Jupiter. spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-jupiter
• NASA Science. Saturn: Facts (moon count as of March 2025). science.nasa.gov/saturn/facts
• NASA Science. Uranus: Facts. science.nasa.gov/uranus/facts
• NASA Science. Neptune: Facts. science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts
• NASA Science. Pluto: Facts. science.nasa.gov/dwarf-planets/pluto/facts
• NASA Science. Moon Facts. science.nasa.gov/moon/facts
• NASA Space Place. All About the Moon. spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-the-moon
• NASA Science. Moon Walkers. science.nasa.gov/moon/moon-walkers
• NASA. Apollo 11 Mission Overview. nasa.gov/history/apollo-11-mission-overview
• NASA. Sally Ride: First American Woman in Space. nasa.gov/history/sally-ride-first-american-woman-in-space
• NASA. Mae Jemison, First African American Woman in Space. nasa.gov/image-article/mae-jemison-first-african-american-woman-space
• NASA. International Space Station Facts and Figures. nasa.gov/international-space-station/space-station-facts-and-figures
• NASA. Artemis II. nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii
• Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
• Vlach, H. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2012). Distributing learning over time: The spacing effect in children's acquisition and generalization of science concepts. Child Development, 83(4), 1137–1144. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01781.x
• Sobel, H. S., Cepeda, N. J., & Kapler, I. V. (2011). Spacing effects in real-world classroom vocabulary learning. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 763–767. doi.org/10.1002/acp.1747
• Karpicke, J. D., Blunt, J. R., & Smith, M. A. (2016). Retrieval-based learning: Positive effects of retrieval practice in elementary school children. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 350. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00350

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