Answers · #5 · Sat 24 Oct 2026
#5 answers: Space Day
Space today goes from our own Sun to the people who left Earth, the Moon next door, the far-off stars and the planets in between. Most of it is real. One fact never left the launch pad.
Each round had two true, sourced statements and one fake. Fakes are marked “Made up by AI · not true”. Don't repeat them as facts.
Round 1
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
Saturn is the only planet in our solar system with an average density lower than that of water.
In theory it could float in a bathtub, if anyone could build one big enough.
“It's hard to imagine, but Saturn is the only planet in our solar system with an average density that is less than water.”
NASA Science: Saturn: Facts(opens in a new tab) - True
Sunlight takes a little over eight minutes to travel from the surface of the Sun all the way to Earth.
So you always see the Sun as it was about eight minutes ago.
“Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the Sun.”
Wikipedia: Sunlight(opens in a new tab) - Fake
Astronauts walking on the Moon could hear their own footsteps because moon dust carries sound well.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: The Moon has almost no air, so there's nothing to carry sound across its surface. Astronauts talked by radio and at most felt vibrations through their suits.
Round 2
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
The space station circles Earth 16 times a day, so its crew passes through 16 sunrises and sunsets.
It travels at about five miles per second, lapping the planet every 90 minutes.
“In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets.”
NASA: Space Station Facts and Figures(opens in a new tab) - Fake
Mars looks red because a crust of rust-coloured algae, about 2 cm thick, covers most of its deserts.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: No life of any kind has ever been found on Mars, and rovers drive over bare rock and dust. The red really comes from iron-rich dust, a kind of rust.
- True
Yuri Gagarin's flight in 1961, the first time a person went into space, took only 108 minutes in total.
He orbited Earth once in his Vostok capsule and landed by parachute.
“The flight took 108 minutes. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first person to journey into outer space during the first successful crewed spaceflight.”
Wikipedia: Yuri Gagarin(opens in a new tab)
Round 3
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
The Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth, by about 3.8 centimetres every year.
Lasers bounced off mirrors that Apollo crews left on the Moon measure this.
“The Moon is spiraling away from Earth at an average rate of 3.8 cm (1.5 in) per year, as detected by the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment.”
Wikipedia: Lunar distance(opens in a new tab) - True
Twelve astronauts have walked on the Moon, all of them on NASA's Apollo missions.
Six Apollo landings each put two people on the surface.
“In these six spaceflights, twelve people walked on the Moon.”
Wikipedia: Apollo program(opens in a new tab) - Fake
The Moon has no gravity at all, so astronauts had to be tied to their rovers to stop them floating off.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: You've seen astronauts hopping and falling back down on the Moon, so it clearly has gravity, about a sixth of Earth's. Nobody needed tying down.
Round 4
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- True
A single teaspoon of neutron star material would outweigh the Great Pyramid of Giza hundreds of times over.
A neutron star squeezes more than the Sun's mass into a ball roughly the size of a city. That teaspoon would weigh about 900 pyramids.
“A neutron star is so dense that one teaspoon (4.929 milliliters) of its material would have a mass over 5.5×1012 kg, about 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.”
Wikipedia: Neutron star(opens in a new tab) - Fake
Saturn's rings are so thick that the Cassini spacecraft needed several days to fly from one side of them to the other.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: Saturn's rings are famously wide but paper-thin, mostly only about 10 metres thick, so a spacecraft crosses them in moments. Cassini really did dive through the gap between the rings and the planet.
- True
The Sun holds about 99.8% of all the mass in our whole Solar System, with the planets sharing the rest.
Jupiter holds most of what's left.
“The Sun's mass is around 330,000 times that of Earth, making up about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.”
Wikipedia: Sun(opens in a new tab)
Round 5
How many players were fooled appears once 5 people have played
- Fake
Neptune's largest moon, Triton, orbits so fast that it circles the planet twice every Earth day.
Made up by AI · not trueWhy it’s fake: Hard to reason out: a big moon would have to skim just above a giant planet to circle it twice a day. Triton really is odd because it orbits backwards, but each trip takes almost six days.
- True
A day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days, which is longer than a whole Venus year of 225 Earth days.
Venus spins very slowly, and backwards compared with Earth.
“For one thing, your “day” would be 243 Earth days long — longer even than a Venus year (one trip around the Sun), which takes only 225 Earth days.”
NASA Science: Venus: Facts(opens in a new tab) - True
Uranus is tipped so far over that it appears to spin on its side, orbiting the Sun like a rolling ball.
Its tilt of almost 98 degrees gives it the most extreme seasons in the solar system.
“This unique tilt makes Uranus appear to spin sideways, orbiting the Sun like a rolling ball.”
NASA Science: Uranus: Facts(opens in a new tab)